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A comment on Leaving Google’s silo: Alternatives to Gmail, Talk, Calendar, and more. Parent comment

Re:Leaving Google’s silo: Alternatives to Gmail, Talk, Calen... by MatthewPhillips on Tuesday May 21, 2013 @05:57PM (#5747189)
I use FastMail. For one FastMail offers email for your domain, which Gmail no longer does. FastMail has archiving, great search, and a superior interface. The Gmail interface is pretty bad IMO. It's cluttered with a lot of stuff that have nothing to do with email like:

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

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Re:Leaving Google’s silo: Alternatives to Gmail, Talk, Calen... by dragonwriter on Tuesday May 21, 2013 @06:07PM (#5747247)
> I use FastMail. For one FastMail offers email for your domain, which Gmail no longer does.

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.

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Re:Leaving Google’s silo: Alternatives to Gmail, Talk, Calen... by MatthewPhillips on Tuesday May 21, 2013 @06:21PM (#5747361)
Looks like you have to get a business account. Which is reasonably priced. So yeah, I was wrong, it's still possible to get it. Kind of a hack, but you can get it.
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Re:Leaving Google’s silo: Alternatives to Gmail, Talk, Calen... by driverdan on Wednesday May 22, 2013 @10:45AM (#5751194)
Using Google Apps (which is cheaper than FM) is not a hack, it's designed to be used with your own domain.
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Re:Leaving Google’s silo: Alternatives to Gmail, Talk, Calen... by subsection1h on Wednesday May 22, 2013 @05:06PM (#5753714) 

    Using Google Apps (which is cheaper than FM)
I pay $15 per year for a FastMail family account,[1] which allows me to use my own domain. The account includes only 200MB of space, but that works for me because I delete email from the server so that the US government can't access it, which they can do without a warrant.[2]

[1] https://www.fastmail.fm/signup/family.html

[2] https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/11/when-will-our-email-be...

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Re:Leaving Google’s silo: Alternatives to Gmail, Talk, Calen... by ValentineC on Tuesday May 21, 2013 @06:09PM (#5747268)
> For one FastMail offers email for your domain, which Gmail no longer does.

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...

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Re:Leaving Google’s silo: Alternatives to Gmail, Talk, Calen... by FireBeyond on Tuesday May 21, 2013 @07:10PM (#5747693)
When I migrated back from Windows 8/Phone 8 to iOS, I looked at this - but this loophole, from everything I've read, has been closed for a few months now.
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Re:Leaving Google’s silo: Alternatives to Gmail, Talk, Calen... by mquander on Tuesday May 21, 2013 @08:36PM (#5748048)
I did this two months ago.
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Re:Leaving Google’s silo: Alternatives to Gmail, Talk, Calen... by vidarh on Wednesday May 22, 2013 @05:23AM (#5749654)
The "Minimalist" chrome extension helps with a lot of these (though not with the horrible new compose window)
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Re:Leaving Google’s silo: Alternatives to Gmail, Talk, Calen... by fakeer on Tuesday May 21, 2013 @10:54PM (#5748566)
Yes, I agree the new interface is a killer(as in bad).

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.

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