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-   -   FastMail Testimonials (http://www.emaildiscussions.com/showthread.php?t=1560)

neerav 13 Dec 2001 03:46 PM

FastMail Testimonials
 
I've been using FastMail for a few months now and I know that we are all impressed by the service, support, improvements, etc. Many forum members have emoted awe, satisfaction, surprise, humor and more in registering their comments on the forum. However, the comments, or "testimonials" are spread across and buried in over 150 threads, and rapidly growing. If I were to jump into this discussion group as a new user today, I would be overwhelmed by the number of threads. Before signing up, I know one of the first things I would want to see is what the "established" users think of the service.

So, I propose that this thread be the repository of testimonials from us, the FastMail users. If you have posted a testimonial in another thread, repost the clipped version of it here (avoid linking, so a new user can see all the testimonials in one window). If you have a testimonial, post it here. If you send such a comment to Jeremy and Rob, post the key parts here, so all new users can also read it and conclude for themselves that FastMail is the absolute BEST!!

This thread should be the second thread a new or prospective user reads (the first one being "Sticky: New Forum Guidelines - Please Read")

A very satisfied FastMail user.

--Neerav

neerav 13 Dec 2001 04:00 PM

To seed this thread, here's my testimonial from a while back in this forum:
Quote:

testimonial: I live in an area where signing into [other email services] can take upwards of 15-30 minutes sometimes. And then each message takes 5 minutes to load. However, two of my friends signed up for fastmail AND logged into the service in under 2 minutes (and that too on a bad connection day). They refused to believe how fast the site really was until they experienced it themselves.

Good work guys. You're the beginning of a new trend/movement!!

neerav 13 Dec 2001 04:07 PM

And one from an email I sent to the webmasters:
Quote:

I cannot impress enough on how awed I am by the changes being made on FastMail. I'm excited about the new interface (folders on the left). The new css schemes. The new tech forum. The new poplinks. And so much more!! Jeremy and Rob, you are doing a great job. But you already know that!
--Neerav

Ann_jr 14 Dec 2001 01:43 PM

Why I'm impressed
 
For one thing, FastMail is really fast. And clean. And straightforward. I love having everything load so fast over my dialup connection. I'm not sophisticated enough to know why, but messages downloaded to my computer via POP take consistently less time than the same number from my Yahoo account.

But the absolutely greatest thing is the responsiveness of the guys behind the works. I've gotten an answer quickly to every question I've asked, even if it was the middle of the night in Australia. I really have the sense that FastMail is their baby and it's going to keep working, and working ever better and better.

Will I pay for the service? You betcha!

ikxu 14 Dec 2001 11:33 PM

neerav's idea
 
I think your idea is just great!!!
ikxu

tenekun 19 Dec 2001 11:44 PM

I would like to mention what I love most about Fastmail. It is something I have never before seen in either a free or pay-based e-mail service, and it really is ingenious. It is the simple, square, humble "Bounce" button. All I have to do when I get a spam is open it once and click "Bounce", and it is as if my e-mail address did not exist. It is just like those devices one sees on the television that you plug into your phone, and when a computer-dialled telemarketing call comes in, the device sends a "number disconnected" signal to the computer, and you are taken off the telemarketers' lists. It is just like this, but It does not cost $49.99 plus Shipping and that mysterious, very expensive process called Handling. The "Bounce" feature is really a very simple idea, but one that is certainly unique. I cannot imagine e-mailing without It. You must all see the greatness of Him, the Great "Bounce" Button. This is not to diminish the other myriad great features of Fastmail, such as the multiple signatures and "From" addresses or the many beautiful styles, or even that helpful message: "Welcome Brandon Siegel! It is almost Oh-Dark-Thirty and what the heck are you doing checking your e-mail at this hour?", which has helped me realise perhaps caffeine is not a _direct_ substitute for sleep. But the glory of the "Bounce" button is one of the best features anywhere! Thanks Rob and Jeremy, and all the rest of the FastMail staff (if there is such a thing).

P.S.: Almost forgot one thing... This e-mail service is so fast! (hence FastMail). I love that too!

--Brandon

spruce 20 Dec 2001 02:40 AM

Easy Interface, Expert features
 
It seems very easy to use, and works great "out of the box", but I was actually looking for advanced features when I came across this. It's not the first email site to come up on a search engine like google, and I actually found a reference to it on slashdot after a search on "postfix". Anyway, I use fastmail's correct and extensive support of "plus addressing" which is splitting the local part of your email address to a user part and detail, like "user+box@host" allowing for easy filtering. If you give out a different detail part of your email address to each contact you have. This combined with the ability to reject messages based on the envelope part of the SMTP transaction allows me to bounce most spam easily, a method unavailable to most POP users whose ISPs "loose" the RCPT TO part of the SMTP mail delivery protocol by the time the end user sees an email's full headers. There are hints that some of this will soon be developed into their optional Personality setup "soon" as well. Combine this with the great forwarding features, and you also have multidrop mail for the masses. You can bet fastmail.fm will get my $40 a year (their *maximum* membership level - minimum is free!) as soon as they start allowing users to pay for this great service.

creed205 20 Dec 2001 01:52 PM

Well this is my second day using FastMail and I think being able to access my e-mail with IMAP from anywhere is amazing. Using a POP server is not as flexible.

Great service!

platypus 21 Dec 2001 06:13 AM

Can't even activate account
 
When I click the confirmation URL that was mailed to me, I just get error messages. No reply from Fastmail.

Jeremy Howard 21 Dec 2001 06:39 AM

Re: Can't even activate account
 
Quote:

Originally posted by platypus
When I click the confirmation URL that was mailed to me, I just get error messages. No reply from Fastmail.
We saw the error in our logs when it occured and had emailed you within 24 hours to the address that you registered when you signed up with the details of how to avoid the error message. We have always replied to support requests with 24 hours, and most of the time we respond within 1 hour. Perhaps in this case you didn't notice our email to you. If you still want to complete your signup please send an email to webmasterATfastmailDOTfm so that we know what address to send the details to.

platypus 21 Dec 2001 10:00 AM

Apologies!
 
Indeed.

I owe you an apology. You are absolutely correct. I just logged in at Fastmail.

//platypus

psalzer 24 Dec 2001 01:33 AM

Well, I've been playing around with my new Fastmail account for a few days now, and I'm crazy about it. Fast and reliable are the bottom line. If you don't have that, as far as I'm concerned it doesn't matter what else you do have, and Fastmail has those covered well.

A few other things that are really exceptional:

The ability to use different personalities and send things out from your own domain name or varioius domains all from this one account. Although that seems to be something that could be abused, it's also invaluable for legitimate reasons and Fastmail says they've got they're not worried about the abuse angle, so it's an answer to a lot of problems for me.

As another poster mentioned - the bounce button. It's better than a filter. I love it..really love it.

The ability to use custom.css if your browser supports it. I'm just starting to play with that one. I have one mostly done that I'm going to use while at work. It's too similar to sandy blue which someone already did to bother offering it up as a regular choice, but I'm trying to make it look as much like the SAP screen as posible because we use SAP at work. With a little more tweaking my personal e-mail screen will look like production work.:) Then I'm going to work on a more "fun" look for home. What could be better? BTW, if anyone else is using SAP at work and would like to have a look after it's done - like at least a few days after Xmas, let me know.

The poll messages works really well, too. Since I'm using a notifier for several accounts I'm not depending on it yet, but it seems sufficient if you're having everything sent to Fastmail.

And of course there's the fact that it's being done by people who not only seem sincere and who know what they're getting into, they seem to be capable, relatively unflappable which is very important in this kind of thing and they have a real plan as well as obviously knowing what they're doing. I chose webhosting for several accounts on that basis and haven't had reason to be sorry, so I'm hoping that this will be the same.

Right now, I'm using ureach and am signed up for webhosts, domain and all kinds of things with that address, so I'm planning to use both and even pay for both for a few months but hope to switch entirely over to Fastmail in the coming year.

merrie 27 Dec 2001 09:40 AM

glad to be here
 
I've emailed the Fastmail webmasters Jeremy and Rob, and it was suggested to me that I put my comments on the forum to share with anyone new who may be considering signing up with Fastmail. Below are some comments taken from my emails to Jeremy and Rob:

"I am a former Visto user. I am one of those you rescued. There is no way to say how grateful I am for the care you have shown us. Especially developing the tool for "detach to folder" for the attachments was a life saver.

"Over the last several days, as I have used my new account and had some time to read the FAQs, I have come to appreciate everything about your service even more. I don't know very much about technology, but the little I have picked up has helped me understand (on the fringes of understanding) some of what I've read on the forum threads. I feel very safe here.

"One more comment--I notice on the forum threads, you (Jeremy) have sometimes mentioned not getting too technical for the newbies. I have to say
that I very much like to read all the tech stuff. Even if I don't fully understand it, I feel that I will somehow absorb it by osmosis! ;-) For example, I have read technical comments on mailing lists, and from that I picked up a kind of sense of what things mean. When I saw Perl mentioned in a couple threads, I thought, 'hmm, they might be using Linux' (which to me is a very good thing!) [That's just a guess--no one has mentioned specifially whether Linux is used in creating and maintaining the service.] It was one of the factors that made me feel safe and like these are people who really know what they are doing.

"I'm afraid my complete enthusiasm for Fastmail has not come through as strongly as I feel it. I plan to recommend this service to everyone. I've already been recommending it whenever I email anyone.

I'm feeling very at home here, like this is more of a community or even family than just a service.

Thanks for your responsiveness and everything about Fastmail--you are appreciated!" :-D

I plan to at least become a member, and possibly get a paid account. I don't need more than the basic service, but I want to support the Fastmail service and make sure it stays viable. And I'm just plain grateful! ;-)

Merrie

OtaconTV 2 Jan 2002 12:04 PM

I have my own testemonial, I put it up at my site. The sites still in beta and it's just starting, but the fastmail page is up. Here Jeremy or Rob is this okay?

Jeremy Howard 2 Jan 2002 12:32 PM

I think it's great. I really like these personal testimonials--for a new user considering using FastMail.FM, it's much better to see someone's real-life comments than just read some ad. For instance, the tip to try to learn the interface despite the learning curve is really valuable.

Two minor corrections:
and if you really don't like it use Outlook Express if your really don't like it: Avoid duplicate "if you really don't like it".
No I was not paid to right this: "right" should be "write".

You may or may not to include a suggestion to include your username in the 'referrer' field when they sign up. Doing this has the benefit that you get account credits if they become a paying customer, but on the down-side your testimonial becomes a little less credible because you benefit from it.

OtaconTV 3 Jan 2002 09:39 AM

Fixed the errors, as soon as I find my password for FTP i'll re-upload it.

At the bottom of the page I'll put " by OtaconTV or something so they'll know my name, and if they see the refferrer field then they can enter it if they want. I don't want it to become un credible.

5 Jan 2002 02:51 AM

Fastmail vs. GMX
 
Last month, I asked for some feedback about Fastmail and GMX mail services. Based on the responses I got, I decided to try them both.

Although my experience with GMX has, so far, been positive, I must say Fastmail has one decided advantage. Namely, FM allows you to send multiple attachments whereas GMX only allows you to send one. Aside from this, I still think GMX is a good mail service.

However, given FM's features and acclaimed technical support, I would advise anyone who is looking for a good, free (for now) e-mail service to give FM serious consideration. As much as I like AltaVista, I think I will start using FM as my primary e-mail address for all business communications as FM does not have those annoying, unprofessional tag lines!

Shelded 5 Jan 2002 02:29 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Jeremy Howard
You may or may not to include a suggestion to include your username in the 'referrer' field when they sign up.
And if you're lucky all sorts of spammers won't figure out that your username@eml.cc is a way to get in touch with you. :D

admiralu 10 Jan 2002 06:54 AM

FastMail is awesome!
 
I learned about this service when Visto was going under. FastMail is attractive, the style sheets really look nice! :) It has a clean simple interface and having no tag lines is really great! The speed of screen loading is wonderful!! :D I will definitely be signing up for the paid service when it becomes available. I have a lot of crappy free emails and most are not worth it. I would rather pay for a reliable email. I am looking forward to the storage as well. The programmers have done a wonderful job of creating a great email service that really works and looks great without those annoying ads!

Nddnow 18 Jan 2002 05:53 AM

Fastmail
 
:) Nothing like Fastmail.fm Super Fast and user friendly!!:)
Also i was just able to get my brother to sign up for a fastmail account he loves it to!

tnt 21 Jan 2002 10:09 PM

I've been using fastmail for a couple of weeks now and so far it has been really great. IMAP works great, web interface is really great too and really fast! All in all, I highly recommend it!

BTW, I was quite lucky when mail.com tried to get $39.95 out of my account the other day and my card was on the limit! (even though I had chosen the $2-3 a month option a couple of years back!) No love lost there! I was paying those $40 and I was getting loads of adverts too, it was "under maintenance" most of the time and extremely slow!

So, I'll be sure to pay $40 for the max fastmail membership option!

Keep up the good work guys!

Theo

nitripps 6 Feb 2002 08:30 PM

fastmail.fm is great. when i heard that mailandnews.com was closing and felt lost, i used a migration tool made by Jeremy, and moved my account flawlessly. all stress was removed from a stressful situation.
fastmail.fm is also very fast, just as the name implies, but what sold me was the customer service. they are available here in this forum all the time. bill gates isn't here ever. enough said about his product.
thanks Jeremy you've got a wonderful product.

nitripps

ladywriter 7 Feb 2002 04:40 AM

Wanted to thank you for this fast and easy to use service. I'm not a techie like most of you here. There is nothing easier to use that I have found. Would I pay....absolutely!

drkotsius 23 Feb 2002 09:56 AM

:)


FastMail is the best thing on cyberspace since Google, only more
friendly and social. I am the stingiest person when it comes to
the web, I like my services free if I can get them... Yet, basic
FastMail membership is such excellent value for money, that not
only have I gratefully paid up for one, but I will give more away to
friends and family as presents as soon as the opportunity arises!
The FastMail.fm forum is an excellent source of knowledge, not
just for email, but for other things as well. Let us all join to keep
those nice people afloat, the ugly face of capitalism has so far
remained on FastMail's 'blocked addresses' list. Keep it this way!


:)

robert@fm 1 Mar 2002 12:34 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by shelded
And if you're lucky all sorts of spammers won't figure out that your username@eml.cc is a way to get in touch with you. :D
Or better still, if (say) you use hitler@nazi.gov.de to post to newsgroups, spammers will take that for your real address, and lower the already-negative value of their lists by adding it!;)

BTW, I just tried to log in to my FastMail account, but accidentally used my OperaMail password.  When I succeeded (using the correct password), the server warned me of the "unauthorised" attempt to access my mailbox!  I like that, it shows real concern for customers! :D

(edit: the exact greeting message I got was:

Quote:

Welcome to FastMail Robert Baker. It's a little after quarter past three in the afternoon .
Your last successful login was at Thu, 28 Feb 2002 12:21 PM
There was 1 failed login attempt between your last successful login and this login. The last failed attempt occured at Thu, 28 Feb 2002 3:16 PM
I know of no other mail provider which notifies its customers about potential security breaches like this...)

lmg 1 Mar 2002 11:17 AM

FastMail has changed my life. Since I started using FastMail, I've reconciled with my wife, I got another dog, my truck fixed itself, and the warden tells me next week I'll get out of prison! Yeehaa!

OK, not really.:p I got it as a new personal email address because my old primary address got on the spammers list. I still need the old address, but it is now heavily spam filtered. I've moved my personal correspondence over to FastMail because I like the features, the quality of service and the character of the people running it. I also like the nostalgic feel of being able to talk to the developer about a problem with his system, rather than having to deal with a Help(less) Desk full of clueless message takers.

I wish Rob and Jeremy much success with FastMail.

jonathan 3 Mar 2002 05:21 PM

Glad to be here
 
I'm glad to have found fastmail.fm My other services, Ureach.com and Ziplip.com, have the WORST customer service in the business. I DON'T recommend them. I will recommend Fastmail.

frmarcus 4 Mar 2002 10:17 AM

Fastmail efficiency
 
I've used a couple of web-based servers; Fastmail is certainly the quickest. I've only been using it for a few weeks but found no problems whatsoever. Speed is the most impressive thing, and it enables me to do all I wish with e-mail.

Well done, Fastmail!

mlevin 7 Mar 2002 08:59 AM

Naysayers
 
Found a posting by some FastMail naysayer (well, he said he liked it but didn't think it would last).

http://www.freelists.org/archives/po...llthread1.html

Actually, I found it by doing a google search for "MSignal" -- I wanted to learn a little more about those crazy FastMail URLs. Incidentally, are there any whitepapers on the FastMail architecture? I'd love to learn more about how it works. I understand that Jeremy & Rob may not want to reveal many of the details as a security precaution (and also so people don't steal their ideas, although I really doubt very many people could build a FastMail clone simply by knowing a little about the architecture!).

DBH 12 Mar 2002 12:48 PM

One word to describe FastMail: AWESOME!!

jshumway 19 Mar 2002 04:33 AM

My 2 cents
 
Fastmail is the only service that you need to consider.

I am one of those people that has changed my email address way too many times. I am always looking for the feature set that did not exist - at least I did not think it existed before I found Fastmail.

I work on many computers, both at home and at work, so a web based email package made sense. Unfortunately, there are times that you need/want the power of a desktop email package and POP is not a good solutions if you use multiple computers.

For a while I tried the old backup and then restore the mail files of various email packages, but that is tedious and error prone.

IMAP is the only way to go. Then you have all of the strengths of web based email (primarily availability) with the ability to use a full-fledged email program when you need additional power.

I have also found the community here to be very helpful and the company behind Fastmail seems dedicated to making this service the best.

Thanks,

Jeff

19 Mar 2002 12:16 PM

Fastmail is Awesome
 
Fastmail is the best!

I searched and searched for a email service that really suited me. The service is great at a great price. As I searched I saw many companies offering small storage space at high prices. They were asking for even more money for more storage space. Being a college student, I simply cannot afford these other services. But then I found FASTMAIL. What a great service!

Thanks to Jeremy and all the Fastmail guys. You truly have an awesome service. I'm telling all my friends about you!

unhappysoul 20 Mar 2002 09:14 AM

Great Support
 
I'm not "paid" customer BUT support and help by Jeremy was beyond "call of duty."

I understand if Fastmail support regular paid users but case like me where I was making mistakes ( closing account ) and changing
mind ( from fastem.com back to fastmail.fm ), Jeremy helped me
correct problems without one single "comment" about my action.

I truely feel that FASTMAIL is for the people operated by REAL
PEOPLE behind it, unlike other emails where only suppor you get
is AUTO-REPLY!

Once again thank you for personal help Jeremy !


Paul

joep96tt 21 Mar 2002 09:00 AM

FastMail Testimonials
 
Well, after visto shut up shop I was a guest member for a while, & I've since upgraded to an enhanced account & moved the compnay's domain over as well, & it's well worth the money, even after the currency conversion into Aussie dollars (pesos ?). In fact, the only thing we're using our ISP for now is to actually hook up to the net. Jeremy was most helpful in sorting out some issues we had with setting up & delegating our domain-name - we got answers & action happened over email within half an hour. Try doing that with your ISP without having to wait on hold for an eterenity.

Cheers
Joe

poelmanc 21 Mar 2002 02:06 PM

Kill Spammers
 
I could say a ton of things about the convenience of having an IMAP interface over POP3 (I can read mail using Outlook at home and using the web when I'm on the road and the two stay in sync in terms of deletions, marking messages as read or unread, etc), the speed with which pages load (fast!), the more professional image my email gets by having my own real "From:" address and no tag lines, etc.

But instead I want to talk about how little SPAM I receive since switching to Fastmail! My Inbox used to beep constantly during the day as I received lots of SPAM. In fact, for a while after switching to Fastmail I wondered if everything was working right because I got so much less email. It was actually because very little SPAM was getting through. It's not just from switching email addresses - all my old email gets forwarded to my Fastmail account - but Fastmail evidently goes a good job of filtering out mail from known spammers!

When I do still get SPAM, I can use the "Bounce" command to return the mail to the spammers and make them think my email address is no longer valid! That's something no other service that I've ever seen does! And if they keep spamming (or if they're so disreputable that they've forged all their headers in which case the bounce message probably wouldn't get through to them), Fastmail makes it easy to set up filters to ignore that particular spammer forever.

Very nice work, guys!

-- Conrad

azukre 23 Mar 2002 10:41 PM

Recently Yahoo decided to charge for pop access. I spent days to find a good free email provider.


There are alot of them out there, but some of them just not that stable at all.

Out of all the free email provider. Fastmail is the best. I tried so free email, but none of them can compete with Fastmail.

erimess 24 Mar 2002 12:07 PM

Re: FastMail Testimonials
 
OK, here's mine copied from another thread I just posted to (maybe after I've been around a bit longer I'll post another):

OK, my testimonial. I haven't been around too long, but I'm already happy.

Recently losing Alta Vista was a major thing to me. I started signing up for different accounts and sending myself stuff to see what they were like. Someone at work also pointed me to emailaddresses.com and I was totally overwhelmed by the number of free services out there, but the forums contained so many messages with good stuff to say about Fastmail that I immediately signed up. (BTW, I would've only gotten there through the forums because emailaddresses only listed fastmail.ca and I couldn't get into that.)

One very small feature is what made me decide almost immediately this is where I wanted to stay: the ability to return from a message right back to the same page in the same folder (without just using the back button), a feature that seemed to be missing from most emails -- they all wanted to return me to page 1, or made me go to the folders list to get anywhere else. I like having that dropdown list of folders right there on all message list screens. (And I like the new interface with the folders listed to the left, showing all the time, with number of messages. That about makes it perfect.) I also really love the dropdown box next to the from field that apparently will allow me to change personalities -- I'm at guest level and don't know what this does yet, but it looks promising for when I level up. I've only seen that before in Alta Vista. (As opposed to changing identities like in OE.)

And one great advantage over Alta Vista is that if I have a question or problem I don't have to wait three days to get some auto response telling me to try something I've already stated I tried and didn't work... IOW, this forum.

I haven't had a lot of time to go through the FAQs or play with stuff -- I have only one week left to make sure everyone gets my change of address and clean out my old email. But I'm finding new stuff all the time and expect I'll just get happier as I go along.

DBH 26 Mar 2002 04:36 AM

Oh...sorry...that's a bummer! :( E-mail this problem to webmasterATfastmailDOTfm. Good luck!

kom 3 Apr 2002 07:14 AM

Informative service
 
Although I can't make informative comment about the intuitiveness of the interface or the speed of the service yet, but there is something to notice about fastmail. There was a service problem this morning (email delayed by 4 hours), the staff noticed that, fixed the problems, and posted a notice in the news section before I thought of checking the news section.

Talk about efficient, fast, informative problem solving by fastmail staffs!

kom

JohnnyUtah 3 Apr 2002 07:40 AM

After being spammed unmercifully at my hotmail address, I tried Yahoo. Some spam, nothing to get upset about; but then they decided to charge for pop access. I went searching, and tried a couple of other email providers, but fastmail is the bomb! No spam, no ads, it's smokin' fast, has a great interface, is easy to use (or learn to use). I'm keeping this address!


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