jackal

My company deals with thousands of transactional (not marketing) emails each day.

Comcast is one of the worst for deliverability. Many emails sent to Comcast accounts never generate a bounce but also never actually show up anywhere in the recipient's email account (inbox, spam folder, etc.). They just disappear into the ether.

My experience both at work and at home is that if you want a reliable (and free) email address that both minimizes email deliverability problems and also pretty much effectively blocks spam (without many false positives), you should use Gmail.

In general, there's rarely a good reason to use an ISP-issued email address. Email is not a profit center for ISPs, so they don't invest in good infrastructure. The back-end processes are poor and the front-end UI is usually poor as well. The only reason the ISPs even still bother to provide email accounts is because they know it increases friction for users who want to switch to another ISP. If another company comes along with a better speed, a better price, better service, etc. and you decide to cancel Comcast, it's going to be a massive headache to log into every site you've ever done business with and update your email address to your new account. The hassle involved with that means that you may think twice about switching, even if the other ISP is better.

Email service providers that focus 100% on email tend to do a better job developing and maintaining their infrastructure as well as being on the forefront of technologies that serve to maximize the delivery of legitimate email and minimize issues with illegitimate messages (spam, etc.), like SPF/DKIM/DMARC/etc.

I'm currently trialing Fastmail. It's a paid service, but they seem to offer an very reliable, rock-solid, and customizable product, plus (since it's their main business and revenue stream) they are on the cutting edge of support for new developments in email technology and standards. It lacks a few of Gmail's bells and whistles (and I'm missing Gmail's "All Mail" mailbox and search functionality), but I've appreciated a lot of the settings I can tweak under the hood to make it work how I need it to. I doubt I'll make it my primary email (I'm too reliant on Gmail's search function to keep my life organized), but it has its uses for me as a secondary account and works better than just about any other non-Gmail provider I've seen (and better than Gmail for a few things).

Fredd

Thanks for your comprehensive and useful comments. ^

As it happens, I'm not a fan of Google and GMail (nor of Comcast), but that's neither here nor there. As you write, to change email addresses is a massive headache, certainly when it's been my primary address for 12 years.

Is there a list somewhere of FT-approved email addresses? I haven't encountered another company refusing to email me because I have a Comcast email address, and this still perplexes me.

It would be annoying to go through the hassle of changing my email address only to learn that the new one doesn't qualify to receive subscription notifications.

jackal

It's not that FT has to approve an email address or is refusing to email you.

FT is emailing you, and Comcast is not delivering them to your inbox. The blame lies squarely on Comcast.

The blame would lie on FT if they were out of compliance with email standards. But a glance at the email headers reveals they are properly signing the emails as industry best practice dictates:

It's not on FT. It's 100% on Comcast. The only two possible solutions are:

1) Choose a more reliable email provider than Comcast (I've provided advice on those lines above)
2) Contact Comcast and request they fix the problem with their email service (good luck)

The only way to know for sure that a different email address you set up will be either to test it yourself or rely on recommendations from others here vouching that a particular service works.

And I will vouch that I have never had a single email issue with Gmail, ever, in the 12 years I've had my multiple accounts with them, both personal and work. This includes emails from FT.

(I would also be cautiously optimistic that Fastmail would work well, too, but cannot vouch for them as I have not truly extensively tested it yet.)

Others may be able to vouch for other services. I will say that the likelihood of having problems decreases significantly when you use a dedicated email service rather than an ISP's, which is usually an afterthought for them.

You don't need to change your entire email account at once. Set up an account with another provider, change your FT email address to it, and test it for awhile. If it works well and you like the interface, then you can start switching things over. Or, perhaps even better, use a dedicated email client like Thunderbird or Windows Mail or something and aggregate multiple accounts into a single virtual inbox. Then you can get your FT emails in a good account that works well to receive them and leave everything else in your Comcast account to save the headache of switching. Or set up forwarding from your Comcast account to your new account so all emails just get forwarded to your new one. (You can then decide which address to give others in the future to message you at, but it won't matter, as it'll all go to the same inbox.)

Fredd

Thanks very much for this additional information. ^ Actually, this doesn't surprise me.

I've experienced problems over the years not receiving emails from Canada, Australia, and the UK. In some cases, the senders have had emails bounced back, and in other cases the emails have simply disappeared, which is of course even worse. Comcast's explanations have been lame and I realize that problem could recur at any time, although fortunately it hasn't for several of the same email addresses for a few years now.

Maybe it's time to immerse myself in the nightmare of changing email addresses.

Cheers,
Fredd

JDiver

IMO, GMail is the best answer. I've not had problems with delivery, though GMail is very efficacious at intercepting spam.

Fredd

Thanks! ^

Being retired and having time on my hands, I've just tried jackal's option 2 ("Contact Comcast and request they fix the problem with their email service (good luck)").

Two phone calls later I was directed to the webmaster.comcast.net site, where I filled out a request form for "unblocking." The form seems designed more for a sender of blocked emails than the receiver, but there was at least a pulldown allowing me to identify myself as a Comcast subscriber. The IP address and official domain name jackal supplied were very useful, at least in terms of completing the form.

That took close to an hour, and I think I'll now invest some time more productively in checking out some email alternatives, including GMail.

Update... At least the form reply was prompt:

Update: I changed my FT email address to my Hotmail address and it's working like a charm for now as far as subscription notifications.

danger

I'm not in the US and I don't use Comcast but I've still had the non-delivery issue.

cblaisd

Would also suggest that you first buy a domain name so that from now on out if you change your "real" email inbox address, you simply have to update the forwarding address on your domain name's control panel.

Ongoingly, then, you simply start using [email protected] (or whatever) and let it forward to gmail or comcast or whomever where you pick it up.

I've had our own family domain name for almost 20 years and it's money very well spent.

bernyx

also not receiving emails on hotmail and have ATT internet, receiving through gmail address

bhrubin

A few days ago, I suddenly began receiving email notifications for all posts in the threads to which I'm subscribed. I've never wanted emails, and I've always subscribed with no emails.

What the heck happened? Is there a glitch that turned on my email notifications for all of my threads? Has anyone else experienced this?

IBobi

Seems like you may have accidentally changed this setting in your profile?

• MyFlyerTalk
• Edit Options
• Messaging & Notification
• Default Thread Subscription Mode: switch to Do Not Subscribe
• SAVE

To unsubscribe or change notification mode for individual threads, you'll need to go into each thread and unsub -- or use the unsub link at the bottom of the emails.

EDIT: you can also go to your Subscribed Threads folder, select the checkbox for each one that you want to change or cancel, and use the dropdown at the bottom to do so.

bhrubin

I did change that setting to wanting NO EMAIL NOTIFICATIONS. But that's when I started to receive all these email notifications! Makes no sense to me.

I am not trying to cancel my thread subscriptions. I'm trying to avoid receiving email notifications after each post in those threads. The setting supposedly does that...but it didn't and instead sends me emails to every post in every thread I'm subscribed to now.

Is there no simple fix to this glitch?

IBJoel

Do you receive instant emails from every thread you are subscribed to or just some?

bhrubin

Every time someone posts to one of my subscribed threads, I get an instant email.

Tech support is apparently now aware of the glitch and doesn't know why it's happening. They are manually unsubsribing me and re subscribing me with no email notifications for every one of my subscribed threads! (Even though I previously had always selected no email notifications for every thread.)

IBJoel

How have your notifications been since you made this post?