News for hackers. Stuff that matters.
Re:Twitter’s deletion of its FB app caused old cross-posts t... by int_19h on Tuesday August 28, 2018 @11:17PM (#17865260)
The big problem with email lock-in is that when you switch providers, you can't take your old address with you. Best case, you can set up forwarding. Worst case, if your account just gets deleted, or the provider goes out of business, everyone who only knows your old address cannot contact you anymore.

This, in turn, means that even when considering non-free email service providers, you need some reassurance that provider will be around and will not institute crazy policies in the future. Which favors large providers like Google over smaller ones, and reinforces the lock-in.

Re:Twitter’s deletion of its FB app caused old cross-posts t... by southerndrift on Wednesday August 29, 2018 @12:02AM (#17865503)
You register your own domain. Usually that comes with free email accounts. If the provider goes down then you still control the domain so that you can move to a new provider.
Re:Twitter’s deletion of its FB app caused old cross-posts t... by minikites on Tuesday August 28, 2018 @11:20PM (#17865273)
Fastmail has been around for almost 20 years and I've been using them for more than 10.
Re:Twitter’s deletion of its FB app caused old cross-posts t... by qrbLPHiKpiux on Wednesday August 29, 2018 @02:05AM (#17866032)
I use this with an rpi running offline imap read-only.
Re:Twitter’s deletion of its FB app caused old cross-posts t... by ravenstine on Wednesday August 29, 2018 @02:04AM (#17866029)
Transitions aren't really too difficult so long as proper steps are taken:

- Notify your contacts of your address change.

- Set your old address to forward to your new address and always reply to emails from your new one.

- After 2 months, set your old email to auto-reply to all messages saying that you have changed your address and the old one will soon be deactivated.

- Finally, turn deactivate the old email.

It's work, but I've done it on multiple occasions. I wonder if there could be a service that could automate the entire process, since it could all be done via IMAP.

Re:Twitter’s deletion of its FB app caused old cross-posts t... by paradite on Wednesday August 29, 2018 @02:50AM (#17866215)
It doesn't work if you suddenly lost your access without prior notice.

I have documented a few cases of such unnoticed termination in my blog post:

https://paradite.com/2016/02/18/stay-independent-problems-wi...