Mail: DIY or Google Apps

Speaking from personal experience I'd go with Google Apps. Free for a few accounts, only thing you need to set up is your DNS records and accounts within Google's web interface.

Running your own mailserver can be…overwhelming at times.

-Tim

I have heard many horror stories about running your own mail server - I have used Google Apps for several domains and I love it. Best choice if you don't need many accounts.

Thanx. Will have a look at Google Apps.

Google Apps is great if you want to get your email up and running quickly, or if you don't feel comfortable editing config files for the mail server daemons. It's especially great if you love Gmail (it's not Gmail, but it uses the features and interface directly from Gmail). On the flip side, people tend to be paranoid on whether or not a third party such as Google would read their emails. I doubt Google would actually do that, it's an invasion of privacy, and they'd probably get a lot of trouble if people found out.

If you prefer DIY projects, or if you like to tweak the settings to your own liking, I'd recommend your own mail server. From personal experience, the most difficult part will be the inital setup. Being that I'm not experienced at running a server of any kind, I found this to be rather confusing. However, once you learn the basics and have it running the way you want it to run, you don't need to give much attention to it except for those few very rare exceptions where your daemons (postfix, dovecot, etc) crash, which shouldn't happen if it's setup right. The main thing you need to watch out for is whether or not your ISP blocks port 25, this is the default port for sending email through a mail client, though you can change it in your mail server settings. Another option is setting up webmail on your server (Roundcube and SquirrelMail are two popular options). Once you have it setup, you just need to make sure your iptables firwall is setup properly and all should be fine.

If you want your own webserver there is quite a lot to learn, but I think I will draw the line here. Having my own mail server will be for another time. I will go for the easy route on this.

Quick note (in case you care). Google apps accounts do not support all services. I've run into problems with profiles and plus and youtube.

@Piki:

I doubt Google would actually do that, it's an invasion of privacy, and they'd probably get a lot of trouble if people found out.

You're kidding right?

Speaking of Google as semi-AI search&indexing entity, of course Google reads your emails:

https://mail.google.com/support/bin/ans … nswer=6603">https://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=6603

It reads your mail, indexes it and delivers context relevant ads.

Do any humans (in any IT company) snoop? Well:

https://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/ … oping.html">https://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/147398/oneinthreeitadminsadmitsnooping.html

If you do run your own mail server, I recommend having a backup MX in case your server goes offline for a prolonged period of time.

@Azathoth:

@Piki:

I doubt Google would actually do that, it's an invasion of privacy, and they'd probably get a lot of trouble if people found out.

You're kidding right?

Speaking of Google as semi-AI search&indexing entity, of course Google reads your emails:

https://mail.google.com/support/bin/ans … nswer=6603">https://mail.google.com/support/bin/answer.py?answer=6603

It reads your mail, indexes it and delivers context relevant ads.

That is a purely computerized system, not a human. It isn't an actual human. Thinks of how many people use Gmail, then think of how many people Google has in their Gmail division, then try to imagine all those Gmail admins trying to deliver all those ads to all those Gmail users. That would be impossible. A purely computerized system that has no human interaction except to fix a bug and test it on a server that nobody has access to doesn't concern me because that test server won't contain my Gmail account.

> Do any humans (in any IT company) snoop? Well:

https://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/ … oping.html">https://www.pcworld.com/businesscenter/article/147398/oneinthreeitadminsadmitsnooping.html

That article doesn't mention Google. Even if that does include Google, it's highly unlikely that they will zero in on a private email conversation of some unsuspecting person. Even so, it's near-impossible to get around the Internet without email, and it's near-impossible to find a job in today's Planet Earth that doesn't require at least a basic understanding of email and the World Wide Web. So we'd practically be stuck here, especially if our jobs require us to use the company email server rather than running our own.

@saman007uk:

If you do run your own mail server, I recommend having a backup MX in case your server goes offline for a prolonged period of time.

If you end up doing both a Google Apps account and a personal email server, one can be the backup. The Google Apps can be the primary until you get your personal setup up, than you can switch them if you choose to.

I'd go with Google Apps. I've used them for years. I like how I can just keep using them even after I switch hosting providers. Plus they very rarely go down.

Citadel. It's in the repository:

aptitude search citadel

Main Citadel site:

http://citadel.org/doku.php