Too Many Email Services
I’m in email hell. I’ve got my own Domain account, a .Mac account, a Yahoo account, a Gmail account, and I’ve even got a Hotmail account. They all do some things really well, and they all lack in other areas really badly. The only one that is a complete and total waste of time is Hotmail, it honestly offers nothing. I don’t want to keep several email accounts open and operational, I don’t want to just forward everything to one account (which is my current solution) and I don’t want to keep track of all of this crap anymore.
The Pros and Cons
Gmail (Pro)
Gmail has the best spam detection by far. And Gmail finally offers IMAP which makes me a happy camper.
Gmail (Con)
Google is starting to scare the shit out of me. I’m not fanatic about privacy, but Google goes too far the wrong way and I would very much like to drop off of their grid. I also think their web interface looks awful.
Yahoo (Pro)
The Daddy of ‘em all. I freaking love the AddressGuard (email aliases) and use them for everything, from buying to services to blog registrations. It’s a great way to keep my actual email out of the hands of no-good jerks.
Yahoo (Con)
They only offer POP which is completely useless. When I access my email on my iPhone, I can’t use all of those great email aliases to send the email.
.Mac (Pro)
.Mac’s email is pretty seamless with my Mac. It offers IMAP. And .Mac offers 5 email aliases.
.Mac (Con)
The .Mac service for me has been way too sketchy to be relied on for my main email.
My Domain (Pro)
What else can I say? It’s my domain. There’s also the professional feel to having chris [at] myowndomain [dot] com.
My Domain (Con) My domain uses a web interface that looks and behaves like the last time it was updated was 1999. For someone that must access their email through a web browser while at work, this is just a gigantic deal breaker. This is the account I want to use the most, but it’s the least useful.
What I Want
I want Gmail’s spam filter. I want IMAP. I want email aliases. I want a ton of space so I never have to worry about clearing out old emails. And I want to send to and from my own domain. Unfortunately, there’s not a service out there that can give me all of that. And what I have to choose from are too close to choose from. I bounce from service to service hoping to find the one that will work for all of my needs but I know I’ll never find it. Yahoo is probably the closest but their use of POP is maddening. POP is a terrible way to access your email.
2 Comments to Too Many Email Services
You might check out http://roundcube.net/. You could use it with your own domain, but use it instead of the older webmail interface.
I haven’t used it much, but it seems like it would work for what you want. You’d have to install it on your own webserver, but it should talk with your email server using IMAP and give you a nicer interface for the times you need to use a web browser.
I appreciate that, Mark. I will definitely look into it. I already like the interface screen shots.
January 18, 2008