Good email service

[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

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.