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Comment by toomanybeersies | Hacker News Reader

And this is why I have my own domain, specifically for my email address. It doesn't have a website or anything, just a single email address, for my personal use.

That way I have full control of my domain name, right up until the point where I forget to renew it, and a domain squatter takes it from me.

There really must be something better than either of these systems. Being at the whims of Google isn't good, but having your own domain name has its own set of problems.

This also highlights why companies need to ensure that their systems are platform agnostic. This is why I don't trust things like Slack for business critical applications. Once you're locked in, it's bloody hard to get out.

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> That way I have full control of my domain name, right up until the point where I forget to renew it, and a domain squatter takes it from me.

This is why i renew my domain for nine (9) years at the time. Currently, my passport expires earlier than my main domain. Yup, I got my priorities straight.

Any particular reason why nine years instead of the 10 years dommain registrars allow?

My registrar allows 9-year renewals at most. I should check, as I renewed my main domain five years ago (four to go!).

I also think am own domain and email is the better option and I cannot understand why a company of 100-150 employees would use google mail. Is it because of searching, sorting options or something else that is much better with gmail?

A company I worked for (about this size) did it because cloud and gdocs and supposedly cheaper than buying exchange and office licenses and paying someone to admin it.

As much as I dislike MS, that still seems better than having your data held hostage.

I find being an admin for office 365 is about the same work as being a GApps admin. The main difference is MS have more licence options.

How do you know the OP wasn't using his own domain? It's pretty much standard fare for G Suite.

Think GSuite only works on your own domain. If you want gmail.com that's just regular Gmail.

I was meaning more for individuals, rather than businesses.

If your business is in G Suite, it is possible to migrate off as you do have your own domain name, just point your DNS records to your new server, and generate new mail accounts.

I was meaning more for personal use. I don't want my personal email address to be at the whim of Google, which it would be if I used an @gmail.com email address.

Obviously my email hosting is still at the whim of the host, who, like Google, can just cut my service if they want, but that's always a risk. I could host my email on DigitalOcean, but DO could cut my service. So I could host it on my home computer, but (ignoring spam filtering problems and uptime) my ISP could cut my service.

I've been doing that for years. Unfortunately, there's a fly in the ointment that seems to have been triggered by moving to a different virtual host on the same provider. AT&T has my new IP address on its own private RBL for some reason, even though a multi-RBL check at mail-abuse.org shows zero hits. SPF+DKIM apparently isn't good enough for them.

I have no problems sending mail to people on Comcast, Yahoo, GMail, or anywhere else - just AT&T domains.

I don't send out large volumes of email, nobody else is abusing my server, and attempts to resolve this go nowhere.

My web host leaves all IPs they own, including statics, on an RBL that lists and blocks dynamic IPs until you explicitly request they remove your IP from it. Essentially it ensures they don't have to worry about 99% of their IPs being used by spammers.

If you manage to forget to renew a domain on GoDaddy, you have only yourself to blame. Even if you have auto renew on, they start nagging you about it months in advance. Downright annoying, but I am always acutely aware of when a domain is expiring any time in the next... Year or two.

I build a small personal email backup solution. This is exactly what I suggest the users to do. If you have a profession that has a lot to do with the internet, having an own domain is almost compulsory.

https://thehorcrux.com/about/

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