[TriLUG] Suggestions for mail hosting.

[Jeremy Portzer]

Brian Daniels wrote:
> Anyone with experience in third-party email hosting?  Places like pobox.com and 
> similar?
> 
> Bellsouth's (now AT&T) mail servers have been annoyingly flaky for a month or 
> so, delaying messages hours or even days, returning messages unsent after three 
> days, etc.  So, I'm looking for somewhere that can host my email, letting me 
> pick it up via POP3.  It needs to be an actual host, not just a redirector, as 
> redirecting to my BS account wouldn't help in this case.
> 
> I don't want to use gmail/hotmail, because I don't trust either company enough.  
> I don't mind paying a reasonable (<$100) yearly cost.  Running my own server is 
> out, violates TOS and they port block.
> 
> I've found pobox.com and a few others, but I'd like some reviews before I go to 
> the hassle of changing my email address.
> 

I've used pobox.com's redirection service for over 10 years now.  It's 
surprising that something has been around that long in the Internet but 
it's true!  (I remember I got the account when Mindspring bought out 
NandO.Net's ISP service, which I just checked and was in 1996.)

At any rate I've never used the "Mailstore" service, only mail 
redirection, but I've found their customer-service absolutely 
first-rate.  I had a problem once with mail not being forwarded from a 
distribution list, and when I filed a ticket they had identified the 
problem, corrected it within hours, and gave me access to technical 
details about it if I wanted - great service.  Their spam-protection 
service is also pretty good, catching about 80-90% of the spam I get.

Assuming their customer service carries over to their IMAP service (why 
would you use POP3?  That's so 20th century!), I am sure they'd be fine.

--Jeremy