Had an email tonight saying Tesco.net are shutting down their email servers. Not sure how many people use them but my main 2 email addresses are with them so it's going to cause untold havoc for me having to re-register multiple accounts. Had these email addresses for coming close to 20 years.
I was in a similar situation, so I bought a domain name a few years back. It doesn't matter which ISP I'm with, my email address doesn't need to change anymore.
Sounds like a lot of hard work where you're almost guaranteed to miss something As IanW says, I'm fortunate enough to have the use of a domain (my sister registered one and we have the same initial) which not only gives security, but makes me seem a touch more professional than @hotmail.com A bigger concern of mine would be the likes of bit-tech shutting down and losing touch with all the members. It's happened to other forums I know either through the owner's death or disinterest. "Well what was your friend called, maybe you can find them on Facebook?" "CrapBag"
You want to try being a journo and having to quote someone from reddit or the like. "Something important," says reddit user HorseDong69.
I bought my own domain and host my e-mail account on a VPS I configured. I'm pretty handy with postfix and dovecot now-a-days, if any of y'all need help.
I just went for O365. I had the domain for a few years and after a load of headaches with Google Apps, moved to 365 and haven't looked back. Don't have to worry about it shutting down, either, unless I stop paying the bill.
I have the best of both worlds: my own domain(s), but with a forwarder to Gmail so I don't have to faff around setting up my own mail server. Works pretty well. Pro Tip: If you have your own domain, set up a catch-all and give your email as companyname@example.net when signing up for things - then when you start to get Make Penis Fast spam to that address, you know which company sold your address or got hacked (and can ash-can just that address, as an added bonus.) If you don't have your own domain, see if your mail provider supports pluses in address for the same effect: example+companyname@gmail.com is exactly the same as example@gmail.com to Gmail's servers.
Okay so what does this cost. If I buy a domain do I keep that forever or is that a monthly cost? Will I then need hosting at a monthly cost?
Annual, usually. A lot of hosting plans come with a 'free' domain, though. Yes. At the very least you'll need DNS, if you're willing to host your email on hardware of your own; otherwise you're looking at anything from web hosting through to a virtual private server (VPS) to a real dedicated server. Costs vary. 123-Reg is pretty crap, but £1.20 a month for the first year (£4.19 a month thereafter) gets you started with a free domain to boot. 1&1 is initially cheaper then a bit more expensive, but has more storage space, databases, and the like, plus free SSL. I use Tsohost, which used to be great but is a bit crap now, and pay £5.99 a month for "Pro Hosting" but provide my own domains. Their packages start at £1.61 a month if you pay up-front for two years and include a free domain. So, personally, I'd say go for Tsohost's Personal Cpanel hosting at £38.59 for two years. You'll struggle to find much cheaper and not have it go up after the first year.
Hmm interesting, I think paying up front is more appealing, pay and forget type of thing. I haven't checked how many email addresses I can have with Sky so that might be a way to go for free.
Not a great idea to use an ISP for your main email, you’d be safer with Gmail or Hotmail/Outlook, if you change ISP you potentially lose your email. Or, as you have found out, the ISP can decide they no longer wish to support providing en email address.
If you use gmail then another tip for identifying who sold your email address on is to insert a + after the first part of the name and add the company name e.g. bigelf+companyname
Just saw that I had not programmed the + into my mail server. A simple MySQL statement for postfix fixed that. Next up is to add & to that as well. Apparently if you register with, for instance devdoge&gareth@squiglypoo.net, both devdoge@squiglypoo.net and gareth@squiglypoo.net should receive the email (if the websites are configured correctly).
My wife and I have mobile numbers that are only 4 digits apart on the last number. 381 Vs 377 and I'm sure if we'd had asked in Tesco's at the time they probably could have been sequential
