Tell HN: Why Fastmail is the best email service

16 points by stereoradonc 1 year ago | 8 comments

I was concerned about the costs involved with Fastmail email service. There were several options to consider.

ProtonMail is overhyping the "encrypted" email charade. 99% of the humanity doesn't need anything of that sort. Runbox was hyping on its "green credentials". I didn't consider it much thereafter. Hey.com has a cartoonish email interface and their play on the email service is interesting but useless. I couldn't take them seriously after poking around for 5 minutes. There are other interesting services (purelyemail) but that's in Beta.

Zoho was a major disappointment backed up by a poor customer support. Email sent to their support remains unaswered even after 12+ hours. I have requested them for a refund and is avoidable. I considered iCloud+ with a custom domain and Google Workspaces but I was concerned about lack of support on both services.

Fastmail offers everything. I have my configuration set up on iphone and works flawlessly. No issues with their mobile app or any restriction on their alias generation. I have unlimited Masked Emails generated through BitWarden as my password manager.

TL;DR Stick with Fastmail for peace of mind. It is expensive but offers complete value for money.

jraph 1 year ago |

> ProtonMail is overhyping the "encrypted" email charade. 99% of the humanity doesn't need anything of that sort

Did you mean that 99% doesn't need unencrypted mails, and 1% would love to have open bar access to the emails of others (to "fight against criminality", or to "offer" a personalized ad "experience")?

I could have just ignored the whole post but this idea is harmful and needed a reply. The idea that people don't need privacy needs to die.

It's not even like it is an argument against protonmail and it doesn't convince me that fastmail is better. Fwiw I don't use any of them, I don't know them, I self host my mails unencrypted but this last characteristic is a bug, not a feature.

methou 1 year ago | |

ProtonMail's encryption is PGP, and it's difficult to get PGP right. The whole signing party thing doesn't scale. If it can't be done right, then it's just a hype at best.

jraph 1 year ago | | |

OK, that's a substantive comment (which I don't have the experience and knowledge required to judge), and very different from saying that people don't need encryption. It was the main thing I wanted to do: counter this statement.

Now, it would not be enough to state that fastmail is better than protonmail. It matters to me because I would like to know what to suggest to someone who'd like to leave one of the big player. The original author took the time to write a Tell HN post to advise us fastmail, but fails to give an actual reason why it is better than the rest.

I don't need a mailbox for myself but should I advise someone, I'd be inclined to suggest a local association, and then maybe protonmail because iirc it turned non profit. I'd be happy to find arguments for or against this. I don't much know about protonmail nor fastmail and the original post didn't advance me though it kinda wanted to. We just know that the author prefers fastmail and the post read a bit like an ad.

methou 1 year ago |

I love their masked email. Normally other offerings like SimpleLogin (by Proton) or Addy.io are $3+/mo.

Fastmail's masked mail is an effortless addition to existing services, at no extra cost.

3000 1 year ago |

i just wish they hired a designer to make it look a bit prettier... its a pain every.single.day to open the inbox. great service other than that.

archb 1 year ago | |

On the contrary, it is their current design that makes me like it more than other options.

dankwizard 1 year ago |

Wish adblock could have detected this post.

iamnotafraid 1 year ago |

I Always pondered who would use this …