I currently use Comcast for internet access and email accounts. In a couple of months, I will be moving to a locale with no Comcast service . I am thinking about getting an Gmail account from google and starting to inform my correspondents about the change of address. I assume that once I move, I can continue to use the gmail address and access it as a POP3 account so that I will only have to change email addresses once, and so that I will be immune to future email address changes due to moves, cable company mergers and bankruptcies. After going from @home to @attbi to @comcast, I would like to get some stability.

How do FTers like gmail? How does it work using it as a POP3 with outlook over cable modem? Does anybody have a better suggestion about how to handle the situation?

Mike

Gmail is a very good alternative service. Pros - POP3 access, no advertising signature. Cons - Hard to get a good user name & it is occasionally unavailable for a few hours at a time.

One suggestion I'd like to offer is to register your own domain name from any of the major registrars that offer free name forwarding. I use www.namecheap.com, but there are a lot of others like: register.com, godaddy.com, etc.

I currently pay about $11 a year for registering the name along with their anonymous registration service. This is one example of how the whole thing comes together using Gmail as the e-mail service:

<Example>

Your name: John Smith
Domain you registered: FTfan.com
Your Gmail id: [email protected]

<On your registrar account...i.e. namecheap>

Create an email alias as "[email protected]" forward it to [email protected]
Create an email alias as "[email protected]" forward it to the same address
Create an email alias as "[email protected]" forward it to the same

<On Gmail>

Set your "reply to" address as "[email protected]"

Now you can tell all your friends that your e-mail account is [email protected]
When using ebay, register as [email protected] (and remain anonymous)
On FT, register as [email protected] (ditto)

Mail addressed to any of these will show up in your Gmail box (or POP3)

If you start getting spammed on [email protected], just delete the account and create a new one [email protected]?

In any case, you can create your own permanent lifetime email address for about $11 a year. Create / delete up to 100 e-mail aliases. Set on up for your wife or kids @ FTfan and forward it to their hotmail/yahoo/whatever accounts. Also looks a bit more professional than the freebie accounts.

my $.02

I have used FastMail for several years, and am very pleased with it. I do pay $19.95/year for a full account which provides either IMAP or POP3; it saves me about $15/month not having email with my ISP. They also offer a free guest account (advertising, no POP3) and a member account ($14.95 once, no POP3).

Katja

Awesome suggestion--thanks. I registered a .us domain name with a 4 letter domain name that reflects my profession. It works like a charm to forward email to my comcast email address. I can switch to Gmail if I don't have a new address to forward to by the time I close down my existing account.

Is the namecheap email forwarding very reliable? They also offer POPmail and web mail-10 email addresses for 18/year.

I have a dozen accounts at namecheap and their forwarding is extreamly reliable, never had a problem

thanks for the namecheap idea.

Here's another: webmail.us

I moved one of my company email accounts over to them. One advantage is secure sockets email. When you travel and you are on a public wifi network, anyone can eavesdrop on your mail if you do not use SSL, so having SSL email is a great advantage. They have so far proven very reliable and their tech support people have responded promptly and intelligently.

Gmail uses SSL, just start your session with HTTPS...

Congrats Mikel, hope you'll be as happy as me having a good address.

Regarding Namecheap...when I started with them about 3 years ago the e-mail forwarding was pretty good, but occasionally mail would be delayed as much as a couple of hours. They claimed that their domain servers were attacked by viruses etc, but I don't think that's the whole story as my web forwarding ("A" records) were working flawlessly. Since then, forwarding seems to be just fine.

I don't use their POP3 or e-mail service - can't think of anything it offers that Gmail doesn't provide for free.

One other thing -- When using Outlook, I create a separate outlook e-mail account for each of my email accounts. Something like:

John - user name "John Smith" reply to address [email protected]
ebay - user name "ebay" reply to address [email protected]
-repeat- as necessary

The only reason to do this is if the additional accounts aren't there, if someone sends an email to [email protected] and you just select "Reply", it will be sent to him as "John Smith <[email protected]>." This kinda eliminates our anonymity. With the additional accounts you can compose or reply from "ebay <[email protected]>" by selecting ACCOUNTS > ebay before hitting send

I exclude ebay, and all others (except John) from receive/send sync (I'm set up that all mail comes into John anyway) no need to read multiple times from the same source.

Good luck!

Good suggestion. I already do this to keep my main email address relatively spam free. I have 4 email addresses, but use two of them. My wife also has a couple.

Gmail is much better than Hotmail and Yahoo!. The grouping of emails as a 'Conversation' is really logical and works beautifully.

Plus they support SPOP. Gmail really is hard to beat.

Gmail allows 2.5gb -- is this new, I thought they allowed 2gigs before?

Thanks for the gmail info.

It keeps going up

It started as 1Gb, and then on april 1st the counter started going up and up

It is growing all the time, now it is 2541.094517 MB, no wait, it is 2541.095081 MB ...

oddly enough, gmail doubled my invites to 100... must be for all those google-talk invites that might go out.