E-mail / domain provider - Bluehost?

[McAndy]

Hi All. Quick recommendations thread, please.

I wish to migrate from Gmail to a self-owned domain e-mail (don't like my e-mails being read and profiled for advertising). I have invested in a domain with GoDaddy, but now have read tings to give me reservations about their data-handling practices. Bluehost seem to be well reviewed and reasonably priced; any positive/negative experiences from PHers?

All I want right now is e-mail migration to something I can use whatever app/front-end of my choosing, likely either ProtonMail or Apple Mail, but able to port to another in the future if a service doesn't survive. In time I may choose to host a small blog, probably with WordPress, given their prevalence and purported ease of use.

Thanks in advance!

[Bikerjon]

Personal or business?

In my opinion Gmail is streets ahead of anything that a typical web hosting service would provide. Wordpress is popular but many find it a complex and awkward tool and that's before you get into the added complexity of self-hosting/updates/security etc

Can't help feeling this might be a backwards step? If it's just for personal use Gmail and Blogger has you covered - for free!

[McAndy]

Personal. My issue isn't with the end-user experience (excellent indeed!), but having my e-mails scanned just doesn't sit well with me anymore. I'd rather pay a small amount for the product than be the product.

[akirk]

Any hosting company can provide SMTP / POP3 / IMAP mail services - very simple email servers which give you the basics of what you need:
- SMTP is how you send out
- POP3 is a dumb box (like a PO box for real mail) - when you connect to it you pick up any waiting email and then tell it to empty it from the POP3 box or leave it for another device like your phone to connect... but there is no intelligent syncing.
- IMAP gives you a server controlled intelligent system which syncs better across several devices.

Two best alternatives are:

- Google Mail (including using your own domain)
- Office 365

preference would be Office 365 for a very polished system, but you pay for it...

[Craikeybaby]

Whatever Google is calling their business offering these days would be my recommendation. It is about £5 or 6 per month.

[The Moose]

Pretty much any webhost will do what you are asking for a few quid a month.

[Lad]

I've used my own domains for email for over 10 years now. Initially, Google allowed this free on a service called 'Google Apps'. They closed the free bit back in 2012 but allowed legacy users to continue to use the features free of charge for life.

Well, they have just changed their minds on the free for life bit, so they are now forcing all to Google Workspace at approximately £5 per month. I'm not paying that on principle and certainly not to Google.

If you are in the Apple ecosystem, the cheapest way to do this is, in a secure and reliable manner is to use ICloud+. ICloud+ now allows email on your own domain for £0.79 per month. In addition, you get additional storage (50GB) and quite a bit of other stuff. And as it's Apple, it just works and stays working.

[McAndy]

Lad said:

I've used my own domains for email for over 10 years now. Initially, Google allowed this free on a service called 'Google Apps'. They closed the free bit back in 2012 but allowed legacy users to continue to use the features free of charge for life.

Well, they have just changed their minds on the free for life bit, so they are now forcing all to Google Workspace at approximately £5 per month. I'm not paying that on principle and certainly not to Google.

If you are in the Apple ecosystem, the cheapest way to do this is, in a secure and reliable manner is to use ICloud+. ICloud+ now allows email on your own domain for £0.79 per month. In addition, you get additional storage (50GB) and quite a bit of other stuff. And as it's Apple, it just works and stays working.

I am indeed in the Apple domain. Am I right in thinking that I still need a service provider to host a custom domain, however? I didn't think Apple did domain management (other than their own, of course).

[Lad]

You just change / update the MX records on your GoDaddy domain control panel to point to Apple mailservers. When you set up the custom domain on ICloud+, Apple give you the details as part of the process.

Have a quick search on using 'my own domain with ICloud'. There is quite a bit in the Apple support pages and also on Youtube.

It's pretty straightforward once you get going.

Edited by Lad on Friday 11th February 08:33

[Captain_Morgan]

McAndy said:

I am indeed in the Apple domain. Am I right in thinking that I still need a service provider to host a custom domain, however? I didn't think Apple did domain management (other than their own, of course).

A touch of confusion

You already have your domain registered with godaddy, whose ever email services you take up will have instructions on what domain records you change in your godaddy control panel, make those and setup your account on the email providers control panel (cp) and you done.

In essence a email address is comprised of two parts user@domain
You set your domain cp to point to the email providers servers, you manage the ‘user’ side on those email servers

You can point traffic for a website to a different host, meaning you can use separate hosting for a website and email

Also note if privacy is a high concern then as you mentioned earlier protonmail provide hosted email for personal domains

Examples

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212514

https://protonmail.com/support/knowledge-base/dns-...

Edited by Captain_Morgan on Friday 11th February 08:33

[McAndy]

Excellent, thank you. I think I understand now

So it comes back to whether Bluehost is considered a reliable and trustworthy domain provider? Or if there is another people would recommend?

[Lad]

I'm confused OP.

You have already purchased the custom domain from GoDaddy - right?

Why are you worried about Bluehost at the the moment? Unless, you have moved on from email and are now thinking about website hosting etc. ??

[McAndy]

Lad said:

I'm confused OP.

You have already purchased the custom domain from GoDaddy - right?

Why are you worried about Bluehost at the the moment? Unless, you have moved on from email and are now thinking about website hosting etc. ??

I am with GoDaddy, but fear I've made a mistake based upon their history of apparently poor privacy practices. As such, I'd like to move away and I'm considering Bluehost. (Apologies for lack of clarity!)

[akirk]

McAndy said:

Lad said:

I'm confused OP.

You have already purchased the custom domain from GoDaddy - right?

Why are you worried about Bluehost at the the moment? Unless, you have moved on from email and are now thinking about website hosting etc. ??

I am with GoDaddy, but fear I've made a mistake based upon their history of apparently poor privacy practices. As such, I'd like to move away and I'm considering Bluehost. (Apologies for lack of clarity!)

I wouldn't choose GoDaddy over others, but equally I wouldn't stress about moving away from them - if you use them simply to renew your domain, and as suggested above you point the MX records (DNS records for your email) elsewhere, then GoDaddy will have nothing to do with the privacy of your emails - they will simply act as an address book for email servers to look up the MX record and then know where to send your email

[Captain_Morgan]

McAndy said:

I am with GoDaddy, but fear I've made a mistake based upon their history of apparently poor privacy practices. As such, I'd like to move away and I'm considering Bluehost. (Apologies for lack of clarity!)

Sorry but for what?

Website hosting, email hosting or both?

As is said earlier if you already use iCloud+ then your email hosting would effectively be free

If it’s just hosting a website/blog then it’s of minimal worry who you host it with just maintain a backup

[McAndy]

akirk said:

I wouldn't choose GoDaddy over others, but equally I wouldn't stress about moving away from them - if you use them simply to renew your domain, and as suggested above you point the MX records (DNS records for your email) elsewhere, then GoDaddy will have nothing to do with the privacy of your emails - they will simply act as an address book for email servers to look up the MX record and then know where to send your email

Understood, thank you.

[McAndy]

Captain_Morgan said:

Sorry but for what?

Website hosting, email hosting or both?

As is said earlier if you already use iCloud+ then your email hosting would effectively be free

If it’s just hosting a website/blog then it’s of minimal worry who you host it with just maintain a backup

E-mail hosting, with possible future option for blog (although not important!).

That's a good shout. I've just checked over the iCloud+ docs and it looks ideal for me. I'll still need to have GoDaddy "home" my domain, but I can then just run the e-mails through Apple (if I've understood correctly?)

[Lad]

McAndy said:

I'll still need to have GoDaddy "home" my domain, but I can then just run the e-mails through Apple (if I've understood correctly?)

Exactly...!

[McAndy]

Lad said:

McAndy said:

I'll still need to have GoDaddy "home" my domain, but I can then just run the e-mails through Apple (if I've understood correctly?)

Exactly...!

Hurrah! (And at last!) Thanks for the help, All

[wombleh]

I moved my email for personal domain off Google recently onto zoho, small cost, nice features inviting easy migration from Google, the filtering of notifications and newsletters works very well for me.