The Lemon Fool

Can anyone recommend a good/cheap service for buying a domain name?

I only want this for email at the moment, and may not even need the service provider to host my email account, if it can be made to automatically forward to, say, gmail. I'll probably want multiple mailboxes forwarded to different gmail addresses.

I looked at 1and1 and it seems OK, but was unsure if I could have mail forwarding without paying their monthly (99p) charge which only seems to give you one mailbox as far as I can see.

Scott.

Hi

www.123-reg.co.uk host my domain name which I only use for forwarding email.

I have about 15 addresses forwarded and don't pay anything apart from
re-registering the domain every few years, which cost me £21 for four years, last year.

I'm sure it's more for the more common domain names but I use a .me.uk domain

Sussexlad

Another option is to have Gmail 'poll' your domain boxes via POP 3. Gmail auto-polls about every 7 minutes or so or you can manually invoke it.
If you have the Gmail app. on your phone then it can alert you. I've found the Gmail alert a bit more reliable than the Outlook app one, which misses sometimes (Nexus 5 Android 6.0.1).

If you only get a small storage allowance per domain inbox and they charge you for forwarding (as it is so popular) this might work out cheaper.

It's years since I set up my domains with 123 REg and Fasthosts but one thing that annoyed me was my accounts got downgraded over the years from multi inbox, limited web hosting et al to eventually one inbox and hardly anything else. All designed to get me to pay more for the same facilities via an 'upgrade' (which I didn't do on principle)...

I use 1and1 and can confirm mail forwarding is free. You can have quite a few aliases plus a catchall. The 99p/month is only if you want a mailbox to store it in.

I have no complaints about their service.

gryff

gryffron wrote:I use 1and1 and can confirm mail forwarding is free. You can have quite a few aliases plus a catchall. The 99p/month is only if you want a mailbox to store it in.

I have no complaints about their service.

+1 for 1and1

DaveE

I have used Fasthosts for many years for both web and email forwarding. They are very good value, especially if you buy several years at a time.

Nocton

I've used 1&1 for email, for over a decade without a single glitch.

As Infrasonic mentioned, no need to forward to Gmail. I've used Gmail web and mobile clients to access multiple email addresses for over five years, and it's completely transparent and bullet-proof in my experience.

superFoolish wrote:I've used 1&1 for email, for over a decade without a single glitch.

I agree with that apart from a warning about the 1and1 spam filtering which can be overenthusiastic so I turn it off and deal with spam as it arrives.

Having said that, I understand that the GMail spam filtering can have the same problem.

I use 123-reg and forward all emails to gmail. This means I don't have to pay for their email hosting service.

I would recommend TSOHOST (www.tsohost.com). Excellent, cheap service. I have no direct experience of 1&1 and had terrible experience of Fasthosts a few years ago but maybe they have improved.

pottager wrote:I would recommend TSOHOST (http://www.tsohost.com). Excellent, cheap service. I have no direct experience of 1&1 and had terrible experience of Fasthosts a few years ago but maybe they have improved.

Echo TSOHOST.

Exceptional technical support, which is available by phone 7am to midnight 24/7.

supremetwo wrote:7am to midnight 24/7.

Slight contradiction there!

rgifford wrote:I agree with that apart from a warning about the 1and1 spam filtering which can be overenthusiastic so I turn it off and deal with spam as it arrives.

Having said that, I understand that the GMail spam filtering can have the same problem.

I don't use the 1&1 spam filtering; I let Gmail do that job. I have been using Gmail as my only email client for over 5 years, and very rarely have false-positives for spam detection. When it does happen, it tends to be newsletters that I have signed up to; I don't think a 'personal' email has ever been marked as spam.

pottager wrote:

supremetwo wrote:7am to midnight 24/7.

Slight contradiction there!

Definitely - I mean't to say 365 days per year.

I have recently moved my domains to www.gandi.net, and so far very good, although as they are based in France they are no longer quite as competitively priced as when I first transferred. I think its around £6/year for standard co.uk type domains.

I have not tried their email facilities as I host the domains elsewhere, but they mention a free email service http://wiki.gandi.net/en/mail. I was with register1.co.uk who I had no problems with at all until they stopped supporting domain name hosting this year

I use EUKHost. Unlimited email accounts, email forwarding provided and not at extra-cost.