Email hosting advice please

[worsy]

My current business and personal email provider has been taken over by a bigger company. They had a horrendously managed dat centre migration this week, and I have noted anti spam is now a paid for service. And it's not cheap!.

I've also noticed that occasionally my business email isn't routed to my clients correctly, possibly as I use IMAP on an outlook install and it is routed with my ISP (BT) details and hence ends up in the anti spam filter.

So ideally looking for two services as follows:

Business
One mailbox, hosted exchange with domain. Potential to host a website.

Personal
Four mailboxes, require anti spam, domain hosted.

Don't mind paying but cost effective wins. Reliability is a factor though. I have looked at Microsoft @ £2.50 per user per month but that might be a bit expensive for the personal stuff where all I need is webamil, and IMAP connection and anti spam filtering.

Any recommendations folks?

[davgar]

I can recommend PCSMART http://billing.pcsmartgroup.com/aff.php?aff=4
I have a cheap reseller account with them that I use for all my domains.

or take a look at https://mxroute.com who offer a cheap email-only service

[ging84]

i suspect microsoft do a free usage tier, google seem to still be free for 10 mailboxes, but they dont seem to publicise it.

[bitchstewie]

For the business look at Office 365 or Google Apps.

For the personal I'd give GMail with email forwarding a look. It may not do what you want but you should be able to do quite a bit with it for free (and maybe more if you had a paid Google Apps account but that would mean mixing business and personal).

[buggalugs]

ging84 said:

i suspect microsoft do a free usage tier, google seem to still be free for 10 mailboxes, but they dont seem to publicise it.

Can you say any more about the Google Apps free tier as I believe it was discontinued in 2012, there was a way of getting 1 mailbox via app engine signup but that has also gone now I believe. There is no free tier on 365.

[ging84]

buggalugs said:

Can you say any more about the Google Apps free tier as I believe it was discontinued in 2012, there was a way of getting 1 mailbox via app engine signup but that has also gone now I believe. There is no free tier on 365.

I don't really understand it, i think they make it deliberately unclearly, i have an account from before 2012 and they send me confusing bills with credits but i also have an account from a couple of years ago which is also free
i only have 1 account on it, but i seem to be able to get all mail for my domain on it, i've been told by a few people you can still add more accounts as long as you stay under 5 or 10

[randlemarcus]

ging84 said:

buggalugs said:

Can you say any more about the Google Apps free tier as I believe it was discontinued in 2012, there was a way of getting 1 mailbox via app engine signup but that has also gone now I believe. There is no free tier on 365.

I don't really understand it, i think they make it deliberately unclearly, i have an account from before 2012 and they send me confusing bills with credits but i also have an account from a couple of years ago which is also free
i only have 1 account on it, but i seem to be able to get all mail for my domain on it, i've been told by a few people you can still add more accounts as long as you stay under 5 or 10

Grandfather rights. GApps used to be free <50, then <10 now not free, except to those who used to get it free, for whom it will be free forever.

[kev1974]

Just get 365, it's cheap as chips for what you get and gets better all the time. If your domain(s) DNS is with one of their partner registrars such as GoDaddy (or you move it there), 365 even sets up all the DNS entries in a flash for you as well now.

You could do the "personal" mailboxes as Shared Mailboxes which are completely free, the "restriction" is that you have to log on to them through the "primary" (paid for) account, which means they don't work natively on smartphones etc, although if you google it is possible to access 365 shared mailboxes directly via IMAP or POP3, so that's the way people tend to add them on smartphones/tablets without paying monthly subscriptions for them.

[buggalugs]

ging84 said:

buggalugs said:

Can you say any more about the Google Apps free tier as I believe it was discontinued in 2012, there was a way of getting 1 mailbox via app engine signup but that has also gone now I believe. There is no free tier on 365.

I don't really understand it, i think they make it deliberately unclearly, i have an account from before 2012 and they send me confusing bills with credits but i also have an account from a couple of years ago which is also free
i only have 1 account on it, but i seem to be able to get all mail for my domain on it, i've been told by a few people you can still add more accounts as long as you stay under 5 or 10

You can't sign up for free tier any more but if you already have it there are no plans to kick people off.

You used to be able to use your domain with Outlook.com but that's frozen now too.

Yandex does free email at your domain still if you don't mind the whole Russian thing. If it was a flower shop or whatever I don't see an issue there.

[worsy]

kev1974 said:

Just get 365, it's cheap as chips for what you get and gets better all the time. If your domain(s) DNS is with one of their partner registrars such as GoDaddy (or you move it there), 365 even sets up all the DNS entries in a flash for you as well now.

You could do the "personal" mailboxes as Shared Mailboxes which are completely free, the "restriction" is that you have to log on to them through the "primary" (paid for) account, which means they don't work natively on smartphones etc, although if you google it is possible to access 365 shared mailboxes directly via IMAP or POP3, so that's the way people tend to add them on smartphones/tablets without paying monthly subscriptions for them.

I'm leaning toward 365 and use synology to host a webpage. Will need to get a static ip though. I could of course use synology for email but the worry would be someone hacking it as a relay.

[bitchstewie]

worsy said:

I'm leaning toward 365 and use synology to host a webpage. Will need to get a static ip though. I could of course use synology for email but the worry would be someone hacking it as a relay.

You're worried about someone hacking the email on a Synology but you're happy to use it as a web server?

Running one of those as a public facing web server behind a domestic router that would terrify me tbh.

[TonyRPH]

OP with respect, it sounds as though you are trying to do everything 'on the cheap' (too much so).

I look forward to you posts "my Synology has been hacked" in the forthcoming months.

Why not simply buy a cheap web hosting package with mail?

I'm sure you can get a package which will support multiple domains for not too much £££ per month.

Sheesh!

ETA: 1 and 1 do some reasonable packages

Edited by TonyRPH on Wednesday 28th September 12:15

[worsy]

TonyRPH said:

OP with respect, it sounds as though you are trying to do everything 'on the cheap' (too much so).

I look forward to you posts "my Synology has been hacked" in the forthcoming months.

Why not simply buy a cheap web hosting package with mail?

I'm sure you can get a package which will support multiple domains for not too much £££ per month.

Sheesh!

ETA: 1 and 1 do some reasonable packages

Edited by TonyRPH on Wednesday 28th September 12:15

Not at all. I've already migrated to Office365 for my business stuff this morning; next is to drop my website builder package and just forward to my linkedin profile.

For my personal stuff I already have a "cheap" hosting package but they are now charging quite a premium for anti spam and with the kids email boxes I need it. They have also pished on their chips with the data migration move last weekend. So the choice is, another package somewhere else, or office365 @£2.50 pm per user.

I like the outlook interface and I also like the fact in time I could ditch my MAPS subscription and use Office online instead. I also won't have to move the domain registration. But would be significantly more than a cheap host package. Just weighing up options.

I do use the Synology for some stuff but well awae of its vulnerabilities.

[Brother D]

worsy said:

TonyRPH said:

OP with respect, it sounds as though you are trying to do everything 'on the cheap' (too much so).
I look forward to you posts "my Synology has been hacked" in the forthcoming months.
Why not simply buy a cheap web hosting package with mail?
I'm sure you can get a package which will support multiple domains for not too much £££ per month.
Sheesh!

ETA: 1 and 1 do some reasonable packages

Edited by TonyRPH on Wednesday 28th September 12:15

Not at all. I've already migrated to Office365 for my business stuff this morning; next is to drop my website builder package and just forward to my linkedin profile.
For my personal stuff I already have a "cheap" hosting package but they are now charging quite a premium for anti spam and with the kids email boxes I need it. They have also pished on their chips with the data migration move last weekend. So the choice is, another package somewhere else, or office365 @£2.50 pm per user.
I like the outlook interface and I also like the fact in time I could ditch my MAPS subscription and use Office online instead. I also won't have to move the domain registration. But would be significantly more than a cheap host package. Just weighing up options.
I do use the Synology for some stuff but well awae of its vulnerabilities.

It's not worth the hassle - just use 365 and take the added benefit of the office suite. Having had personal (and enterprise) experience of using both 365 and Google, I'd take 365 everytime.