I'm embarking on a new tech project with a friend, and we are committing to using technology solutions hosted in the EU as much as we can, starting with email hosting.
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I'm embarking on a new tech project with a friend, and we are committing to using technology solutions hosted in the EU as much as we can, starting with email hosting.
But boy, this has not been easy. I'm compiling notes and will share something eventually, but my experience in simply finding an email provider has been really bad.
I'm technical and have been working with email for 20+ years. My first role in tech was as an admin for a fleet of FreeBSD mail servers running Postfix and Spamassassin.
If I can't get my domain's mail up and running on your service in an hour or so, securely, then... yeah. Woof.
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I'm embarking on a new tech project with a friend, and we are committing to using technology solutions hosted in the EU as much as we can, starting with email hosting.
But boy, this has not been easy. I'm compiling notes and will share something eventually, but my experience in simply finding an email provider has been really bad.
I'm technical and have been working with email for 20+ years. My first role in tech was as an admin for a fleet of FreeBSD mail servers running Postfix and Spamassassin.
If I can't get my domain's mail up and running on your service in an hour or so, securely, then... yeah. Woof.
For more context, the first provider I tried promised "the highest security requirements," and did make mention of 2FA. But what I discovered only after paying was that 2FA via SMS is supported only for the "main domain account" (the admin), but NOT for actual individual mailboxes. This is a huge miss.
The second provider I've signed up for is feature rich and does seem to have everything we need, but their UI/UX is really challenging, with different portal endpoints for adminstering the account vs. configuring services. Even when EN is the selected language, I get a mixture of DE and EN in UI elements. Further, they do not make it clear how to configure the MX records. They point to a Wiki, which keeps timing out.
So, yeah, I can work around these things, but when there are alternatives like Fastmail who make this braindead simple, I don't see how these services will be able to compete, especially on paid tiers.
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For more context, the first provider I tried promised "the highest security requirements," and did make mention of 2FA. But what I discovered only after paying was that 2FA via SMS is supported only for the "main domain account" (the admin), but NOT for actual individual mailboxes. This is a huge miss.
The second provider I've signed up for is feature rich and does seem to have everything we need, but their UI/UX is really challenging, with different portal endpoints for adminstering the account vs. configuring services. Even when EN is the selected language, I get a mixture of DE and EN in UI elements. Further, they do not make it clear how to configure the MX records. They point to a Wiki, which keeps timing out.
So, yeah, I can work around these things, but when there are alternatives like Fastmail who make this braindead simple, I don't see how these services will be able to compete, especially on paid tiers.
On top of all of this, the UI/UX is just ... bad. I mean totally unpolished. Okay, I've been using open source since I was 14, so I can live with this.
Some of this likely stems from English not being the main language that was used to design the UIs. That's fine - that's a personal problem and isn't going to be a problem for native speakers, obviously.
But the patterns are very confusing and there aren't good linkages between the various interfaces. All of them seem to keep a sort of "top level account" or admin interface that is separate and apart from the service's interface. Even Hetzner does this, actually, to some extent - though in a better and more intuitive way, to be fair. So what's up with this? Why is that the pattern here?
I assume because they are actually different services with different endpoints? But I'm not sure.
The big tech firms have done a decent job of just putting all of this in the same place, even though as they've grown they have certainly buried some things - whether intentionally or not - and made them hard to find. But for the most part I log into one interface to find everything, or it's easy to understand and link to the other interfaces I need to access to do things like manage users or administer the service.
And on top of it, the interfaces look different. The UI elements, page save behaviors, and form fields all behave differently depending on the interface. Super jarring!
Maybe this is because on the back end they are all different open source apps with custom orchestration underneath? Still, the admin layers are really confusing.
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On top of all of this, the UI/UX is just ... bad. I mean totally unpolished. Okay, I've been using open source since I was 14, so I can live with this.
Some of this likely stems from English not being the main language that was used to design the UIs. That's fine - that's a personal problem and isn't going to be a problem for native speakers, obviously.
But the patterns are very confusing and there aren't good linkages between the various interfaces. All of them seem to keep a sort of "top level account" or admin interface that is separate and apart from the service's interface. Even Hetzner does this, actually, to some extent - though in a better and more intuitive way, to be fair. So what's up with this? Why is that the pattern here?
I assume because they are actually different services with different endpoints? But I'm not sure.
The big tech firms have done a decent job of just putting all of this in the same place, even though as they've grown they have certainly buried some things - whether intentionally or not - and made them hard to find. But for the most part I log into one interface to find everything, or it's easy to understand and link to the other interfaces I need to access to do things like manage users or administer the service.
And on top of it, the interfaces look different. The UI elements, page save behaviors, and form fields all behave differently depending on the interface. Super jarring!
Maybe this is because on the back end they are all different open source apps with custom orchestration underneath? Still, the admin layers are really confusing.
It reminds me a lot of the early days of Japanese MMOs like Final Fantasy 11, which used a service called "PlayOnline" that was not really connected to the actual MMO itself. It was super confusing and I think that trend continued with FFXIV but is a little better now as I recall.
I'm guessing that some of this is also the result of small startups running lean, and not investing heavily into UI/UX. They probably rely on very small modifications to the mixed landscape of open source components they use to operate the stack - the service itself (e.g. webmail), the administration layer of the service (e.g. the service admin/settings), and the account administration (e.g. billing and such) all being different underlying apps built by different people and designed completely in isolation from one another.
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It reminds me a lot of the early days of Japanese MMOs like Final Fantasy 11, which used a service called "PlayOnline" that was not really connected to the actual MMO itself. It was super confusing and I think that trend continued with FFXIV but is a little better now as I recall.
I'm guessing that some of this is also the result of small startups running lean, and not investing heavily into UI/UX. They probably rely on very small modifications to the mixed landscape of open source components they use to operate the stack - the service itself (e.g. webmail), the administration layer of the service (e.g. the service admin/settings), and the account administration (e.g. billing and such) all being different underlying apps built by different people and designed completely in isolation from one another.
Anyway, as someone who has become accustomed to the super-polished experience of big US tech platforms, it's jarring. It's not impossible and the more these platforms grow their customer base, the better they will become, but this has been a pretty scary experience just trying to get a few email addresses set up on a custom domain.
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Anyway, as someone who has become accustomed to the super-polished experience of big US tech platforms, it's jarring. It's not impossible and the more these platforms grow their customer base, the better they will become, but this has been a pretty scary experience just trying to get a few email addresses set up on a custom domain.
@eviljarred What exactly is making it scary? I did this recently. Curious what your experience is
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I'm embarking on a new tech project with a friend, and we are committing to using technology solutions hosted in the EU as much as we can, starting with email hosting.
But boy, this has not been easy. I'm compiling notes and will share something eventually, but my experience in simply finding an email provider has been really bad.
I'm technical and have been working with email for 20+ years. My first role in tech was as an admin for a fleet of FreeBSD mail servers running Postfix and Spamassassin.
If I can't get my domain's mail up and running on your service in an hour or so, securely, then... yeah. Woof.
@eviljarred This thread totally echoes what @bert_hubert has been saying. Thinking outside in about UI and workflow must be as simple as sinking your teeth in a hamburger.
But let's not forget, in about 5 or 6 clicks in SharePoint you are still dropped in the NT 3.5 era interface instead of the web UI...
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@eviljarred What exactly is making it scary? I did this recently. Curious what your experience is
@dreamphysix it’s scary how confusing it is. And in the first case, I lost money (I have requested a refund but TBD if this vendor will agree) because the site was misleading about the security features they offered and I couldn’t continue to use them after subscribing only to then find out they didn’t offer MFA.
What’s scary is the uncertainty of what I’m buying vs what I can intuit from the website. What’s scary is the confusing navigation and interfaces and not knowing if I’m going to need to contact support for something as silly as MX records setup.
At least my newest vendor has all of this documented - but their wiki seems to regularly time out.
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R relay@relay.infosec.exchange shared this topic
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@dreamphysix it’s scary how confusing it is. And in the first case, I lost money (I have requested a refund but TBD if this vendor will agree) because the site was misleading about the security features they offered and I couldn’t continue to use them after subscribing only to then find out they didn’t offer MFA.
What’s scary is the uncertainty of what I’m buying vs what I can intuit from the website. What’s scary is the confusing navigation and interfaces and not knowing if I’m going to need to contact support for something as silly as MX records setup.
At least my newest vendor has all of this documented - but their wiki seems to regularly time out.
@eviljarred Which vendors? I haven't had any of this experience but maybe the ones you are using are less intuitive than mine?
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@eviljarred Which vendors? I haven't had any of this experience but maybe the ones you are using are less intuitive than mine?
The first mail vendor was hostpoint.cx and the second vendor is servercow.de.
I think servercow will work, ultimately, it just has not been entirely intuitive.
