My own e-mail address

[PrincessB]

Currently using BT so I have a username@btinternet.com e-mail. E-mails download from Outlook and the archives go back to 2014 when I last moved and lost my ancient username@blueyonder.co.uk address after changing provider.

Looking at moving again and I'm unlikely to stay with BT. After the amount of effort required after the last move to tell everyone my new e-mail, I'd much rather having something less service provider dependant.

Any pointers, welcomed.

Regards,

B.

[xeny]

Outlook.com or gmail.com are the two big ones.

Gmail has a far better web interface (to my mind better than most local clients), outlook.com has probably got better integration with outlook locally.

[paradigm]

I registered my own domain name with one of the registrar services, e.g. Fasthosts, GoDaddy, etc. and then arranged to automatically forward messages to my standard Gmail or GMX accounts. If I then change to a different ISP I retain my own email address and simply rearrange the forwarding. Has worked very well for many years.

[Infrasonic]

How about keeping BT and running it in parallel with another email address (or several) for different purposes?

I've got my own domain email (Fasthosts), several Gmail (+ a domain linked alias), Outlook.com (+ domain link and other aliases) addresses and a free encrypted Protonmail account (500MB free limit, for all the sensitive bank/utilities correspondance et al)
It sounds a complicated PITA but is actually really easy to run once it's all set up. Minimal intervention required at my end.

Advantages are that if any account gets compromised ( https://haveibeenpwned.com/) you have alternatives already in use, and if any cloud provider has a major outage (they all do at some point, sometimes weekly) then by setting up IMAP/POP mirrors/aggregators across different providers you can minimise access issues.
I do all that at the browser webmail level, plus all my housekeeping (spam/folder designation et al) online first, and then use the desktop/mobile apps (W10 Mail/Android Outlook and Gmail) for viewing afterwards as needed.

[BobbyD]

Take back control of your email, get a domain!

It's the only way not to be subject to the whim and future business practices of the company who to all intents and purposes own your email address, and it needn't be expensive.

[Sussexlad]

Another vote for getting your own domain name. I've used 123-reg for many years now, with no issues.

[UncleEbenezer]

Have you checked with BT whether you can keep an email address after moving away from them? It's the kind of service they might just offer for a token payment, and would leave you free to decide and migrate at leisure over however long it takes for the technophobes in your life to figure out the change, and to deal with once-in-a-blue-moon correspondents.

[formoverfunction]

Get more privacy:

ProtonMail
Tutanota
Mailfence

ProtonMail is free and they also give you limited VPN
Tutanota now has a desk app and also comes along with an encrypted calendar
Mailfence has several additional services bundles in

For limited use all 3 come for nothing.

EFF has this new campaign about email privacy and might help you checking how secure the provider is https://ssd.eff.org/en/blog/announcing- ... l-delivery.

Proton appears to be the most popular with those concerned with Google seeing everything you do. Here's there wikii https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ProtonMail

Mailfence has a very simple sign up process.

I pay for Tutanota.

[richfool]

Just use hotmail or gmail.

[taylor20]

One issue I recently had with having email hosted on my own domain, was my son's PC got compromised and started sending spam (on his email account). My hosting provider quickly spotted the problem and locked the email account, but they also blocked our IP address. So all access from home ADSL connection to all email accounts (different domains, but same provider), were blocked.

So may be worth distributing domains across a couple of providers to give some backup, perhaps auto forwarding email to a gmail/outlook account in case of being locked out.

Double whammy for me was I could not access the providers support site to raise a ticket, as they same IP block would not let me browse to their site!

[Parky]

Have you checked with BT whether you can keep an email address after moving away from them? It's the kind of service they might just offer for a token payment, and would leave you free to decide and migrate at leisure over however long it takes for the technophobes in your life to figure out the change, and to deal with once-in-a-blue-moon correspondents.

You can keep your BT email address for £1.60 a month. It's called BT Premium Mail.
https://community.bt.com/t5/Email/Keepi ... -p/1366061

[PhaseThree]

Have you checked with BT whether you can keep an email address after moving away from them? It's the kind of service they might just offer for a token payment, and would leave you free to decide and migrate at leisure over however long it takes for the technophobes in your life to figure out the change, and to deal with once-in-a-blue-moon correspondents.

You can keep your BT email address for £1.60 a month. It's called BT Premium Mail.
https://community.bt.com/t5/Email/Keepi ... -p/1366061

That link is well out of date (2014) - BT Premium Mail now costs the outrageous amount of £7.50 a month
http://bt.custhelp.com/app/answers/deta ... -get-it%3F

Presumably for those people who really don't want to go through the bother of changing email addresses.

[Parky]

Have you checked with BT whether you can keep an email address after moving away from them? It's the kind of service they might just offer for a token payment, and would leave you free to decide and migrate at leisure over however long it takes for the technophobes in your life to figure out the change, and to deal with once-in-a-blue-moon correspondents.

You can keep your BT email address for £1.60 a month. It's called BT Premium Mail.
https://community.bt.com/t5/Email/Keepi ... -p/1366061

That link is well out of date (2014) - BT Premium Mail now costs the outrageous amount of £7.50 a month
http://bt.custhelp.com/app/answers/deta ... -get-it%3F

Presumably for those people who really don't want to go through the bother of changing email addresses.

Yes £7.50 a month is a bit much to avoid the bother of changing. Sorry about the misinformation.

[BobbyD]

One issue I recently had with having email hosted on my own domain, was my son's PC got compromised and started sending spam (on his email account). My hosting provider quickly spotted the problem and locked the email account, but they also blocked our IP address. So all access from home ADSL connection to all email accounts (different domains, but same provider), were blocked.

On the upside as the domain holder you can always reestablish access, something many other people have been unable to do with accounts from popular webmail providers, resulting in permanent loss of access to their account. Reason enough in my view to go down the own domain route.

Yes £7.50 a month is a bit much to avoid the bother of changing. Sorry about the misinformation.

Ouch, getting a domain is lots cheaper.

[UncleEbenezer]

Have you checked with BT whether you can keep an email address after moving away from them? It's the kind of service they might just offer for a token payment, and would leave you free to decide and migrate at leisure over however long it takes for the technophobes in your life to figure out the change, and to deal with once-in-a-blue-moon correspondents.

You can keep your BT email address for £1.60 a month. It's called BT Premium Mail.
https://community.bt.com/t5/Email/Keepi ... -p/1366061

That's a lot for a single address.

I have a similar contract from an old ISP, for which I pay rather less than that. But the big difference is what I get for it: not one address, but unlimited addresses (and a control panel) at my domain from that ISP. Really useful for giving out different addresses to different correspondents, so if spam starts arriving at one address I can close it down without affecting anyone else.

[bruncher]

Get more privacy:

ProtonMail
Tutanota
Mailfence

ProtonMail is free and they also give you limited VPN
Tutanota now has a desk app and also comes along with an encrypted calendar
Mailfence has several additional services bundles in

For limited use all 3 come for nothing.

EFF has this new campaign about email privacy and might help you checking how secure the provider is https://ssd.eff.org/en/blog/announcing- ... l-delivery.

Proton appears to be the most popular with those concerned with Google seeing everything you do. Here's there wikii https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ProtonMail

Mailfence has a very simple sign up process.

I pay for Tutanota.

I have been trialling Protonmail (free) for several months and find it excellent. I expect I will move to a premium account later when I use up my free allocated storage.

I also have several domains - one with names.co.uk which offers free basic email if the domain is registered with them, even if you don't buy hosting. Seems reliable.

I've also got domains and hosting with zen.co.uk -- I like Zen as a company, great customer service, but I do get error messages with the email service, so I'm not sure about staying long-term. My devices seem to lose contact with the Zen servers, but I'm hoping that sorts itself out. Perhaps this happens with all email services but only Zen reports it?

Looking at Protonmail's site just now it appears they do offer email service for private domain name. Sounds like the best of all worlds, I can't remember why I didn't go for it, I imagine I will at some point.

[formoverfunction]

"I have been trialling Protonmail (free) for several months and find it excellent."

I use the free version and have found it able to deal with the 70-80 emails I receive everyday. I pay for Proton VPN.

I've never really wanted my own, or needed, my own domain but I understamd they do support them.

I try to support the providers of these more privacy focused providers, so I pay for Tutanota mail. I've found them very helpful when I have a problem or want to ask a question. I use their dedicated apps on IOS, OSX and Linux (Debian).

There's nothing wrong with Gmail, but I find the way they've (Google) intergrated themselves in to the web creepy. I prefer for that reason to avoid them if i can.

If you've never tried it, you might also like TrashMail https://trashmail.com/ I use it to protect my email accounts.
This week I signed up for a service provider and went for the "No" notifications/marketing settings.
That evening I received 3 emails from them: a welcome, an offer to upgrade me, a notification to see what it would be like to be upgraded!
I changed them over to one of my Trashmail addresses, validated the new email address, then promptly deleted.
Silence returned!

[Gaggsy]

If you've never tried it, you might also like TrashMail https://trashmail.com/ I use it to protect my email accounts. This week I signed up for a service provider and went for the "No" notifications/marketing settings. That evening I received 3 emails from them: a welcome, an offer to upgrade me, a notification to see what it would be like to be upgraded!I changed them over to one of my Trashmail addresses, validated the new email address, then promptly deleted.

And presumably no bills until the bailiffs turn up? Oh, and no way to verify who you are when you want to change service provider again?
Maybe I'm missing something.

[bruncher]

If anyone is using Protonmail for personal domain email, I'd be interested to hear how that's going. In particular, if an individual has multiple email accounts, can these be accessed form a single login, or does each account have a separate login?

[formoverfunction]

If you've never tried it, you might also like TrashMail https://trashmail.com/ I use it to protect my email accounts. This week I signed up for a service provider and went for the "No" notifications/marketing settings. That evening I received 3 emails from them: a welcome, an offer to upgrade me, a notification to see what it would be like to be upgraded!I changed them over to one of my Trashmail addresses, validated the new email address, then promptly deleted.

And presumably no bills until the bailiffs turn up? Oh, and no way to verify who you are when you want to change service provider again?
Maybe I'm missing something.

You are, you're presuming it was a paid service.

It was actually a free trail for a breaking and market news provider with real time translation and the ability to create bespoke search lists. Interesting service, but I opted not to receive the marketing and update notifications by email. I already receive 70-80 emails a day.I didn't want any more.

I was trying to use it to do custome searches on private companies that I am interested in investing in. It would create a sort of "alert" list. Think RNS for unlisted companies.I provided them with a list of 20 company reg no's to see how it might cope. It didn't, they only found those with a listing. If it did, it would give me the opportunity to follow 000's of listed/unlisted/private companies and non-ORB fixed interest products. Almost a Bloomberg screen (for a very small amount each month). That's their plan anyway.

You are right in one way, you can pay Trashmail with Bitcoin. It's also possible to use Proton's onion address to conect via Tor. I think you can also use Bitcoin to pay for Proton, so it is possible to be quite anonymous. But, that doesn't imply bad faith, it implies that you expect providers to respect your privacy and choices. If they don't, it's not difficlut to send them in the wrong direction. I often "test" new sites out with Trashmail.

On a positive note, I did add to one of the watchlists a UK listed company with a recent corporate hiccup. It throw up articles from publications I hadn't heard of before. The usual manistream newspapers, investor sites etc, but the new ones gave a slightly different perspctive. Of course most of them required you to register to read....I was very happy to provide an email and validate it. For 30 days at least.