Email advice needed

Due to the sheer amount of spam and garbage I've been getting, it's nearing time to retire my primary email address. I'm looking for recommendations as to who to go with next. Also, I'm entertaining the thought of actually PAYING for an email address. I know!

I'm going late '90s oldschool with this. I need simple POP/SMTP access to download my mail. If it has some kind of web interface for when I'm not at my primary computer, that would be a bonus but not necessary. I also want a modest amount of webspace to hotlink images or upload random E36 M3 to. This must be directly accessible via FTP / SFTP.

So, suggestions! Let's hear 'em.

gmail's good; I rarely get spam. (once every week or two). I'm not sure about POP/SMTP, though. You story the images in picasa.

I already have Gmail. I get a ton of spam which it refuses to recognize as spam, and things that are not "officially" spam but I don't want anyway. (If I ever find out how I got signed up to "Fox Inside Scoop!" I will murder every single person who was involved. To DEATH.)

Also, I don't like Google tracking every single thing I do online, which they do. That's why I want to get rid of it.

Set up a filter for fox. I did that for yahoo. If anything from yahoo groups is sent, it does straight to /dev/null.

When you get spam, do you delete it, or do you use the "remove spam" button? The second method will help google learn what you think is spam.

Meh, that's not really important. I want to get away from the free/webmail stuff. I want my next email provider to make their money from ME PAYING them, rather than from selling all my private info to 3rd parties. I also want some FTP space.

TBH I don't think there are providers out there that are that much better at spam filtering than Google. Pains me to say that. I do run my own mailserver as I'm also a bit of a late 90s guy in that sense, plus I've been doing that for 10-15 years by now anyway. The spam filtering I use it pretty good, but I wouldn't say it's substantially better than Gmail's.

If you want to run your own I can give you a bunch of pointers, starting with the VM hosting service I'm using, but unless you're after major geek points I don't think it's worth the effort these days.

I have had the same Yahoo account for about 12 years now. Sure, I get spam into my spam folder but I really never look in there and the account has served me very well over the years.
I keep my work email and personal life email separate (with the yahoo account being the personal.)

Jay wrote: Also, I don't like Google tracking every single thing I do online, which they do. That's why I want to get rid of it.

Keep making statements about not liking google mail.
Google already knows this about you and more statements may fix it for you.

To be clear, I wasn't complaining about yahoo.....I joined yahoo just to get access to some aircraft plans in yahoo groups..I was getting lots of email updates from them, didn't want them, and it was faster to use a filter to get rid of them than to log back into each group and change the settings.

jrw1621 wrote:

Jay wrote: Also, I don't like Google tracking every single thing I do online, which they do. That's why I want to get rid of it.

Keep making statements about not liking google mail. Google already knows this about you and more statements may fix it for you.

That reminds me of a story I read in "Travels with Henry". Journalists in the press corp traveling with Henry Kissinger knew that the KGB had bugged all their rooms. One of the journalists ordered an omlet, and it was horrible. He and another journalist then had a long, loud conversation near the suspected listening devices about how bad the Soviet food was, and how a proper omlette ought to be cooked.

He ordered the same food the next day, and it was perfect. From then on, he stayed in the same hotel each time the press corp traveled to the USSR, and the omlettes were always very good.

I dunno where you're surfing, but Gmail's spam filter is so good for me I forget people get spam in email.

Sort of like how I used AdBlock and forget the internet has ads.

Dot Mac or Me account. They are great about keeping me spam free. Much better than my google accounts.

Osterkraut wrote: I dunno where you're surfing, but Gmail's spam filter is so good for me I forget people get spam in email.

+1 like I said, it is not uncommon for me to go two weeks without spam

The spam filter is not the issue! The schlong-extenders and I Buy Your Gold! crap all goes in the spam box like it should. The "legitimate" newsletters that I don't want from, say, everyone I've bought a plane ticket from ever, end up in my inbox and I can't opt out of them. The problem is that address is too "out there", I've bought online tickets and whatever on it too many times, signed up for too many message boards, posted too many ads on Kijiji, given it out to too many people, etc. I know how to protect an email address; I've had one since all the way back in 1992, when I was eleven. I just want a new one. And I don't want it from a free service.

I KNOW getting a new address won't solve all my problems, sheesh. I should have titled this thread, "I need a couple hundred MB of FTP space, possibly a domain name, and an email address." Because that's really what I'm looking for. Gmail isn't cutting it for me.

any domain host/reseller will give you everything you ask for.

BUT, spam is a result of using the address and it being sold (by websites, including most banks, car dealerships, etc)

...Which is why I like to change to a new one every few years. You can't avoid that crap.

Jay wrote: I should have titled this thread, "I need a couple hundred MB of FTP space, possibly a domain name, and an email address." Because that's really what I'm looking for.

Godaddy - name registration for $2-$12 per year and a typical, middle of the road hosting plan for $8/month.

My primary email comes through Bellsouth with my internet service. I've always had good service from them. I also keep a couple of Gmail accounts just for buying stuff and signing up for stuff. Those change every couple of years. My primary account only goes to people I know.

So (after looking around a bit...) dumb question: let's say I register a domain name from someone who doesn't offer hosting services, and then buy hosting/email from somebody else. How do I then set up an email address for my domain name? Would that be through the registrar or through the webhost?

the hosting company

the webhost will hold it. when you buy the domain name, you usually get all the email extras with it.

I used 1and1 for a number of clients

Another advantage of Dot Mac or Me or whatever it's called now - you can make any number of aliases to use when you are online buying tickets or whatever and simply discard that address when it's compromised and create another. All without damaging the integrity of your real address and all without having to reset up email programs or anything.

I finally gave up on my flash.net email address after having it for over 10 years. I was getting about 300 spams a day on it. I got my own domain and I can make as many email accounts as I want with a POP server. I make accounts for specific purposes, like forums, general email lists, europa, esprit, locost, etc. When one address gets released to the wild because someone got a virus or a spammer infiltrated a list to harvest emails, I blow that one away and go with europa2, or esprit1 for example.

I just use the email address Comcast gave me when I signed up for their internet service. People bag on them all the time, but they apparently have great filters - I rarely get unwanted emails. For the odd newsletter or similar thing that still gets through, I just go into the email rules and set it up to automatically send them directly to the trash.

I have 3 inboxes through Comcast, each has its own job to do. Yes Comcast's spam filters are very good but my major gripe is how I have to archive emails, for instance anything to do with my dad's estate I have to highlight, copy to a Word document, then save to a CD etc. I can't directly copy them to a disc. It's a pain in the ass.