Tell HN: Why Fastmail is the best email service | Hacker News Reader

Tell HN: Why Fastmail is the best email service

16 pointsstereoradonc8 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.

> 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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

Wish adblock could have detected this post.

I Always pondered who would use this …

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