Good email service

[aykoola]

Hi!

Been using Lavabit for a year now, having loads of problems with someone obviously hacking my account over and over again, scans show no viruses on my Xubuntu 12.04. So now i've been looking at various mail services. Gmail is out, since i can't use my name.surname, so i've made provisional accounts on mail.com, aol.com, and myopera.com. Are any of these any good? The reviews i read are all very very different, for example AOL, loads of people praising and dissing it. And it's layout looks most attractive to me.

Any pros, cons and suggestions?

Mail.com and aol.com are also in slight advantage, because upon dictating my mail address, there are no complications, because i live in a non english speaking country. so mail.com and aol.com sound pretty straightforward.

any help?

Thanks guys

[Dry Lips]

I doubt that this is about lavabit, nor that a virus is the cause of this. I have family and friends who've had their hotmail and yahoo accounts hacked. You're especially prone to being hacked if you've happened to post your email address online in plain text. (On a forum like this, for instance.) In addition you ought to reconsider your passwords... How strong are they? Do use use dictinary words in your password?

Btw, could you provide further clarification? What do you mean with "someone obviously hacking my account over and over again"?

[Simon_WM]

Hey guys,

Why dont you purchase a domain, and run your own email account like

Simon@myubuntu.com ?

thats what i'm doing, it costs about 2 quid for my domain per year and have 5 free email accounts...

Ive used: 123-reg.co.uk and 1and1.co.uk in the past,

[mips]

You can have a look at www.gmx.com

[mastablasta]

Why dont you purchase a domain, and run your own email account like
,

that would mean you would need to run your own server unless you buy some hosting. there are some cheap host out there. htoughi am not sure OP ment to spend any money to use e-mail.

you can also rent a domain via google (for about 20 USD/year), then you can have gmail but with your own name.surname+your own domain .

[Simon_WM]

that would mean you would need to run your own server unless you buy some hosting. there are some cheap host out there. htoughi am not sure OP ment to spend any money to use e-mail.

you can also rent a domain via google (for about 20 USD/year), then you can have gmail but with your own name.surname+your own domain .

Dont need to run your own, My Emails are hosted with 123-reg

[perspectoff]

Fastmail and Zoho are good alternatives.

[aykoola]

I doubt that this is about lavabit, nor that a virus is the cause of this. I have family and friends who've had their hotmail and yahoo accounts hacked. You're especially prone to being hacked if you've happened to post your email address online in plain text. (On a forum like this, for instance.) In addition you ought to reconsider your passwords... How strong are they? Do use use dictinary words in your password?

Btw, could you provide further clarification? What do you mean with "someone obviously hacking my account over and over again"?

Thanks for clarifying. i've been told that more and more messages are coming back since there's obviously a spam queue or sth like that, and that the problem should go away in the next few days.

Bold: i changed the password, and i still got some strange return emails, so i thought someone figured out my password again! But it probably isn't so. So i really have no idea how someone could possibly guess my password since it wasn't a word, it was just a mix of letters and one number. weird.

Anyway, if it doesn't get fixed soon, i'm probably switching to AOL.

[kurt18947]

I'm using Lavabit as a secondary mail provider. The web interface is pretty spartan but IMAP w/Thunderbird works great. No spam issues or other weirdities.

[Frogs Hair]

GMX has great spam and virus protection.

[sandyd]

If you said this earlier, you could have used Google Apps :D

Anyways - I gave up on free email hosts a long time ago. I encountered many missed emails .etc .etc, along with spam. Even a few account hack attempts.

Now, I have my own mailserver, and I can watch the logs where people try to hack my email server over and over again. :D

[aysiu]

Thanks for clarifying. i've been told that more and more messages are coming back since there's obviously a spam queue or sth like that, and that the problem should go away in the next few days.

Bold: i changed the password, and i still got some strange return emails, so i thought someone figured out my password again! But it probably isn't so. So i really have no idea how someone could possibly guess my password since it wasn't a word, it was just a mix of letters and one number. weird.

Anyway, if it doesn't get fixed soon, i'm probably switching to AOL. It's entirely possible no one hacked your account but that they're merely spoofing your address, and that's why you're getting all those returned emails.
Someone is sending from my address (http://support.google.com/mail/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=50200)

[Dry Lips]

Thanks for clarifying. i've been told that more and more messages are coming back since there's obviously a spam queue or sth like that, and that the problem should go away in the next few days.

Bold: i changed the password, and i still got some strange return emails, so i thought someone figured out my password again! But it probably isn't so. So i really have no idea how someone could possibly guess my password since it wasn't a word, it was just a mix of letters and one number. weird.

Anyway, if it doesn't get fixed soon, i'm probably switching to AOL.


It's entirely possible no one hacked your account but that they're merely spoofing your address, and that's why you're getting all those returned emails.
Someone is sending from my address (http://support.google.com/mail/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=50200)

+1!

I think what aysiu is saying here might be what you're seeing. A couple of months ago got a few "fake" email bounces on a mail.com account that I have for signing up with stuff... If your address is being spoofed, the problem was that someone got hold of your email address somewhere. It has nothing to do with which provider you're using. (That's why it's a good idea to have separate accounts. One for private contact, one for signing up for random stuff, another one for your blog, etc. I think I've got 6 accounts, at the moment.)

Anyway, I haven't seen any of those messages recently, so they might stop if you just give it some time...

[sandyd]

It's entirely possible no one hacked your account but that they're merely spoofing your address, and that's why you're getting all those returned emails.
Someone is sending from my address (http://support.google.com/mail/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=50200)

That is what DKIM is for.
If Lavabit doesn't have DKIM like most hosts do today, then it is their own mistake, as DKIM creates a digital signature on each message to enable mail servers to check the validity of the message.

[lisati]

<rant>
I'm reluctant to use "free" email providers, and Yahoo in particular, after experiencing frustrations with reporting spam and having something done about it. It's hard to take an email provider seriously when you report spam, only to get fobbed off with a generic response that presupposes that you're using webmail, or if your report gets mangled by their spam filters and you subsequently get a reply from a confused human.

Setting up my own email server has had its rewards, and through fine-tuning of the spam filters over the years, the spam that actually makes it to my inbox (and also the junk folder) has dropped to virtually zero.

My low opinion of Yahoo has been confirmed in recent months due to ongoing problems experienced by other customers of the my ISP, who have outsourced their email services to Yahoo.
</rant>


That is what DKIM is for.
If Lavabit doesn't have DKIM like most hosts do today, then it is their own mistake, as DKIM creates a digital signature on each message to enable mail servers to check the validity of the message.
I've got DKIM, SPF and DMARC for my email server.

[Dry Lips]

That is what DKIM is for.
If Lavabit doesn't have DKIM like most hosts do today, then it is their own mistake, as DKIM creates a digital signature on each message to enable mail servers to check the validity of the message.

The main thing to do in order to prevent your email account from getting backscatter is simply never leave your email address online in an unencrypted form. And backscatter is NOT the fault of the systems that recieve it, it results from badly configured email services somewhere else.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backscatter_%28e-mail%29

Lavabit do support DK, and they will have DKIM support when they implement the next version of the their back-end system... In addition you can block backscatter if it bothers you:


Scatter Back Blocking

Welcome to the world of e-mail identity theft. Everyday spammers launch new e-mail campaigns using the addresses of unwitting users. The problem arises whenever a spammer’s e-mail campaign tries to send a message to an address that is invalid. A bounce message is generated and sent to the address in the from header. If that address happens to be yours, a virtual avalanche could end up in your inbox. If that ever happens to you while your using Lavabit, rest comfortably knowing that you can temporarily block bounce messages using our preferences portal (https://lavabit.com/apps/preferences).
http://lavabit.com/features.html

[lisati]

Speaking of BackScatter, if you run your own server, you might want to check out http://www.backscatterer.org/ - it works similarly to a regular DNSBL, but needs small amount of extra work to make sure you only spaminate bounces.

[aykoola]

thanks everyone! Will wait a bit longer for lavabit, i love it otherwise.

but two more questions: AOL mail, is it okay? I've read they've done some remodelling.

and other: mail.com and gmx.com are the same thing, right? they look exactly the same.

[pqwoerituytrueiwoq]

but two more questions: AOL mail, is it okay? I've read they've done some remodelling.
just use thunderbird/evolution with that

[Irihapeti]

<rant>
....My low opinion of Yahoo has been confirmed in recent months due to ongoing problems experienced by other customers of the my ISP, who have outsourced their email services to Yahoo.


@Lisati
I think I know which ISP you're talking about and I totally agree. The latest bit of (in)security nonsense has provoked me to change my main email address to a different system.

I've toyed with the idea of running my own mailserver, but I'm hesitant because I'm not sure if I know enough. It's one thing to mess around with something at home behind a firewall just for learning, and another entirely to use something for real where the consequences of getting it wrong could be rather very nasty.

Can you give some more detail about how you've done this? E.g. server at home in the garage/back room, VPS, or something else? What guides do you recommend to someone who wants to understand what's involved? How would I check that I really know enough to do this for real? Etc.

Feel free to move this to the servers section if it fits better there.

[Lupi]

Thanks for clarifying. i've been told that more and more messages are coming back since there's obviously a spam queue or sth like that, and that the problem should go away in the next few days.

Bold: i changed the password, and i still got some strange return emails, so i thought someone figured out my password again! But it probably isn't so. So i really have no idea how someone could possibly guess my password since it wasn't a word, it was just a mix of letters and one number. weird.

Anyway, if it doesn't get fixed soon, i'm probably switching to AOL.


It's entirely possible no one hacked your account but that they're merely spoofing your address, and that's why you're getting all those returned emails.
Someone is sending from my address (http://support.google.com/mail/bin/answer.py?hl=en&answer=50200)

The same thing just happened to me. Is there anything I can do or I should simply change e-mail? Also, does it mean that what was in my e-mail hasn't been compromised?

[marstonf]

Thanks for clarifying. i've been told that more and more messages are coming back since there's obviously a spam queue or sth like that, and that the problem should go away in the next few days.

Bold: i changed the password, and i still got some strange return emails, so i thought someone figured out my password again! But it probably isn't so. So i really have no idea how someone could possibly guess my password since it wasn't a word, it was just a mix of letters and one number. weird.

Anyway, if it doesn't get fixed soon, i'm probably switching to AOL.Hardy har har... Your email has not been hacked. What's more than likely going on is someone is spoofing your email header. check out emkei's fake mailer or emkei.cz on google, you can send emails to yourself with your own address as a return address. unless you look at the full headers you'd have no idea at all. sometimes even looking from those I have seen them spoofed as well. It can be really annoying, my gmail gets about 1k spam a week 25% of which is reply-to me.

[lisati]

@Lisati
I think I know which ISP you're talking about and I totally agree. The latest bit of (in)security nonsense has provoked me to change my main email address to a different system.

I've toyed with the idea of running my own mailserver, but I'm hesitant because I'm not sure if I know enough. It's one thing to mess around with something at home behind a firewall just for learning, and another entirely to use something for real where the consequences of getting it wrong could be rather very nasty.

Can you give some more detail about how you've done this? E.g. server at home in the garage/back room, VPS, or something else? What guides do you recommend to someone who wants to understand what's involved? How would I check that I really know enough to do this for real? Etc.

Feel free to move this to the servers section if it fits better there.

My basic setup, which runs on a machine sitting in the corner of the room at home, is Postfix with amavis-new/spamassassin/clamav, with a handful of things like DNSBL checks. There are pages on the http://help.ubuntu.com website which should help get you started.

In order to unblock port 25 (not 100% essential, but it can make some things easier), I had to get a static IP address, which wasn't immediately obvious from the ISP's help pages when I organized it, and also costs a little bit extra on the phone bill.

Initally I used a free domain name from no-ip.com but then moved to one from dyn.com. Setting these up is fairly straightforward. Some routers have options which take care of updating DNS records if your IP address changes.

As my needs have evolved, I've added a handful of bits and pieces based on tips and tricks found on various websites, and a few months back added a custom written set of filters (done in PHP, not particularly well suited to the task, but functional).

[buzzingrobot]

I'm a happy Fastmail (fastmail.fm) user. It's worth paying for.

I used Fastmail several years ago, then switched to Gmail for several more years. Eventually, though, I began to be annoyed by its slow servers and its non-standard IMAP implementation.

A few months ago I moved back to Fastmail and have been very satisifed. I see no discernible delay in loading mail, while in Gmail displaying each individual mail would take at least a few seconds, often more.

I use Fastmail via Thunderbird. When you set up any mail client to use an IMAP server, it's important to map the client's folders to the IMAP folder. E.g., you probably want mail you send to be deposited in your IMAP server's sent mail folder. Ditto trash, drafts, junk/spam, etc. In Thunderbird, you do this via Settings->Copies&Folders.

Fastmail web site is clear and easy to use, if you don't want to use a client.