In terms of additional features:
- Support for Sieve scripts - LOVE this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sieve_(mail_filtering_language)
- Way faster loading time, snapper interface
- Lots more customizability (look at the display settings for an individual folder: https://files.app.net/1/79748/aXTHb4q16UPxgBvF2RCedd9jMSV2u4...)
- Some different interface features that I really like (your mileage may vary), like always showing starred messages on top for specific folders
There's lots more in terms of customizability and different weird configurations they allow you to do. They've done a pretty good job of hiding the complexity for non-power users, but it's still really accessible if you're willing to read through lots of preference screens.
There are some features FastMail does not have that Gmail does. The two big ones for me are undo send and composing in a new window (although you can just open the whole FastMail interface in a new tab and it only takes a second to load; opening Gmail in a new tab could take 10+ seconds in my experience). I use the FastMail web interface full time and am just as efficient, if not more, than I am with Gmail. The keyboard shortcuts are pretty much the same, so there wasn't even a learning curve.
The code we run in production is all available to anyone who wants to play with it, though the usual caveats about "it's not particularly well tested for any configurations other than exactly the one we run" apply.
https://github.com/brong/cyrus-imapd/branches/fastmail
brong@prin:~/src/cyrus-imapd$ git log --oneline cmu/master..HEAD | wc -l 632
brong@prin:~/src/cyrus-imapd$ git diff cmu/master HEAD | diffstat | tail -n 1 149 files changed, 39060 insertions(+), 4314 deletions(-)
[1] http://blog.fastmail.fm/2012/10/18/changes-to-fastmail-servi...
In order to do that, we would have to hold all outbound emails until a delay threshold was reached... I'm not sure if that's a good idea.
I don't ever find a need to undo an email though.
I believe it was only for like 20-30 seconds as well that it offered undo.
| Gmail has it as an option
Here's a screenshot from Mail.app: https://files.app.net/1/79773/aTOWGMJ-rQ2Js_Edg-CWLi5FsLEVYq...
I either never knew that existed when I tried Mail.app with Gmail or it didn't work. In any case, it works perfectly with FastMail's "Archive" folder.
In our web interface, there are two buttons - one moves to Trash, the other to the Archive folder.
1) A black navigation bar across the top that doesn't help with email.
2) 300px wide box across the top right dedicated to a social network no one uses (not email related).
3) A loading screen when the page first loads.
4) New mail compose window (no need for an explanation here).
5) Ads
I'm 100% certain Google lets you get Gmail for your domain. You have to pay for it (but you have to pay for FastMail), and you get other services alongside Gmail, but it certainly exists.
Using Google Apps (which is cheaper than FM)
[1] https://www.fastmail.fm/signup/family.html
[2] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/11/when-will-our-email-be...
You're still able to get a free one-user Google Apps for Domains account by going through Google App Engine. [1] I've used it to get catchall email addresses for any new domains I've recently registered.
[1] http://lifehacker.com/5967336/use-google-app-engine-to-get-g...
But Gmail/Google's ease of use is its USP. You can have chat in browser, GTalk, Adium, Android , Pidgin and all then synced to mail box.
You can have calendar everywhere, taks..you name it.
So, until some business - like FastMail, PoBox, come up with such close integration I don't think there's much sense to move other than privacy and paranoia. Because once outside you end up setting up a workflow dependent on very different services and worry which one is gonna break when and then look for sth else.
In terms of features, Fastmail does not do a good job of advertising its features. Just sign up for an account and check out the settings page. Its filtering is quite powerful, there's a SOAP API, and you can do stuff like automatically sort mail into folders. Eg, you could do [email protected] and have it go into a "bestbuy" folder.
Any previous users of the free tier will still have their account for free, possibly until further notice, but there is no obvious indication that they'll just drop your free account (unless you're inactive for their specified time period).
I have two email accounts with Fastmail mostly because they were the only free email service that supported Yubikey, but aside from that feature, I would call them "just another email service."
I switched to Fastmail a few months ago, and I am extremely happy with it. IMAP is much faster (especially search). I love the Sieve support and the domain hosting, and beyond that, Fastmail has all the features I need.
The only downside so far is that the spam filtering is not quite as good as Gmail's. Even spam identical to stuff I have marked as spam keeps reappearing. But it's not bad enough to be annoying.
The article mentions that FastMail operates both "free and paid tiers of service", so I figured I'd make a free account and poke around. But I've clicked and searched for five minutes now and found nothing except paid plans with a free trial. Am I missing something?
Also, the article mentions that it "exceeds" the features of Gmail, but where the hell are all the features listed? I see nothing on any of the pages except for features like "Reliability" and "Easy migration" which tell me nothing about how it compares to GMail in features.
If this is an example of the best "alternative" to a Google product then the competition has a LONG way to go.