From a search engine perspective I’ve switched to DuckDuckGo and I’m impressed with how good it has gotten.
With maps I’ve tried various solutions including mapquest, Microsoft, and Apple but nothing comes close to Google Maps.
I switched to DDG over a year ago and it works great for things that are simple lookups to Wikipedia, IMDB etc. When I have an arcane Windows bug, I end up using "G!". Also DDG isn't that great for latest News but the Image search is pretty good.
I set DDG as the default search on my non-techie wife's new PC earlier this year and she has not once complained about the search qualify.
If it's "costs money", we're not planning to change that! We (FastMail) are proudly a paid-only service.
When I signed up in 2016 (I’m still a customer btw) it was a big pain to get my custom domain added after paying for an account. I had to contact support for assistance. I somehow have to have two accounts for my plan but only one has a mailbox. Crazy bad experience here.
The amount of space we get for mail is low for the fee. I pay around $12/year in additional fees with Google for another 70GB of space outside of the 30GB they give for the base plan. Fastmail was pricier last I checked.
There is zero quality collaboration option for me. Even if you added one the fact that anyone who wants to collaborate would have to have a paid account with me creates a barrier for me to even try and use it for anything but just email.
The spam filter is about 30% as accurate as Gmail. I try and train it but don’t have time to always be doing that.
The mobile app on ios doesn’t remember me. It doesn’t even have an option to remember me. What a pain, I hardly even bother to use it because of that.
That all said. I like some things about fastmail:
The web interface is fast.
The admin features are robust and easy for adding aliases and new custom domains.
The fact you are pushing to make the world a better place for email is why I keep paying for the service.
What you are doing is hard. Your competitors are massive and well established. I hope you continue to make progress.
Then again, I rarely have and like having subscriptions these days because of minimalism but I suppose this is a good trade off for my entire lifetime.
On a different note, does anyone know how GoDaddy is in terms of privacy? Is there a better domain registrar out there?
Edit: Just realized I’m using Google’s Project Fi on my iPhone SE, with Hangouts.
I need to use my account more, though. So helplessly locked into my Google account for sign ups everywhere.
Perhaps I ought to read that "The Psychology of Dread Tasks" article that is also trending now.
It looks much the same either in brower or app. Here's what it looks like on my phone:
I don’t yet have an account, so was going off the pricing listed on their website. Good to know there are more options.
I signed up and I only see the same plans as on the pricing page
I haven't encountered this with my personal email server nor heard of it from anyone else. I think this might just be an issue with Posteo.
It's easier if you don't try to move all at once. Spend some time looking at different email options and move that. Do calendar later. Get rid of Google Apps on your Android later still. Gradual change is much easier.
Of course it's possible.
The reason is clear: lock-in.
People are reluctant to change providers if they lose their mail address.
I think for .de domains, you are required to have your personal address in WHOIS if you are not a company.
First, I may be okay with it. And why would Posteo store WHOIS data? Unless they want to be a domain reseller, which is not what I asked them about.
Second, there are other TLDs.
I still insist that they do it because of lock-in and that they lie about it.
I think mailbox.org supports custom domains and is similar in other respects.
They should stop storing the mails themselves, they are full of private information. /s
Lets me assume, that you're always logged in. Google thanks you for that, much easier to link this browser's history and searches to your account.
E.g. thank to Gmail I rarely use an email application on my computer and use webmail. When I tried out Posteo it was extremely annoying that it logged me out every few minutes and I couldn't get my email. They said this couldn't be changed.
Google really did an excellent job of supply me with services which I want to use. Not just tools which are working well.
BTW, Google doesn't use all its services to sell or personalise ads. Which doesn't mean they don't use them to learn more about you which in turn is used to improve the services so that you them even more.
So as much as I wish I could restore my privacy by leaving Google, I think Google knows me too well that I won't for now.