Email Hosting Questions.

[quelquod]

My email and web hosting is all done via my broadband provider’s systems (PlusNet). I’ve been with them or their previous incarnation since about 1996 because they’ve been pretty-well bulletproof and I’ve always had a decent deal however BT’s (their owner) influence is changing that a bit. So I want the flexibility to change and that me and shifting my hosting to some independent host. I’m pretty naive on the email side as I’m so accustomed to Plusnet.

So with Plusnet I have a single email account. Anything addressed to something@mydomain.co.uk all arrives in the single mailbox. I can set any number of “aliases” which can be redirected to another existing email address on any other host (or even a black hole) but otherwise everything comes to the one account. In fact my “free” Plusnet email comes to it too so I suppose they’re one and the same. It suits me fine like that as my wife and I can see all the emails but pretend to each have our own when sending. We use IMAP so that we can each see everything usually on our pads and I archive things on our main PC.

So in a nutshell if I change to another host am I likely to find the same features? What are they called? I don’t really need any other features but we’d find it difficult to lose this broad outline.

Fortunately I don’t have the same difficulties with understanding the web hosting.

[BigB]

My email and web hosting is all done via my broadband provider’s systems (PlusNet). I’ve been with them or their previous incarnation since about 1996 because they’ve been pretty-well bulletproof and I’ve always had a decent deal however BT’s (their owner) influence is changing that a bit. So I want the flexibility to change and that me and shifting my hosting to some independent host. I’m pretty naive on the email side as I’m so accustomed to Plusnet.

So with Plusnet I have a single email account. Anything addressed to something@mydomain.co.uk all arrives in the single mailbox. I can set any number of “aliases” which can be redirected to another existing email address on any other host (or even a black hole) but otherwise everything comes to the one account. In fact my “free” Plusnet email comes to it too so I suppose they’re one and the same. It suits me fine like that as my wife and I can see all the emails but pretend to each have our own when sending. We use IMAP so that we can each see everything usually on our pads and I archive things on our main PC.

So in a nutshell if I change to another host am I likely to find the same features? What are they called? I don’t really need any other features but we’d find it difficult to lose this broad outline.

Fortunately I don’t have the same difficulties with understanding the web hosting.

I've also been with PlusNet since the 90s and use their email domain hosting. We have set up several email accounts and use IMAP and point them individually to different email clients (mostly Thunderbird) on separate devices so we don't have to have all our emails into the same inbox. On several devices we have the different accounts available in the same mail clients, so we can separate them easily but aware we can access each other's if required.

Apologies, I know it wasn't the question asked (I think you would find similar features elsewhere), but I was wondering if you genuinely did want to shift providers or if you had a specific problem you were trying to overcome or improve?

BigB

[pje16]

I too have been with plusnet for a number of years for 2 business and the email offering they do seems to be much better than anything else I found
I looked for several others for personal use and they pretty much seem to want to change £1pm per mailbox
Ok only £12 per year, but on the busness ones I run we have about 25, so that would be £300 - I'm not paying THAT to go elsewhere

[quelquod]

I've also been with PlusNet since the 90s and use their email domain hosting. We have set up several email accounts and use IMAP and point them individually to different email clients (mostly Thunderbird) on separate devices so we don't have to have all our emails into the same inbox. On several devices we have the different accounts available in the same mail clients, so we can separate them easily but aware we can access each other's if required.

Apologies, I know it wasn't the question asked (I think you would find similar features elsewhere), but I was wondering if you genuinely did want to shift providers or if you had a specific problem you were trying to overcome or improve?

BigB

As I said, I’ve been completely satisfied by PlusNet (started with Force9), and the recent oft-bemoaned loss of more or less all support in favour of the community forum doesn’t bother me much. However last time I renewed the robo-human pointed out that if I transferred I would have to sort out my domain and site hosting (and pay extra for it), so I thought that I might want to give myself the flexibility now rather than waiting until renewal time again.

(Having said that, I’ve always found so far that they’ve offered me a reasonable deal. Not the one that new customers get by a mile of course, but still acceptable.)

[mc2fool]

So in a nutshell if I change to another host am I likely to find the same features? What are they called?

Default Address and Forwarders are standard with cPanel hosting, and while it is possible for hosting providers to turn them off I'll be very surprised if anyone offering cPanel hosting does, as they're pretty basic features that everyone using cPanel hosting expects to be there.

For hosting with other control panels you'll need to check with the provider.

[UncleEbenezer]

If it's just the one domain then you may be perfectly happy to pay £1/month for it.

If it helps, you can leave plusnet hosting and keep just that feature with them. You then get to keep the same control panel you're used to to manage the aliases. Possibly a path of least resistance?

[quelquod]

If it's just the one domain then you may be perfectly happy to pay £1/month for it.

If it helps, you can leave plusnet hosting and keep just that feature with them. You then get to keep the same control panel you're used to to manage the aliases. Possibly a path of least resistance?

Yes, £1 is a lot less than the potential savings from switching providers (as of today I could save over £15/month).

I don’t think leaving PlusNet with only the hosting is an option. They no longer offer hosting, haven’t for many years, but I was a long-term customer of Force9 with that option when they took it over.

[Infrasonic]

It depends on what your needs are - if you require business grade email where they adhere to all the send and receive authentication protocols then one of the bigger players might be the best bet - Gmail/Outlook.com et al.

You can set the free one's up with domains + SPF et al but it won't be masked in the source headers that it is going via a third party.
To do it properly you need to go with the paid for services.

Proton mail now has a VPN / E2E encrypted cloud storage offering in addition to its paid for encrypted email (you can do domains with paid).
Free email (500mb inbox) has free VPN from four locations, no cloud storage currently and if they offer an encrypted database in the future that will probably be paid only too (or with very limited free allocation).

I've got a free account currently as well as multiple webmail accounts with other providers but am thinking of going to paid for (with my domain) with proton mail - just so I have an E2E encrypted ecosystem entirely independent of MS/Google.

[BigB]

If it's just the one domain then you may be perfectly happy to pay £1/month for it.

If it helps, you can leave plusnet hosting and keep just that feature with them. You then get to keep the same control panel you're used to to manage the aliases. Possibly a path of least resistance?

Yes, £1 is a lot less than the potential savings from switching providers (as of today I could save over £15/month).

I don’t think leaving PlusNet with only the hosting is an option. They no longer offer hosting, haven’t for many years, but I was a long-term customer of Force9 with that option when they took it over.

Have you considered asking PlusNet for a better general deal - aside from the email domain hosting aspect, my recent renewal with them came down by about £17 per month with me signing up for 18 months.

BigB