Re: [OT] email forwarding?

[Jonathan Q <jq@example.com>]

Thomas O'Dowd (tom@example.com) wrote:

Thomas> I'm not getting it from them. I know it is a free service, but why
Thomas> bother if they can't do a good job.

You get what you pay for.  Free ISPs aren't any good, either.  Decent 
networks, like decent mail systems, cost money.  Quite a bit of it.
Free ISPs and the like have difficulty spending that money.  Most of
the ones that haven't already gone bust probably will.

As far as where to host your domain and have reliable forwarding, 
practically any domain hosting service should be able to do this
reliably.  In fact, it's really the pits that your current service
doesn't.  It takes real effort to create the problems you describe, since
to be forwarded all a mail has to do is bounce of the MX and be on its
way.  A mail system that can't even do that is held together with 
gum and spit.  If I were you, I'd go elsewhere ASAP.  Would I go 
somewhere free?  Probably not.  I'd rather pay for better quality.

Geocities/Yahoo offers some type of commercial service at a fairly 
low cost, I think (calling on old memories here).  If it's available,
I'd recommend it.  I've had a Geocities account for over four years and
have never had a single problem with it.  If they don't meet your needs,
look for a decent multi-homed hosting provider that has secondary DNS
somewhere else (the best kind of somewhere else is somewhere else on
a different continent; next best if someplace over a thousand miles
away from their location).  That would give you highly reliable mail.
The only thing you would probably have to worry about is their
going out of business.  But you have to worry about that more with
a free service than with one you're paying for.

Jonathan



Thomas> 
Thomas> For example, I sometimes get mails after 2 months sitting on their
Thomas> queues, mostly I just bounce for a day without them noticing.
Thomas> My idea was just to keep my forwarding with them and whenever I would
Thomas> change ISP, nobody would have to know as my mails just go the one
Thomas> address, and can move with me from there.
Thomas> 
Thomas> So can anyone recommend a reliable service for this. I'm willing
Thomas> to invest a small amount of money monthly to achieve this seemingly
Thomas> unachievable goal of 100% reliability in my email address forwarding.
Thomas> Okay 99.99% would do, if they had a good excuse for the other .01% of
Thomas> the time.
Thomas> 
Thomas> I know this is a little off the tlug topic, but I would think it
Thomas> would be useful info to some of the subscribers and of course we all
Thomas> know that that 99.99% service runs on a linux box anyway :)
Thomas> 
Thomas> Tom.
Thomas> -- 
Thomas> Thomas O'Dowd                   Have you had your noop today?
Thomas> tom@example.com                  http://www.nooper.com
Thomas> 
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Thomas>