switching from pipex to 02

Hi Guys,

this is my first post, I have occasionally dropped in on the site to compare but have finally made the switch. Activation is end of next week. Is it worth me getting an independent email/domain?

thanks

Steve

If you are happy with the like of gmail then it's not worth getting your own e-mail domain. Some people are reluctant to switch between ISPs because they have given out their ISP based e-mail address to so many others.

You can get independent email free such as googlemail which has a good reputation, as opposed to hotmail which in the days I used it was pretty awful.

I like my own domain - somethingyouchoose.co.uk or somethingyouchoose.me.uk which costs me �7.50 every two years.

With that you get free web and mail forwarding so you can re-direct it to your ISP email if you want. Then if you migrate all you do is go into your domain control panel and alter the forwarding address to your new ISP's email and the address all your friends and contacts know is still something @ yourdomain.

Better still is to get an email service with your domain host. For �10 per year in addition to the domain charge I get 10 mailboxes with unlimited aliases, POP3/SMTP/IMAP/Webmail access, and never go near my ISPs email system.

Purple Cloud that I am with is not the cheapest, look at 1 & 1 and Namesco possibly, and no doubt there will be other suggestions. But it is good! Googlemail scares me - Masters of the Universe and all that.

You could be up and running tomorrow morning with Purple Cloud and get all your friends and contacts transferred straight away. Then you send everything from the new one but monitor any coming in on the old as well until you migrate in case you miss some. No rush or panic on the day! Click email or domain in my sig, or web space if you want that - it includes email as well. Upgrading is easy, I have done it twice.

Since dial-up days I have had independent mailboxes at www.freeola.com.
I have my own domain registered and with that am given unlimited mailboxes for that domain.
I also have some webspace I don't use.

I access the mail through Outlook Express.
Their service (this eMail service) has been faultless for countless years.

Is freeola your ISP so that these are free, although they aren't quite as their prices for the Entanet packages are significantly higher than most Entanet re-sellers.

If they are not your ISP there is a charge I believe, which the last time I looked was quite high.

When you say you have your own domain registered, are you sure? Their freebies are all registered with Nominet in their name not yours I think. You cannot transfer them to another domain host if anything goes wrong.

Now you mention it I do remember some kind of issue with the name registration and that is something I queried before registering the last time. My domain is definitely registered in my name. It is one I pay for (a .com) and with that they give me the email service and web space. They are not my ISP - I am with Be. I think also there was an issue about access to the emails whilst using another ISP but I've never had one. I think I need to use their ISP to upload to the webspace though.

I seem to think the term is it is my domain which the "host". Does this sound right?

They may well host your domain, that does sound right. All it means is that your web-space is on disks/PCs "owned" by Freeola (although they could well be buying the service from another third party such as Entanet).

It obviously suits you and there is no reason you should change.

But it isn't something I personally would recommend to anyone else.