Having a custom domain is key! (https://meagher.co/own-your-email)

This service can work well for those looking to wean off of Gmail: https://forwardemail.net/en

Am I reading it correctly that this forwards from your custom domain to somewhere of your choosing, but then you still would need a gmail or hey or whatever to receive / operate as web interface?

yes

I did this for a few years but I found it to be a hassle, there's always that small percentage of websites that only accept well known email domains. And it's not like I can't use their services since it's for stuff like local utilities.

> there's always that small percentage of websites that only accept well known email domains.

I've never come across that. Do you have any examples? There are hundreds of thousands of non-well-known domains that people use for email.

It could be that your domain was missing expected setup, like SPF records, or you ended up on a blacklist somehow.

There were a few obscure online stores that I can't remember but the ones I do remember I don't want to link for privacy reasons. One was a local water utility company and the other was my university which offered academic email address forwarding for alumni. It was silly as a Protonmail address also didn't work for one of them.

Anecdotal, but I've seen lazy/clueless developers in some companies who allow only a .com email address to be provided. And this was a few years ago. I don't recall the name. I'm not going to do any business with such services.

Nearly 25 years running my own domain email and I have never encountered this either. (Currently using GAFYD for email, but at times it's been virtual hosted, as well as home hosted on a Pentium Pro and dial-up)

Same here, I have been running my own domain for 20 years. I have gotten the 'reverse' though... trying to register somewhere using a gmail throwaway account and getting the message that they do not accept free service emails.

For people who have done this, what naming scheme do you use? [email protected] and [email protected] both feel awkward to me. I've seen me/hi/[email protected] which would be good for a public business email but feels pretentious for personal.

I use [email protected] because that's the less awkward one i found (given the domain name). But I'd love to see better options.

I use a domain-hack for my domain. So it's "[email protected]".

I do human@firstlast

This, but I think it isn't easy to do with gmail.

$6/mo for the lowest tier of Google Workspace (aka G Suite).

I moved all my gmail stuff to a domain on it and now I feel protected. I can move in a couple of hours, if need be.

You used to be able to get gsuite for free with your own personal domain. A lot of people, especially on HN are probably still grandfathered in on that for the free tier. Nowadays I think you have to pay for using a custom domain.

I still use it! I have two separate "Google apps" for two domains, and I just add new domains as aliases. It allows you to separately select DKIM keys for even aliased domains.

I don't know what's the limit for aliases, but I have at least 5 so far.

All still free.

I'm grandfathered into a legacy Google Apps for Your Domain account, and it's nice but there are downsides (it's ineligible for many Google services like Play Music - oh well /s)

RIP google music

It's actually extremely easy, if you pay.

in addition to parents advice, You can also setup wildcard DNS and inbox, giving you the utmost flexibility in handing out e-mail addresses that are topic based, and not your private address.

Using gmail means Google still gets to read your emails and metadata

You may get to keep the domain until the mob lobbies your registrar to drop you. An unlikely event to some, but it can and does happen.

Care to explain what you mean by that? What mob? Who would force a registrar to drop my domain, assuming it's not c0ca-co1a.com (zero and one) or "I-Wanna-Kill-<insert politician's name>.kill"?

Any company with the trademark. And if they throw enough money at it, it won't matter who had it first (see: Amazon, Apple, /.+book/, etc).

As I mentioned in my comment above, if my brother-sister-friend-mate (today) claims a domain called "amaz0n" (with a zero) then I would also support Amazon to go and take it off their hands. No apologies here. Unless they lived under a rock for the past 20 years, they know what Amazon is and (unfortunately) many young people are thinking of theThey know what they would know that this is shady.

But if my surname is "Smithopapadoakarian" (assuming someone with UK-Greek-Armenian roots) or if my product/app/service is BakeAPizzaOnYourOverheatedLaptop.com then the Amazons of the world better be ready for a fight because there is no way in hell that they have a product like that (unless they made one before me).