That's the kind of suffocating influence we don't need
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| herzeleid Feb 07, 2008 4:04 PM EDT |
Now imagine if microsoft did succeed in taking over yahoo - what a nightmare scenario. |
| moopst Feb 07, 2008 4:45 PM EDT |
They should have waited until they got Yahoo!, but doing so would have given Gmail more of a head start. Kind of funny though, they're making the case of those who said the Yahoo! takeover bid was bad for the internet, free standards and innovation. |
| mdl Feb 07, 2008 6:39 PM EDT |
As long as choice is available, I don't care what MS does. I hear people complain all the time about Hotmail (or is it Hotmal?). I ask them why they use it when there are so many better free alternatives. They say "I dunno, can you help me?" I say "no". |
| herzeleid Feb 07, 2008 7:50 PM EDT |
Quoting:As long as choice is available, I don't care what MS does.I think that's the very point we were discussing. This gives us a little peek at life under microsoft, at how they would love to run things if they only had more control. So, If microsoft takes over yahoo that's one less choice, and that gives them even more leverage to bully those who would have preferred to use non-microsoft tools. By the time that you notice your own choices drying up, it will be a little late. |
| vainrveenr Feb 08, 2008 12:51 PM EDT |
Quoting:So, If microsoft takes over yahoo that's one less choice, and that gives them even more leverage to bully those who would have preferred to use non-microsoft tools. By the time that you notice your own choices drying up, it will be a little late. Wondering if Microsoft would take a little hint should a critical mass of Hotmail subscribers sever their MS-connection and switch to Gmail and/or other viable non-MS choices ? Maybe this could effectively nullify MS's "bullying leverage". |
| jdixon Feb 08, 2008 1:38 PM EDT |
> By the time that you notice your own choices drying up, it will be a little late. As long as programs like SquirrelMail and the other opensource webmail applications exist, you'll have options. If you have broadband, there's no reason to be limited to the commercial choices now: Just run your own web based email server. |
| hkwint Feb 08, 2008 2:30 PM EDT |
Quoting:I ask them why they use it when there are so many better free alternatives. As a current Hotmail user and Microsoft-basher I might like to answer that one. The first and most important reason is I'm _NOT_ going to use anything Google - apart from their search engine. I wouldn't be using their search engine at all if ask.com wasn't worse than Google. After I found out about the Google cookies not expiring before 2038 and lying about its reason- and after someone 'fixed' behaviour but Google on its turn 'disabled' that fix, I'm not that keen on Google anymore. I might try Yahoo! (mail), but they don't seem to have a good business conduct in China either. So Gmail or Yahoo mail are out of the question, given privacy concerns. Sure, probably Mircosoft scans my mail too. But given the efforts of switching, there has to be an improvement when switching, and that's not going to happen by means of using GMail. Second point: My Hotmail-account is already 9 years old. I had never used anything non-Microsoft when I registered it. It never let me down. Even when sending mails how to stop the pre-installation of Microsoft software on OEM-pc's or how to stop software-patents in the EU (of which Microsoft was the biggest proponent) I didn't receive Windows adds or so. Third point, based on the second point: I'm locked in and partly afraid to lose contacts. A lot of people have my current address, and I'm not willing to bother them with an address change. Yes, I'm the problem here. 95% of my country uses MSN as their IM protocol. Not having MSN is out of the question in my country. Today, you don't need Hotmail anymore to be 'allowed on MSN', but I'm too lazy to find out. So, maybe one could look at reasons why 'not to use Hotmail'. Indeed, Hotmail didn't work with Firefox for some time. I was one of the first in the world to find out since the new interface was rolled out first in my country, Holland (probably because of the biggest MSN-messenger market share of the whole world in my country). However, just changing the interface to 'minimal' (or so) it was fixed. I liked the minimal interface better anyway, but it still sucks when you want to delete messages. For some reason I put up with it, though I wonder why. Probably the point made before: Locked in lazy user afraid to lose contacts - not willing to switch to GMail. I also don't like being redirected to the MSN portal when logging out and being counted at Alexa, but a quick ctrl-W does the trick, or even better, blocking the msn.com domain using Adblock or so. Sure, I have been fed up with Hotmail in the past. That's when I went looking for another - rather gratis - address which could last for more than five years. Lycos was not gratis. I also wanted POP3 support. Well, in this world it's really difficult to find a 'paid for' cheap e-mail address with POP3 support, able to survive for ten years - without also buying other hosting services. Finally I found one, an inet-domain with a mail-address which you could forward to any other address. You could forward that to the address given to you by your Internet Service Provider, and after that, switch ISP without having to use a new e-mail address. For €7,50 that looked like a cool and cheap solution to me. However, I needed to send a copy of my passport, and I was to lazy to do so. Today, a copy of ones passport isn't even needed anymore, and still I'm to lazy. Luckily, not everybody is as lazy as I am. So - as an answer to the question why people keep using Hotmail I'd say, because such a web-based e-mail addresss can last for years, those people are locked-in, and they're afraid to lose contacts. Also, finding a privacy respecting 'gratis' alternative isn't that easy as one might think. Talking about it, I should really buy that €7,50 forwarding domain. |
| tracyanne Feb 08, 2008 8:04 PM EDT |
I'm just wondering why you seem to think the only choice is Hotmail or Gmail, I use neither. In fact I don't use any web based mail accounts, not even the one my ISP so graciously provides me with. |
| herzeleid Feb 08, 2008 10:09 PM EDT |
What Tracyanne said. Come to think of it, I had a gmail account once but never used it. Thanks to linux I can easily run my own mail server, with choice of pop3, pop3s, imap and webmail, complete with a mailguard spam quarantine management system, and it's all free software. |
| Sander_Marechal Feb 09, 2008 2:43 AM EDT |
@hans: Just get your own domain name and set up e-mail there. I'm sure you can forward mail from your hotmail account to your new e-mail account. It's easy. Set up IMAP and install SquirrelMail if you really need a webinterface. With domain names as low as 10 Euro per year and hosting as cheap as 2 Euro's a month there's really no excuse. You could even set up a mailserver at home if you want to. XS4all even encourages that and offers fixed IP addresses just for that purpose. |
| hkwint Feb 09, 2008 4:31 AM EDT |
Off course I rather run my own mailserver. But as far as I know that means I have to forward ports in the ADSL-router, my PC has to run and dissipate heat for 24 hours a day (that's not an option), and my ISP shouldn't block some ports (not sure). Also I have to update those mail server often to make sure it's no security risk. There's the problem: I don't like webmail either, but it's a cheap way of being able to read your e-mail all over the world without needing a computer which is turned on 24 hours a day. |
| gus3 Feb 09, 2008 9:08 AM EDT |
DynDNS.org has support for intermittently-connected mail servers, although it expects your mail server to be online most of the time: http://www.dyndns.com/services/mailhop/relay.html |
| jdixon Feb 09, 2008 9:21 AM EDT |
> Off course I rather run my own mailserver. But as far as I know that means I have to forward ports in the ADSL-router, my PC has to run and dissipate heat for 24 hours a day (that's not an option), and my ISP shouldn't block some ports (not sure). Also I have to update those mail server often to make sure it's no security risk. Don't run your own mailserver. Let whatever company you choose to host your domain do that for you. Almost all of them will do so. Then just use fetchmail (or some equivalent) to download the mail to your machine and process it as you see fit. |
| herzeleid Feb 09, 2008 11:16 AM EDT |
Quoting:Don't run your own mailserver.Oh please, pretty please, can't I? Linux comes packed with all the goodies I need - be a shame to let all that power go to waste. Quoting:Let whatever company you choose to host your domain do that for you.My primary domain is hosted on my DSL line - and none of the hosting providers I've looked at offer anything nearly as nice as what I have set up. My own linux-powered dns servers work with views, and are faster and more responsive than the typical ISP dns servers. My mail server gives me total control and fast access to the mail, while keeping the spam out. I do use a hosting provider for some web sites I maintain, but I don't have any use for the rudimentary mail or dns services they offer. |
| jdixon Feb 09, 2008 11:28 AM EDT |
> Oh please, pretty please, can't I? Of course you can. But hkwint doesn't want to, so there's no reason he should have to. In his case, he should let his provider receive his email for him and only use his machine to provide the web interface he wants. |
| hkwint Feb 09, 2008 3:02 PM EDT |
Sounds like a good idea JD, and it's almost the way I'm going. Probably I'm 'buying' hkwint.nl for five years (.com was a bit more expensive), and re-direct any mail coming in to my mailbox at my ISP, from where I can fetch it using POP3. Once I live on my own, I'm temporarily living at my parents home now and they're concerned about the electricity bill and fire, I'll buy an 'environmental friendly' server for in the 'meter cupboard' (I hope that's the right term, never heard it before) to be running whole day or so, and of course it has to be 'fire-safe'. Or I should look at those wall outlet 'plugin servers' or so. Also, once owning my own internet connection again, I'm free to fiddle with portforwarding and the ADSL router till I drop without other persons being without internet (or, for that part, to fiddle with my PC's damaged northbridge-fan without my parents being in the dark again after the occasional short-circuit I always tend to make). If I have an own mailserver I should be able to forward the mail to hkwint.nl to my new IP-address, so moving once or twice and switching ISP's / IP nr's shouldn't be a problem. Once all that's done, I probably will never understand why I ever used Hotmail again. Oh no, I'm wrong, I don't understand it today either. |
| techiem2 Feb 09, 2008 4:01 PM EDT |
I use a hybrid setup here.
I have accounts on all the "major" services - yahoo, hotmail, gmail (though I never actually USE hotmail), as well as my domain host accounts.
My server retrieves the mail from my pop3 domain accounts and yahoo (via freepops - http://www.freepops.org - nifty pop3 gateway program to webmail and such accounts I saw the other day) using getmail.
It retrieves my hotmail spam using gotmail.
The mail is passed off to procmail which processes the mail and puts stuff into my maildir:
1. virus scanning,
2. User procmail whitelist filter set (sort stuff into appropriate mail folders)
3. User procmail blacklist filter set (nuke stuff you KNOW is junk)
4. Dspam
5. Spamassassin
6. User spamassassin rules autokill procmail filter set (If SA marks it at bayes-99 or whatever at this point you can be pretty sure it's spam)
7. DSPAM marked messages to dspam folder
8. SA marked messages to SA folder
9. Anything remaining goes to inbox I have dovecot IMAP running on the box for access to my maildir. I personally use the Horde Framework setup on the box for access now. But I used standard IMAP clients like tbird and such for a whilie. Outgoing mail is delivered to postfix on the box which relays it on to my domain host via authenticated smtp (fortunately they run their smtp servers on several ports since my wonderful ISP decided to block outgoing port 25 connections...). My gmail I use directly. Personally I really like the setup. I can access my email from anywhere I have internet, and it's nice and heavily filtered so I don't see much spam. :) |
| thenixedreport Feb 09, 2008 10:04 PM EDT |
hkwint, I have an offer for you..... The web hosting I use allows up to so many e-mail addresses to be created. I am obviously not using near all of them at the moment. I have the ability to hook you up with a unique e-mail and inbox. It can do POP3 and IMAP. You interested? |
| hkwint Feb 10, 2008 5:03 AM EDT |
Thanks very much for the offer. Hmm, I like to have my own domain nonetheless. Just a case of the ego I guess. In case I need it, will let you know. |
| dinotrac Feb 10, 2008 8:38 AM EDT |
This thread is very interesting and all, but, I keep wondering -- what kind of suffocating influence DO we need? |
| jdixon Feb 10, 2008 8:51 AM EDT |
> ...what kind of suffocating influence DO we need? Well, Dino, since I just followed a link to the comic, most men I've known would seem to prefer something like this: http://wickedpowered.com/d/20061211.html |
| dinotrac Feb 10, 2008 9:22 AM EDT |
I stand illuminated. |
| ColonelPanik Feb 10, 2008 12:50 PM EDT |
m$ LookOut? Its more than just mail! |
| hkwint Feb 10, 2008 1:20 PM EDT |
Quoting:> ...what kind of suffocating influence DO we need? Linux needs to be bashed more often! http://www.geekfocus.com/content/view/32/54/ |
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