So - recently we had a thread where someone was mocked because he wrote about future steps he (might?) want to take.
This is what I did, just now:
- Renamed my profile. It had my real name before, but I gave it voluntarily. Forcing people to use it is below my moral standards. I won't shed a single tear if they throw me out, I can find enough animated gif images elsewhere.
- Thunderbird is downloading my mail archive as I write this. I set up GApps on my private domain in the past and I'm in the process of migrating to my own domain right now (already changing credentials online).
- I blacklisted google.com/www.google.com on my laptop (hosts file). I didn't use it as a primary search engine for a while now (Hey DDG! You are awesome!), but every now and then I fell into the habit of typing google.com/google.de (usually cursing about the idiots that think that redirecting based on source ip is a nice idea. No, I cannot read hebrew. Yes, I really wanted to go to google.com and my browser is very specific about the type of content/language I want: en).
So except for being stuck in the Android world I'm in the process of leaving the harbor. Maybe someone with more sense (Hi, Mozilla?) can solve the social network issue in a better way..
That's why the trend seems to be (and I'll follow for now, as an easy way to migrate) to grab free Google Apps on your domain.
You still need to backup your mails (run an imap/pop client somewhere) in the case that Google locks you out. But in that case mail to you is targeted at _your_ domain, you just drop the DNS entries for GApps and set up your mails _then_.
(More clever: Set it up before, but don't list it as MX. That way as soon as DNS propagates you're able to receive mails again)
This is the one thing that's holding me back. I'm happy enough to switch to IMAP clients and whatnot, but setting up my own Postfix/Dovecot in a VM that's got a decent antispam setup is somewhat prohibitive. I wish there was a simple, preconfigured Linode (/whatever alternative you prefer) appliance for email - there's a real market for one currently, and I'd happily hand my cash over.
- what do you consider "a decent antispam setup" ? I've started using a greylist implementation and it has some inconvenients, but is the best antispam measure I've ever had
- what makes you say that there's a real market for an email appliance ?
I work as a Systems Engineer/Developer for an ISP, so unfortunately I've been exposed to the difficulties of configuring a decent antispam engine (our use case is different to that of a personal MX however, and some of the techniques we have to apply to scale wouldn't apply). I'd consider a decent antispam setup one which:
* performed a full validation at SMTP time of the various protocol bits and bobs (ie. the sending SMTP follows the RFCs)
* respects DKIM and SPF
* performs an AV check (clamav is fine here)
* greylists
* performs a bayesian analysis
* uses RBLs like DNSBL and the like
* supported encryption/TLS for SMTP
Overall, setting something like that up isn't so difficult, but it is time consuming and fiddly. A turnkey virtual appliance which configured Postfix, Dovecot and all the other extensions would be very useful. FWIW, after posting this yesterday I found http://www.iredmail.org/ which actually does all that - so fired it up on a Linode and was very impressed :).
I believe there's a market for it because I believe there's a growing amount of users who want to switch off Gmail (and other cloud email providers), considering posts like this. The threat of losing your communications infrastructure is pretty terrifying for most; I funnel mail from 3 or 4 different domains to my Gmail account and if it got taken away I'd be screwed. As people become distrustful of cloud providers - where else would they go? A simple "run your own email" appliance would give those concerned with their privacy and security online the ability to setup their own instance without having to delve into the arcane magic that is configuring an MX in this day and age :).
This is what I did, just now:
- Renamed my profile. It had my real name before, but I gave it voluntarily. Forcing people to use it is below my moral standards. I won't shed a single tear if they throw me out, I can find enough animated gif images elsewhere.
- Thunderbird is downloading my mail archive as I write this. I set up GApps on my private domain in the past and I'm in the process of migrating to my own domain right now (already changing credentials online).
- I blacklisted google.com/www.google.com on my laptop (hosts file). I didn't use it as a primary search engine for a while now (Hey DDG! You are awesome!), but every now and then I fell into the habit of typing google.com/google.de (usually cursing about the idiots that think that redirecting based on source ip is a nice idea. No, I cannot read hebrew. Yes, I really wanted to go to google.com and my browser is very specific about the type of content/language I want: en).
So except for being stuck in the Android world I'm in the process of leaving the harbor. Maybe someone with more sense (Hi, Mozilla?) can solve the social network issue in a better way..