"To be, or not to be, that is the question"

[ReuvenNY]

An unknown (to me) philosopher once said “Timing is everything”. In a very peculiar moment, while we are all debating the 25% price increase Fastmail imposed on the Enhanced accounts, comes Google and announces the introduction of the IMAP protocol with their Gmail accounts.

That lead me to start thinking about what brought me to Fastmail almost 6 years ago and what keeps me with them.
In early 2002 Fastmail was a fresh, innovative email company which decided to depart from the norms of that day and bring about a service that didn’t exist then. POP is not as good as IMAP, they said; speed of the email and interface is important and a good control over your email is what counts. Being able to use my own domain for email as well having support for IMAP is what sealed the deal for me and justified spending $40 a year.

Things change - the Fastmail of those days is a thing of the past. It is much improved now - more storage, better redundancy along with numerous other valued improvements.
But the email world has changed around us in more than one way. Along with Fastmail we now have many companies that offer similar benefits, some paid others free.

And then there is Gmail...

Needles to say, all my comments here are my personal opinions and are not necessarily an “universal truth”. But Google is the only company I trust to a large degree. I believe that they mean business when they say “do no harm” - and please do not try to change my belief system...

So what do we have here: we have Fastmail and Gmail - two companies that offer 6 Gig storage (Gmail will reach it in a few weeks), now both offer IMAP support. Through “Gmail Apps for your domain” I can have up to 50 separate accounts, each 6 Gigs, using my Thunderbird and not worrying about bandwidth.

With Fastmail, at renewal I’ll be paying for one Enhanced account, two Full accounts and one Member account (no current payments on this one) a total of $90 a year. That’s for my family’s accounts.

With “Gmail Apps for your domain” it will all be free of any charge.

True – there are many important differences – some in favor of Fastmail, others in favor of Gmail. But for me IMAP is a great equalizer – I use Thunderbird and with this client all messages look the same.
One important advantage of Gmail is their stellar search, one that Fastmail is talking about for years, with no action. Not to mention the calendar…

So the question is no longer a hypothetical: does it make sense for people like me to stay with Fastmail and pay all those fees, or is it time to move on to “Gmail Apps for Your Domain”?

[ankupan]

In my opinion ,

I will pay to FM Enhanced for these particular features

1. Virtual Domains (right now I have more than 10 domains and controlling from just one FM account and playing with alias.

2. I have stored one "Under Construction Page" and I can point this page to any of my virtual domain and even I can cloaked my any of virtual domain any time..... EXCELLENT

3. I am retrieving my three business account through POP in my different FM folders and I deleting these messages just after reading, so whenver I am traveling, than just FM account solve my all problems on dial up connection

4. SPEED is BEST on any type of internet connection.

5. I have made one Folder for my business brochure which are in PDF files. so I am not carrying CD/DVD/Pen drive, just FM account is enough for that.

6. FM support is always better than others (except webmail.us)

7. FM payments are customize and understand the customer needs.

8. I believe, free things will never be free in future, so better to make own choice right now, which is FM.

9. Missing feature : I need unlimited bandwidth account from FM and I am ready to pay for that.

Originally Posted by ReuvenNY

An unknown (to me) philosopher once said “Timing is everything”. In a very peculiar moment, while we are all debating the 25% price increase Fastmail imposed on the Enhanced accounts, comes Google and announces the introduction of the IMAP protocol with their Gmail accounts.

That lead me to start thinking about what brought me to Fastmail almost 6 years ago and what keeps me with them.
In early 2002 Fastmail was a fresh, innovative email company which decided to depart from the norms of that day and bring about a service that didn’t exist then. POP is not as good as IMAP, they said; speed of the email and interface is important and a good control over your email is what counts. Being able to use my own domain for email as well having support for IMAP is what sealed the deal for me and justified spending $40 a year.

Things change - the Fastmail of those days is a thing of the past. It is much improved now - more storage, better redundancy along with numerous other valued improvements.
But the email world has changed around us in more than one way. Along with Fastmail we now have many companies that offer similar benefits, some paid others free.

And then there is Gmail...

Needles to say, all my comments here are my personal opinions and are not necessarily an “universal truth”. But Google is the only company I trust to a large degree. I believe that they mean business when they say “do no harm” - and please do not try to change my belief system...

So what do we have here: we have Fastmail and Gmail - two companies that offer 6 Gig storage (Gmail will reach it in a few weeks), now both offer IMAP support. Through “Gmail Apps for your domain” I can have up to 50 separate accounts, each 6 Gigs, using my Thunderbird and not worrying about bandwidth.

With Fastmail, at renewal I’ll be paying for one Enhanced account, two Full accounts and one Member account (no current payments on this one) a total of $90 a year. That’s for my family’s accounts.

With “Gmail Apps for your domain” it will all be free of any charge.

True – there are many important differences – some in favor of Fastmail, others in favor of Gmail. But for me IMAP is a great equalizer – I use Thunderbird and with this client all messages look the same.
One important advantage of Gmail is their stellar search, one that Fastmail is talking about for years, with no action. Not to mention the calendar…

So the question is no longer a hypothetical: does it make sense for people like me to stay with Fastmail and pay all those fees, or is it time to move on to “Gmail Apps for Your Domain”?

[chuckster]

it's all common sense, why should you pay for something
when it's being offered to you for nothing?,,, and there is no catch
[well maybe for the text ads - but like in any other forum which seriously doesn't bother most. text is text and it's unintrusive]

there is such thing as "free lunch" with google that is.
consider it a reward to the mass for their infinite success.

i can envision fm will just become a small charity box. don't challenge the truth.

[Terry]

What about g-mail security....
Can you send an e-mail to a tech guy and get a reply with in a few minutes, I can with Fastmail.
what about sieve script and blocking unwanted junk mail, I could not achieve this at all with g-mail but then I had a common e-mail name which on my part I realise now it was silly.

People complain about the cost but really it's $1.00 a week not bad for what I would call an excellent e-mail service with support, yes they are a small company but they do care about their customers and give excellent customer service.

Just my 2c worth.

[don_dannielo]

I hear that fastmail increases to $50/year?
That's new for me.

With google apps premier, for the same $50/year you get:

- 25 GB
- Policy management and message recovery + email routing (probably much better than fm's sieve rules)
- 99.9% uptime guarantee for email
- 24/7 assistance, including phone support for critical issues
- no ads
- APIs

I only listed things that free gmail doesn't have.

[ankupan]

Every one has some different need and having different choices too.

Some one need Fastmail or Gmail or still people are using services like hotmail/Pobox.com.... or 10 MB mail box from their ISP only.

[pcs]

Originally Posted by ReuvenNY

True – there are many important differences – some in favor of Fastmail, others in favor of Gmail. But for me IMAP is a great equalizer – I use Thunderbird and with this client all messages look the same.

I think I share the sentiment of the statement above. IMAP is sort of (for me) the great equalizer. For a few years now, I remember thinking (probably along with everyone else) "if only Gmail had IMAP..." and now they do. One item that might be worth mentioning in this discussion (especially when we talk about IMAP) is that I do not think that Gmail supports IMAP idle, where your e-mail is actually pushed to you if you are using a capable device/mail client. I'm not absolutely positive that Gmail doesn't support idle, so anyone please do correct me if I'm wrong. Anyway, interesting discussion.

Edit: Looks like Gmail supports IMAP Idle.

[ReuvenNY]

I just wanted to emphasize one very important factor (and a couple of others) in the way I use my email:

I only use Thunderbird IMAP - hardly ever the user interface, be it Gmail, Fastmail etc.

All the web interface advantages/disadvantages mean very little to me.

Furthermore, I am really talking about a Family type account, not just enhanced for $50.

No one knows what will the future bring, but as I stated I do trust Google as much as I trust Fastmail. Size doesn't always matter.

[ao1]

Originally Posted by don_dannielo

Policy management and message recovery + email routing (probably much better than fm's sieve rules)

Being a heavy sieve user, I will be very interested in a comparison.
Or is your "probably" just a guess?

[nricciardi]

Originally Posted by pcs

One item that might be worth mentioning in this discussion (especially when we talk about IMAP) is that I do not think that Gmail supports IMAP idle, where your e-mail is actually pushed to you if you are using a capable device/mail client. I'm not absolutely positive that Gmail doesn't support idle, so anyone please do correct me if I'm wrong. Anyway, interesting discussion.

That is very important and is something I also would like to know. Since I still do not have IMAP on my gmail account, I can't test it. I wonder if anyone could verify if IDLE is supported.

Thanks.

[nbarr]

Originally Posted by pcs

One item that might be worth mentioning in this discussion (especially when we talk about IMAP) is that I do not think that Gmail supports IMAP idle, where your e-mail is actually pushed to you if you are using a capable device/mail client. I'm not absolutely positive that Gmail doesn't support idle, so anyone please do correct me if I'm wrong. Anyway, interesting discussion.

I have not found anything in Gmail's Help files to specifically indicate that it does. However here is a list of what is not supported and IDLE is not in that list.
My own testing clearly indicate to me that IDLE is supported since test mail sent to my account show up immediately in my mail client.

[nricciardi]

Originally Posted by nbarr

My own testing clearly indicate to me that IDLE is supported since test mail sent to my account show up immediately in my mail client.

Thank you nbarr, for the feedback.

[28pfds]

Originally Posted by ankupan

In my opinion ,

I will pay to FM Enhanced for these particular features:

3. I am retrieving my three business account through POP in my different FM folders and I deleting these messages just after reading, so whenver I am traveling, than just FM account solve my all problems on dial up connection

Or you could use three separate Gmail accounts, and with automatic forwarding and filters, do exactly the same thing! And of course you set up the other Gmail accounts on the one you want to read them all through so that when your reply to an email from account "B", it appears to get sent from account "B",even though you sent it from account "A".

4. SPEED is BEST on any type of internet connection.

You know, I hear this a lot, but in reality, how much extra time are we talking to process an email? One second? Two? Who is in that much of a hurry. I personally think this is a bit of a read herring.

5. I have made one Folder for my business brochure which are in PDF files. so I am not carrying CD/DVD/Pen drive, just FM account is enough for that.

No biggie on Gmail. If you have 3 address and 3 accounts, you have 18 gigs of storage space. So store your stuff in Gmail by keeping it as an attachment to an email to yourself on the one account you one to work from and work with it. Or better yet, you can use Gspace in Firefox and you've got a virtual drive on each account to do the same thing. This one is pretty much a tie.

6. FM support is always better than others (except webmail.us)

You only need support if your email provider is not working according to how it should. I've had no issues in three years with Gmail. I've asked questions and gotten answers. No, not in 24 hours, but it wasn't a problem report either.

7. FM payments are customize and understand the customer needs.

Gmail is free.

8. I believe, free things will never be free in future, so better to make own choice right now, which is FM.

Gmail makes $billions from its various divisions and has no need to ever sabotage itself by charging for email accounts. In fact, look back a couple of years and you'll recall that Yahoo and Hotmail both charged for various features (extra space, POP access) even though the account was free. That has all gone away now and Yahoo offers unlimited storage and free POP. Hotmail has also increased storage, etc. So it seems that in fact that pay model isn't going to be expanded.

9. Missing feature : I need unlimited bandwidth account from FM and I am ready to pay for that.

Your bandwidth is unlimited on Gmail. No limit per month or billing cycle as to how much you can pass through the system. And in the end, most ISPs have limits anyway.

[mvpittman]

AOL / AIM has had free IMAP for quite some time now. Any reason you don't trust them as much as Google?

Heh, that's almost a joke, I don't trust either of them, but I'd pay to not be served targeted ads based on the content of my e-mail.

[ReuvenNY]

Originally Posted by mvpittman

AOL / AIM has had free IMAP for quite some time now. Any reason you don't trust them as much as Google?

Heh, that's almost a joke, I don't trust either of them, but I'd pay to not be served targeted ads based on the content of my e-mail.

If you register an email domain with AOL, they own it! You can not bring your own.