Third party email/domain hosting provider

In anticipation of an enforced, rapid move from my current ISP (Freedom 2 Surf), should they fall into the hands of an even worse parent company than Pipex, I'm looking at moving my email to a third party hosting company. Requirements would be:

- Domain registration with the ability to migrate to another provider should the new provider not be any good.
- POP3/IMAP4 access for incoming emails, preferably with secure password authentication
- Secure SMTP access for outgoing emails, so I can send from any internet connection
- Webmail capability
- Efficient spam/Antivirus filtering on incoming emails
- Rock solid avaialbility and reliability, as this is my biggest gripe with F2S

I would probably need 4 or 5 mailboxes (not aliases), each with 50MB or so of space. Usage will not be great, 5-10 incoming emails per day on average. I don't, at the moment, need web hosting.

I have looked at 1&1, though it's not clear if they allow SMTP access, also looked at 123-reg, but I have ruled them out since they are owned by Pipex.

Any other suggestions/experiences?

Cheers

Steve

I've used Purple Cloud for several years with no issues; solid support via email at very competitive costs - personally I would register the domain with somebody else and change the nameservers.

I used to use 123 but these day I've lost a little faith in them - probably uk2.net.

HTH - Blue

Edited by deleted (Wed 02-May-07 13:12:25)

I joined Purple Cloud in February having seen an earlier recommendation from BlueHuman. I registered a domain with them and then a single basic email. That's all I need. Everything seems fine so far.

Also looked at 1&1 and Namesco. Not impressed.

My reason was partly the same as yours (OP), get ready for a migration by changing all my email contacts and wife's shops(!) at leisure before moving. Advantages are that now it is done for ever; and my email address looks a lot better than any ISP email addy.

I got a .me domain, everything I fancied with .co was taken.

In reply to:

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I have looked at 1&1, though it's not clear if they allow SMTP access

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They do indeed, and I use them & have found them quite good & a decent price.

In reply to:

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- Rock solid avaialbility and reliability, as this is my biggest gripe with F2S

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They did have a couple of days of downtime/unreliability a few months ago (as ANY company could), but I've found them rock-solid apart from that, with a very fast response from their servers.

Many Thanks to all who gave advice - off to Purple Cloud and 1&1 to look in greater detail now.

Cheers

Steve

Keep us posted on your decision, or ask if you want any help.