[sclug] [OT] Recommendations for email hosting?

[Tom Carbert-Allen]

personally i use google apps for your domain which is free and provides 
encrypted smtp/imap/pop3/webmail for unlimited users with about 7GB of 
storage per user all for free if you just pay to register your domain 
name somewhere and point it at there servers. there virus/spam filtering 
is top notch and i've never had any down time with them. You can also 
setup SPF too which massively reduces the chance you will accidentally 
end up on someone else's blacklist.

also being the same system that runs gmail, you can pretty much be sure 
people accept email from it, unlike 1and1 who have always had very odd 
policies

TCA


Ian Park wrote:
> Hello all
>
> I recall seeing several threads on the subject of ISPs and web hosting
> providers, but my need is a bit different. I have a domain
> (chalmers-park.name) hosted by 1and1.co.uk, with email service only (no
> web hosting) for email addresses which our family use. Recently I've had
> some grief when I tried to use 1and1's SMTP server to send email to
> addresses on a particular domain (st-nicolas-newbury.org) - that's the
> domain for our local church, and I'm secretary of the PCC.
>
> After much repeated explanation to the "technical support" people at
> 1and1, it emerged that 1and1 are excessively picky about checking the
> mapping between domain name and IP address for mail servers with which
> they're asked to interwork - they pray in aid RFC2181 section 10.3. The
> advice from the operator of the mail servers for st-nicolas-newbury.org
> is that although 1and1 are correct that RFC2181 requires this behaviour,
> the RFC is unreasonably strict, and 1and1 are the only operator which
> does this check.
>
> Which brings me to my question: based on your experiences with different
> email hosts, can you recommend an outfit to switch to when my contract
> comes up for renewal in February next year? I pay 1and1 around ?20 a
> year for the domain name registration and email hosting, and I'd prefer
> not to see a steep increase...
>
> Thanks in advance for any advice
>
> Ian
>