I think I might be done with Gmail...

SkyHog

Touchdown! Greaser!
Joined
Feb 23, 2005
Messages
18,431
Location
Castle Rock, CO
Display Name

Display name:
Everything Offends Me
I've been a pretty avid Google guy for a while - a "fan-boy" if you will. But lately, it seems they have been getting increasingly hokey and feature limited. I don't really care much about them targeting ads to me or collecting my information via usage statistics, provided I feel I am getting a good value and service from them.

I just decided to start working in Outlook 2016 from Office 365. I have had the subscription for a while, mostly for the Office Apps like Word and Excel, but figured since I spend a lot of time in front of my laptop/desktop, I might as well ditch grabbing the phone for everything I do (plus, as a board member for a private organization, I set up a lot of meetings and doing that to a large number of recipients from a phone or tablet just sucks).

That's when I learned that Google Calendar does not work in Microsoft Office. I mean, you can get a read-only version of it, and you can view calendar stuff, but you cannot create new entries or accept calendar invites from within Outlook. That lead me to an app called GASMO - Google Apps Sync for Microsoft Office.

But GASMO can only be used for the Google Apps suite, which comes with a paid subscription to their services. My primary email, which I have used for over 10 years now, doesn't qualify. So I'm stuck.

Never thought the day would come, but I finally feel like the value I get from Google is not matching the value of information they glean from me.

So - aside from outlook.com email, which I am exploring, anyone have any recommendations for a really good, free, email service that includes simple stuff like contact and calendar syncing with Outlook (or, for that matter, ANY email client or mobile device)?
 
If you like using Outlook, keep using Outlook. Get your Gmail through Outlook via POP. Best of both worlds.
 
If you like using Outlook, keep using Outlook. Get your Gmail through Outlook via POP. Best of both worlds.

As I mentioned in the original post, the limitation is on calendar sync, which is a HUGE deal to me. Gmail not having a solution basically kills the benefit of Gmail entirely.
 
As I mentioned in the original post, the limitation is on calendar sync, which is a HUGE deal to me. Gmail not having a solution basically kills the benefit of Gmail entirely.

But Outlook does have a calendar. Ditch the Google calendar and use Outlook's. Only use Gmail for the email, and do that via POP like I mentioned, or IMAP if that's what you prefer. Use Outlook for all the other stuff, including contacts.
 
BTW... It's been 17 years since I worked in the IT world, so I'm admittedly not up on all the features of various software.
 
But Outlook does have a calendar. Ditch the Google calendar and use Outlook's. Only use Gmail for the email, and do that via POP like I mentioned, or IMAP if that's what you prefer. Use Outlook for all the other stuff, including contacts.

But that doesn't sync across devices. My calendar drives everything I do.

Plus, when someone sends a meeting invite to gmail, Outlook cannot accept it because it doesn't have write access to the calendar.
 
Outlook can't write to its calendar?? And won't sync??

I'm missing something. No worries. I'll refer you back to post #5.

*sigh*
 
"Good" and "free" are hard to find in the same package. But "good" and "inexpensive" are easy. Fastmail's paid package provides both CalDAV and CardDAV and can synchronize with practically any device or application.

Rich
 
"Good" and "free" are hard to find in the same package. But "good" and "inexpensive" are easy. Fastmail's paid package provides both CalDAV and CardDAV and can synchronize with practically any device or application.

Rich

I don't know...I'm starting to like outlook.com...
 
Outlook can't write to its calendar?? And won't sync??

I'm missing something. No worries. I'll refer you back to post #5.

*sigh*

Outlook can't write to Google'a calendar because Google doesn't use EAS. Outlook, by itself, doesn't sync to a mobile device, unless the original account does it instead.

So if I use the outlook calendar with Gmail, my only option is to have an offline calendar.
 
I have NEVER much liked google mail and it has gotten progressively worse over times (I do have a couple of throwaway accounts over there).

I use a private provider that I pay a nominal fee for (TUFFMAIL). They have real nice reliable service, good spam filters, sieve filters if you're into that for sorting out email, IMAP support and a half a dozen different webmail clients if you need that.
 
I don't know...I'm starting to like outlook.com...

It's in a slummy neighborhood, though. Lots of spammers, scammers, and miscreants use Outlook / Hotmail / MSN / Live addresses. Almost as many as use Gmail, in fact, and slightly more than use Yahoo! These services combined process about half the incoming spam on my servers (and I'm not talking about spoofed addresses). But they also account for almost all of the false positives. Innocent users' mail gets blocked because one or another MS / Gmail / Yahoo! mail relay is currently on someone's blocklist.

The only free mail service that I think is worth a crap as far as spam-handling is concerned is (believe it or not) AOL. Surely there are plenty of things not to like about AOL. But I do like the way they handle spam reports. They have their **** together in that regard.

But FastMail is probably the best all-around mail provider I've ever used. Netaddress is also very good, but I'm not sure whether they provide calendaring. Netaddress also has outages a few time every year. The outages usually only last a few minutes to an hour or so, but I've never had an outage on FastMail. So if I had to choose only one, it would be FastMail.

Rich
 
It's in a slummy neighborhood, though. Lots of spammers, scammers, and miscreants use Outlook / Hotmail / MSN / Live addresses. Almost as many as use Gmail, in fact, and slightly more than use Yahoo! These services combined process about half the incoming spam on my servers (and I'm not talking about spoofed addresses). But they also account for almost all of the false positives. Innocent users' mail gets blocked because one or another MS / Gmail / Yahoo! mail relay is currently on someone's blocklist.

The only free mail service that I think is worth a crap as far as spam-handling is concerned is (believe it or not) AOL. Surely there are plenty of things not to like about AOL. But I do like the way they handle spam reports. They have their **** together in that regard.

But FastMail is probably the best all-around mail provider I've ever used. Netaddress is also very good, but I'm not sure whether they provide calendaring. Netaddress also has outages a few time every year. The outages usually only last a few minutes to an hour or so, but I've never had an outage on FastMail. So if I had to choose only one, it would be FastMail.

Rich
Does Fast Mail offer a calendar that can sync with EAS OR something similar within Outlook?
 
I'm not sure i follow. I send my gmail meeting requests from outlook daily (work is strictly outlook, no option). Works fine. Outlook also has no problem accepting an appointment from google calendar. I did find that you cant just opem the meeting request in gmail and click "yes". You do have have to click "view in calendar" and accept the meeting request in the calendar. Make sure you are using the actual Google Calendar app, and not your phone calendar which is just linked to Gmail.
 
Does Fast Mail offer a calendar that can sync with EAS OR something similar within Outlook?

I haven't used Outlook since the late 1990's (I just don't care for it), and I haven't supported it in a few years. The last time I did support it it, it required a plugin for CalDAV sync. According to this page from FastMail's site, that seems to still be the case. MS has never been too big on open standards.

Personally, I use the Lightning add-on for Thunderbird. It works fine and has for years. My BlackBerry also syncs fine with FastMail mail, CalDAV, and CardDAV using its native clients. I've also helped people set up CalDAV sync on iThings using those devices' native client. I'm pretty sure Android requires a third-party app, but I haven't done it in a while.

So the short answer is that you'd need a plugin to get Outlook to sync with FastMail's calendar.

Rich
 
I have had a free Outlook.com account for a while, though I use it mostly as a throwaway. However, I haven't noticed an associated problem with spam or other unsolicited communication. I believe that Microsoft did or is moving the free accounts over to the Office365 infrastructure as well, though I suspect without the same level of service afforded to Office365 subscribers.

Microsoft's free service also doesn't scan all your information like Google does (which I guess you call "usage statistics," but which I think is far more ominous.) They do, however, use some data to target ads. If you're paying for the service, there are no ads.

Google's garbage doesn't work well with the Outlook client even for Google Apps customers. My company uses Google Apps, and after multiple installs, resyncs, reset profiles, escalations to Google, and finally a brand new PC, my Outlook calendar in particular STILL doesn't sync properly with Google Apps Sync. And if calendar invites get forwarded, forget it. I finally had to give up and use the Google web interface, which leaves something to be desired.

Bottom line is that I think Microsoft's service is better, even if it might not be perfect. And, Microsoft gives you an option to pay for the Outlook.com service without the hoops that you have to jump through to subscribe to Google Apps.


JKG
 
If you have Office365, you are set. Just move your MX record for your domain over there. There is a setup utility which will configure Outlook for you. If your DNS records are on GoDaddy they even have a utility for making those changes (though they are not hard to do).
 
If you have Office365, you are set. Just move your MX record for your domain over there. There is a setup utility which will configure Outlook for you. If your DNS records are on GoDaddy they even have a utility for making those changes (though they are not hard to do).

Unfortunately, my domain in this case is gmail.com, so I don't think I can do that.

That said, I did look at using a custom domain with Office365, and apparently it is only available for business customers, not home/premium customers since late 2014. Too bad.
 
I'm not sure i follow. I send my gmail meeting requests from outlook daily (work is strictly outlook, no option). Works fine. Outlook also has no problem accepting an appointment from google calendar. I did find that you cant just opem the meeting request in gmail and click "yes". You do have have to click "view in calendar" and accept the meeting request in the calendar. Make sure you are using the actual Google Calendar app, and not your phone calendar which is just linked to Gmail.

Here's the real test - three of them, in fact:

1. Within outlook, send a calendar invite to someone using gmail. Then, go look at your google calendar (from another device, to be double sure you aren't looking at the outlook calendar). Notice that the event is not there. That is because you don't have write access to the Google calendar, only the Outlook Calendar.

2. Within outlook, open the google calendar (not the outlook calendar). Right click and try to add an event. It will be greyed out. You can only add an event to the outlook calendar.

3. Have someone send you an invite to your gmail. Within outlook, click "Accept" on the invite. Well, I guess I should say "try" to click accept, since it is greyed out. No write access to the calendar.

It is important to note that just because you can add/remove items from the Outlook calendar does not mean that it will sync with the Google calendar (because it doesn't). If you add an event to the Outlook calendar, it will never show up in the google calendar, nor any of your devices that are connected to the google calendar.
 
I haven't used Outlook since the late 1990's (I just don't care for it), and I haven't supported it in a few years. The last time I did support it it, it required a plugin for CalDAV sync. According to this page from FastMail's site, that seems to still be the case. MS has never been too big on open standards.

Personally, I use the Lightning add-on for Thunderbird. It works fine and has for years. My BlackBerry also syncs fine with FastMail mail, CalDAV, and CardDAV using its native clients. I've also helped people set up CalDAV sync on iThings using those devices' native client. I'm pretty sure Android requires a third-party app, but I haven't done it in a while.

So the short answer is that you'd need a plugin to get Outlook to sync with FastMail's calendar.

Rich

Yeah, no bueno. My calendar runs my life, so I need it to work without hokey plugins or addons. I think my only real options are Outlook.com email or another hosted Exchange solution.
 
Apple calendars manage to work pretty seamlessly with Google Calendar. Not sure why MS can't make Outlook work just as well?

I understand the calendar-centric life. We've used Google Calendar as the heart of one of our businesses for 12 years and, by extension, our personal lives. So a single calendar has been sync'd to both my wife and my cellphones and our computers that entire time. Never had an issue with Apple or Android devices maintaining sync. Too bad MS hasn't done the same with Outlook.
 
Google and Microsoft got into a pizzzzzing match a while back over ActiveSync. If you recall, Google used to have EXCELLENT calendar support via Exchange-native protocols.

Then MSFT demanded a per-seat license for any user using ActiveSync, and bye bye that way to connect to GMail for free users (it's still available for paid/corporate/business users - but you have to shell out the $).

GOOG of course could have just paid it with their margins and kept right on trucking with the free stuff but didn't, so not paying it was the beginning of the escalation of the "who's is longer" contest. Did Google need Outlook/Calendar users, or didn't they? They decided they didn't.

(Similarly Zimbra and other Exchange knock-offs now also have to license ActiveSync as a protocol on a per-seat basis. MSFT learned a page from Motorola's book and Copyrighted the PROTOCOL, something they've done for a long time with the Office suite, but Motorola perfected in the 70s, and MSFT "forgets" to do it to transport protocols, but they've learned now...)

Anyway... long story short, GOOG and MSFT don't play nicely with each other in the sandbox. There are third-party plugins that attempt to "fix" it with varying levels of success. Mostly not.
 
Nick - MrMail has a basic Zimbra implementation for $5.57 per month.

https://www.mrmail.com/basic-zimbra-hosting/

AWS is $6.00 per month.

IMHO, that's less than most people pay for good anti-virus software.

As Nate notes, Outlook/ActiveSync will be problematic in any "free" (adware) service.
 
Nick - MrMail has a basic Zimbra implementation for $5.57 per month.

https://www.mrmail.com/basic-zimbra-hosting/

AWS is $6.00 per month.

IMHO, that's less than most people pay for good anti-virus software.

I'd ask if that includes ActiveSync/EWS or not, most mail clients are moving to that and the newer Outlook definitely needs it.

Also their website worries me a bit... they haven't updated their Exchange to Zimbra comparison PDF since ZCS 7.0?! Good lord... 8 has been out for a long time. I hope they're not still on 7.

Here's hoping their Marketing department has just gotten lazy (if they're big enough to have one), but that's often a sign that the business isn't doing so hot...

Just stuff I noticed. Never heard of 'em before your post. But they need to get with it on the comparison doc.
 
I'd ask if that includes ActiveSync/EWS or not, most mail clients are moving to that and the newer Outlook definitely needs it.

Also their website worries me a bit... they haven't updated their Exchange to Zimbra comparison PDF since ZCS 7.0?! Good lord... 8 has been out for a long time. I hope they're not still on 7.

Here's hoping their Marketing department has just gotten lazy (if they're big enough to have one), but that's often a sign that the business isn't doing so hot...

Just stuff I noticed. Never heard of 'em before your post. But they need to get with it on the comparison doc.

Fine, go with AWS. It's only $6 per month and Workmail fully supports Outlook (and the mobile protocols).
 
Fine, go with AWS. It's only $6 per month and Workmail fully supports Outlook (and the mobile protocols).

Is there a benefit to paying for AWS over using a free outlook.com email?

I mean, aside from using my own domain, which would be awful nice since I already have one.
 
Is there a benefit to paying for AWS over using a free outlook.com email?



I mean, aside from using my own domain, which would be awful nice since I already have one.


Considering the amount of data mining both companies are doing, it might actually be a plus to go with the smaller vendor Bill recommended. Haha.
 
Unfortunately, my domain in this case is gmail.com, so I don't think I can do that.

That said, I did look at using a custom domain with Office365, and apparently it is only available for business customers, not home/premium customers since late 2014. Too bad.

Not true. I have setup Office365 email with custom domains for a couple of friends of mine. You are already paying for this service. It seems like a no brainer to me.
 
Use Outlook for all the other stuff, including contacts.
Just make damned sure you have a backup. At least one person a week at my company has either some, or all of their contacts go missing. Started happening as soon as we migrated to outlook.com. MS hasn't been able to explain why or recover them. It's bad enough that we're looking at moving everything in-house on a non-MS system.

Then there's that damned proprietary TNEF bs where it sends out all attachments as a winmail.dat file. Can't turn it off either. It knows the web version of gmail can read them so it overrides the settings. Then you look at it on your phone using gmail's imap and it won't open.
 
Is there a benefit to paying for AWS over using a free outlook.com email?

I mean, aside from using my own domain, which would be awful nice since I already have one.

Considering the amount of data mining both companies are doing, it might actually be a plus to go with the smaller vendor Bill recommended. Haha.

Nick, AWS provides some enterprise-level services that I'm not sure Outlook.com does. You can use your own domain and up to 50 GB per mailbox (which is quite generous). I thought Outlook.com was a much lower storage amount.

I also looked at the pricing. Looks like it's $4.00 per month per mailbox, and $6.00 if you also get WorkDocs. $4.00 is a bargain.

http://docs.aws.amazon.com/workmail/latest/adminguide/what_is.html

Nate, Amazon states that it doesn't access your data.
Q: How does AWS use my Amazon WorkMail email content?

You own your content in Amazon WorkMail, and you retain full ownership and control of your Amazon WorkMail email. We will not view, use, or move the contents of your Amazon WorkMail account unless authorized by you.

While that's not *definitive" regarding data mining, I think they'd be foolish to engage in mining with those kinds of comments on an enterprise-level system (businesses are much less tolerant of mining) Both transmission and data-at-rest encryption.

https://aws.amazon.com/workmail/faqs/
 
Not true. I have setup Office365 email with custom domains for a couple of friends of mine. You are already paying for this service. It seems like a no brainer to me.

Is that Office 365 Home Premium or the Business Edition. The spend difference is amazing.
 
Is that Office 365 Home Premium or the Business Edition. The spend difference is amazing.

They signed up a while ago and it had a different name, but it is basically the Business Essentials, which is $5/mo. It doesn't include the desktop version of Office though. It looks like I am wrong, there is a version that does not include email hosting, just the desktop version of Office, which is $8.25/mo. To get both appears to be $12.50/mo. Both of my friends only have one user, so they are paying $60 a year and have a custom domain. You should be able to migrate your account to a different plan, if you need to.
https://products.office.com/en-us/b..._O365SMB_office 365 plans&Dimension&WT.srch=1
 
I have had a free Outlook.com account for a while, though I use it mostly as a throwaway. However, I haven't noticed an associated problem with spam or other unsolicited communication. I believe that Microsoft did or is moving the free accounts over to the Office365 infrastructure as well, though I suspect without the same level of service afforded to Office365 subscribers.

Microsoft's free service also doesn't scan all your information like Google does (which I guess you call "usage statistics," but which I think is far more ominous.) They do, however, use some data to target ads. If you're paying for the service, there are no ads.

Google's garbage doesn't work well with the Outlook client even for Google Apps customers. My company uses Google Apps, and after multiple installs, resyncs, reset profiles, escalations to Google, and finally a brand new PC, my Outlook calendar in particular STILL doesn't sync properly with Google Apps Sync. And if calendar invites get forwarded, forget it. I finally had to give up and use the Google web interface, which leaves something to be desired.

Bottom line is that I think Microsoft's service is better, even if it might not be perfect. And, Microsoft gives you an option to pay for the Outlook.com service without the hoops that you have to jump through to subscribe to Google Apps.


JKG

The problem is not that you'll get more spam. It's that there's more of a chance that your mail will be rejected as spam by other mail servers. So much spam is sent through free email services that inevitably their servers get placed on RBLs, and if your innocent piece of mail happens to be relayed through that server, it will be rejected by mail servers using those RBLs.

Whitelisting my clients' customers who use freemail services is a regular chore of mine. I just got a complaint this morning from a client whose customer's mail was rejected because one of Google's servers wound up on an RBL for spam activity, so his mail was rejected. It's guilt by association. But I can't whitelist *@gmail.com because probably a third (or maybe more) of the actual spam comes through gmail.

What I wish I could say to these people whose mail gets rejected is to get the **** out of the ghetto and get a real email address. If they don't want to pay for one, then get one from their ISPs. Anything is better than freemail. Spammers, scammers, hackers, crackers, and miscreants all use freemail. Why in the hell would anyone want to be associated with that crowd?

But of course I can't say that, even though it's probably the best advice I could possibly give them.

As an aside, I also got a call from a client that I fired. Their offense was running a newsletter mailing list through one of my servers. I don't allow that unless the client has a dedicated IP with rDNS to their domain and an SSL cert, and the mail is sent from their own IP. That way when their newsletters are inevitably reported as spam, it won't affect the rest of the clients on the server.

This one tried to sneak the lists through -- twice -- and I fired him. So he decided to set up his own VPS and run things himself. Now he's on at least a dozen RBLs, and he wants me to take him back. But I don't want him. He's the snot-nosed kid of a long-time former client and is trying his best to put the company his father built out of business. Like too many kids his age, he knows everything, thinks everyone older than him is an idiot, never follows instructions, and never stops whining. I told him to get lost. I have enough aggravation in my life.

What this kid never understood was that opt-in mailing lists are a mine field and ideally should be contracted to companies specializing in that sort of thing. The reason is because most users are idiots, and once they get tired of receiving the newsletter that THEY subscribed to, many of them report it as spam. They don't politely unsubscribe. They report it as spam; and if enough of them do that (and it doesn't take many), the sending server starts winding up on RBLs, and then no one's mail goes anywhere.

Running mail servers is the most thankless thing I do. Several times every week I consider completely outsourcing the mail. But that wouldn't do any good because I'd still be the one getting the complaints.

I had one client who decided to use Google's mail and had me point his MX there, and he had nothing but problems. The biggest one was delays of up to an hour on incoming mail, but there also were a lot of spam rejections and disappearing mails. There was no way that I could make him understand that I no longer had anything to do with his mail and that he had to call Google if he was having problems. After a few months, he moved everything back to my service.

If I ever do outsource the mail, however, it almost certainly will be to FastMail. They're one of the very few providers that I have never -- NEVER -- had a problem with.

Bah. Enough ranting for now.

Rich
 
At this point, if I am going to do any other email service, it has to be a hosted exchange solution...

I'm going to have to mull that one over and try to find something. I refuse to use plugins or wonky addons to accomplish something that should be as simple as synchronizing calendars with a 3rd party mail client.
 
But that doesn't sync across devices. My calendar drives everything I do.

Plus, when someone sends a meeting invite to gmail, Outlook cannot accept it because it doesn't have write access to the calendar.

You can use outlook.com by just having your gmail forward to your outlook account.

then you can use outlook.com for email and calendar across tablets, phones and full size computers.

it's one solution. you can also choose to connect your outlook calendar to facebook (or not).
 
At this point, if I am going to do any other email service, it has to be a hosted exchange solution...

I'm going to have to mull that one over and try to find something. I refuse to use plugins or wonky addons to accomplish something that should be as simple as synchronizing calendars with a 3rd party mail client.


Well, it also depends on how married you are to Outlook. Some love it, others hate it. I don't hate it, but I'm not crazy about it. I also like open standards better than I like proprietary ones that lock me into their ecosytem.

So if Outlook isn't that important to you, then you have any number of good mail services to choose from. If it is, then you need Exchange.

Rich
 
Well, it also depends on how married you are to Outlook. Some love it, others hate it. I don't hate it, but I'm not crazy about it. I also like open standards better than I like proprietary ones that lock me into their ecosytem.

So if Outlook isn't that important to you, then you have any number of good mail services to choose from. If it is, then you need Exchange.

Rich

Well, I'm not locked into Outlook, but I hate Thunderbird and am woefully unaware of any other desktop email clients that have a calendar integrated.
 
Well, I'm not locked into Outlook, but I hate Thunderbird and am woefully unaware of any other desktop email clients that have a calendar integrated.

Well, gosh, there are scads of them. Most are not free, however, unless you also like ads. But most can be downloaded as ad-supported and upgraded later.

https://duckduckgo.com/?q=email+clients+with+calendars

I know a lot of people who absolutely love Mailbird or eM Client. I've never used either one because I happen to like T-Bird well enough (although I still mourn for Eudora Pro. :( ) I haven't used any others recently enough to recommend or comment on any of them. The last time I looked was when Eudora Pro became history (RIP), and I settled on T-Bird.

Rich
 
The problem is not that you'll get more spam. It's that there's more of a chance that your mail will be rejected as spam by other mail servers. So much spam is sent through free email services that inevitably their servers get placed on RBLs, and if your innocent piece of mail happens to be relayed through that server, it will be rejected by mail servers using those RBLs.

That's a good point, but I can't say that I encountered this problem as a sender when Gmail was my primary account. However, I send far fewer emails than I receive through my personal account.

I finally moved to Apple's iCloud mail, which is "free" but really isn't since it's subsidized by device sales and not by ads or data mining personal information. I haven't noticed a problem with it being blacklisted by recipients, but I suspect that it is significantly less popular than other "free" email services.

When Comcast (and before that, AT&T BI) was my ISP, I do seem to recall their domains occasionally making it onto blacklists, so it would seem that ISPs are not immune to the problem.


JKG
 
That's a good point, but I can't say that I encountered this problem as a sender when Gmail was my primary account. However, I send far fewer emails than I receive through my personal account.

I finally moved to Apple's iCloud mail, which is "free" but really isn't since it's subsidized by device sales and not by ads or data mining personal information. I haven't noticed a problem with it being blacklisted by recipients, but I suspect that it is significantly less popular than other "free" email services.

When Comcast (and before that, AT&T BI) was my ISP, I do seem to recall their domains occasionally making it onto blacklists, so it would seem that ISPs are not immune to the problem.


JKG

Nope, they're not. But it's quite a bit less common, in my experience.

Rich
 
Back
Top