alternatives to Yahoo Mail
Yahoo Mail has been refusing messages from the commercial server which hosts twenty GP-US mailing lists. Nobody knows why. It's disrupting GP-US business. Yahoo Mail users who try to ask Yahoo what's up discover there is no customer support for a "free" commercial email account. Well, duh. The GP-US forum managers asked me to suggest some alternatives.
This isn't meant to be exhaustive. There are thousands of good hosting places. Nor is it an endorsement of anything.
FREESHELL.ORG is the best deal on the net. But only people who can follow simple instructions, and ask questions constructively when they get stuck, will be able to use it. And that's not Freeshell's fault. Freeshell is an educational non-profit. You get the account so you can learn something about computing and maybe share your knowledge. That means unix. If you don't want to learn anything, pay more, someplace else.
FORWARDING ONLY
If the company that sells you access to the Internet (your "ISP") throws in usable email service, use it. If you don't like the email address you get, get a better email address and have it forward to your ISP email address.
| $0 | Green Internet Society (donation supported, Greens only, Draconian terms of service.) |
| $0/year + $1 setup | Freeshell.org forwarding |
| $6.50/year | 007names.com .net domain comes with forwarding |
| $20/year | Pobox Basic account, forwarding + outbound SMTP |
| $50/year | Got.net forwarding (owned by Greens) |
MAILBOX SERVICE
If your ISP can't receive your mail and hold it until you get it, hire some other company to do that. This includes secure Web-mail for when you're away from your own computer.
| $0/year + $36 setup | Freeshell.org forwarding or inbound, hosting with shell, webmail. (the "ARPA level" account) |
| $15/year | GANDI.net is probably good, but I haven't tried their email. |
| $60/year donation | Green Internet Society (inbound and webmail only. I'm not offering mobile SMTP right now.) |
THE WORKS
If you don't have an ISP or they're worthless, buy your email service someplace better. "The works" means an address, adequate storage for your incoming mail, Web-mail for when you're on the road, and a secure way to send no matter where you are.
| $20/year + $36 setup | Freeshell.org "VPM" complete email service |
| Two Hours/year | Riseup.net (Volunteer service. Suggested donation: whatever you earn in two hours. Account start and tech support can be quite slow. Small mailbox.) |
| $30/year | Mail.com premium "plus" account only |
| $48/year | DSLextreme.com email only account |
| $50/year | Pobox.com Mailstore account |
| $55/year | GKG.net (.us domain + economy hosting) |
| $96/yea | 007names.com hosting+domain |
| $106/year | Newdream (Dreamhost.com) hosting+domain |
| $120/year | Got.net commercial hosting |
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Someone objected to my recommending Freeshell.org.
Freeshell is a civil libertarian organization, and dares to host a forum for people interested in how the packet-switched telephone system works. These hobbyists were long ago known as "phone phreaks" and there was an adversarial relationship between them and the Nixon Administration. Phreaks and other "white hat hackers" are our friends. They find security holes the vendors and the government would prefer to cover up, and that makes us all safer.
Shortly before the Internet was commercialized, Federal agencies busted most of the largest dial-up bulletin systems, because some jerk-off had posted a large text file called The Anarchist Cookbook on all of the BBSes he could find. There's nothing in that book you couldn't find in university libraries, but he'd collected it all in one place and the Feds wanted to make a point. Freeshell was busted in that campaign, operation Sun Devil.
My critic said Freeshell is a "haven for skript kiddies." But I have never heard that alleged anywhere else, and I think he must be thinking of the Phorum or the Sun Devil bust, and both of those are bogus allegations.