Web/email hosting suggestions

[beatle]

I've had my own domain for about 15 years now. I started it after I graduated college, mostly as a place to put images and host email. It's nothing special (1GB/10GB) and only costs $3.95/mo. I no longer host images or files since there are better free services and I tend to use most of my storage for email. My host has changed hands at least 4 times, and sometimes it has moved datacenters. I'll get a new control panel, wait a day for DNS to update, and then move on, but just yesterday I moved to a new host and they jacked up my webmail. I can no longer directly access it via the default port 80 or 443. Instead I have to use 2096. This is annoying and could be fixed with a forwarder so I don't have to remember the odd URL, but I cannot access nonstandard ports from work since they're all firewalled off. This is really the only time I use webmail so it's kind of a deal breaker, and I'm now looking for a new host.

Most hosts seem to be about the same deal - $1-$3/mo if you pay up front for 2-3 years, but renewing costs $7-$8/mo. I can see myself jumping from host to host when renewal time comes around to keep getting a good deal. I'm guessing they are all pretty similar since I'm not asking for much.

I've also considered going full Gmail and doing away with my domain altogether as spam filtering has improved dramatically since the early 2000s. I set up each site I signed up for (amazon, paypal, ebay, bestbuy, newegg, etc.) with a different forwarder that points to my real email address, so I have a bestbuy@mydomain.com, newegg@mydomain.com, etc. This worked great for killing spam in its tracks as I'd just create a new forwarder with a number at the end and update my profile. It also let me see who was selling out my address or being compromised. I got several spam sessions to my newegg forwarder, for example.

Thoughts? Not sure if this belongs in "Operating Systems" but I have no idea where else it would go except OT.

 

[Skunk-Works]

I use Namecheap for a professional email address. I pay around $10 a year not including the domain I have hosted at Namesilo. Was kinda a PITA to get the DNS settings correct.

 

[JackMDS]

the use of the special port might be only for direct access to the direct Webmail control-panel.

Once the general DNS of your specific site propagate, then the regular access through the regular name-site would probably work for the email with the common ports too.

 

[beatle]

Specific port use before was just for my domain's control panel. I used to be able to browse to www.mydomain.com/roundcube for my RoundCube webmail, but it's now locked down to specific port use. Here's a quote from my support ticket:

cPanel goes by the TCP port instead of using the URL to access Webmail which is a bit different than DirectAdmin but is superior. This allows you to use any hostname you want to access webmail as long as you access TCP port 2096.

For example - https://mail.yourdomain.com:2096 or https://www.yourdomain.com:2096 or https://webmail.yourdomain.com:2096

You could also create a "webmail" directory under your document root and add a .htaccess that redirects to the URL above for backwards compatibility with old bookmarks.​

I'm sure there's some reason for this that allows them to cram more domains on a host, but it has completely ruined my webmail at work.

 

[JackMDS]

It might work as before once the New DNS propagate.(probably by tomorrow).

If after the propagation occurred and it still Not working.

Try there secondary suggestion .

Quote: "You could also create a "webmail" directory under your document root and add a .htaccess that redirects to the URL above for backwards compatibility with old bookmarks."

P.S. Your trouble is typical to low cost Hosting. They can offer low cost because they assume that the client would do his own support.

Providing full "Hand holding" is expensive. Hosts that provide "Hand Holding" are thus more expensive.

 

[beatle]

Since I'm really just looking for email, I'm considering going with a host for email only.

Tucows sells email addresses with your firstname@lastname.com (well, they have hundreds or thousands of last names) but try as I might, I cannot check out using their system. I opened a ticket with them and after trading a couple of emails with them, they've stopped responding to me altogether.

Then I thought about getting hosted through Google with GSuite/GoogleApps. That would give me proper access to real webmail and 30GB of storage. The apps may be beneficial to me as well - not sure. Anyone else use them as a host?

 

[sourceninja]

I host my DNS on google and I use zoho for a free email account for my domain. I've often thought of switching to https://aws.amazon.com/workmail/pricing/ and just paying $4 a month for a slightly better experience.

 

[beatle]

That's a nice option. Saves me $1/month (I pay $3.95/mo now) and I get extra storage (50GB vs 30GB with Google).

In other news, I was poking around the DNS settings for my domain to see how easy it would be to transfer and saw there were a few records already in place, including webmail. I tried it and it worked! I'm not sure why the hosting provider couldn't have told me that. This did not exist prior to their datacenter move, so I didn't know to try it. So at least I've addressed that issue.