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Email Disaster

MikeSh said:
Expensive? Well I fork out probably £200+ a year on printer ink as my wife prints her photos at A4. Then there's the broadband, the cost/depreciation of the hardware, electricity, etc, .....
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Yes, but I got unlimited gmail accounts for free. I will never need to change them. Plus, I no longer maintain web sites, so there was £36 for nothing, in my case.

The domains started at a low cost for two years but then cost far more in year three+.
 
I am actually something of a fan of Google, but they do have a habit of changing stuff that works into something less useful without warning (Maps is currently getting this treatment - I've reverted to the 'old' version).
They've already dropped googlemail for gmail, so I wouldn't trust them not to do something else in future.
And I'm not very happy about their 'privacy' for e-mail. (Targetted advertising is just a pain as far as I'm concerned - you get bombarded with adverts for something you've already bought for weeks afterwards. It's stupid and annoying - I'd rather see random ads where there might actually be something I'd want in them.)

Some domains are indeed much more expensive later (eg. ,info) but the ones I have are the same or near enough in subsequent years. You just have to shop cannily.

But all said, if I didn't use the web space (or maybe when) then yes I might consider a different way to go. In the meantime the stability and 'security' is worth the small outlay to me.
 
MikeSh said:
And I'm not very happy about their 'privacy' for e-mail. (Targetted advertising is just a pain as far as I'm concerned - you get bombarded with adverts for something you've already bought for weeks afterwards. It's stupid and annoying - I'd rather see random ads where there might actually be something I'd want in them.)
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Just turn targeted ads off then. Plus, install a browser extension that nukes Google ads.
 
Trev said:
How do you do that?
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When it is foisted on you there is an option that appears somewhere (for me anyway) to go back to the previous/original version. Sorry, I don't remember exactly what form it took - I've slept since then.

The new one annoyed me in a particular way as I often plan routes from places that don't include home, and that ability seemed to have been 'lost'. Having wasted a good half hour trying to find a way to do it I saw the 'revert' button and hit it.
 
Me too - didn't get on with the new one so reverted sharpish. At one point the new one showed a map of a route that went round Manchester and didn't even label Manchester in any way! Hopefully it will improve.
 
Mike0001 said:
Just turn targeted ads off then. Plus, install a browser extension that nukes Google ads.
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Maybe, but I am not comfortable with them reading my e-mails on principle. I don't mind them snooping stuff up from my unsecured wifi (if I had that) using a passing car, cos if you transmit stuff like that I think it's public property; but when I have a reasonably secure system I don't expect it to be tapped into by a commercial company without my express permission, regardless. (I do expect the US government and various other neer-do-wells to snoop, but I don't approve.)

My comment about the targetted adverts was more general as they seem to crop up on occasions even though I use various opt-outs. I use the Chrome browser, so no doubt Google is behind some of it. It's one of those ideas that must be an adman's wet dream, but it's so badly implemented it actually throws prime advertising space straight down the proverbial drain. I really do laugh at times. (I bought a scaffold tower earlier this year. For about 2 months after that I got an advert on, it seemed, almost every page saying "Get a scaffold tower from xxx". xxx was where I'd bought it! Reassuring to know I'd made the right choice I suppose :rolleyes: )

I have considered using gmail a few times over the years, and seriously when they made it possible to use your own domain e-mail addresses with it. However I couldn't actually figure out how that would work (Google's help pages are incredibly unhelpful) and all things considered I've always come back to the paid provider (1&1, or 1und1 as they are now slipping in) option as being best for my needs. It's the German efficiency thing :) .
 
Even without using Gmail, just about every web site I visit has an advert for a specific roller blind on it after I clicked a Google search result for that blind (and bought one over the phone).
 
Black Hole said:
Even without using Gmail, just about every web site I visit has an advert for a specific roller blind on it after I clicked a Google search result for that blind (and bought one over the phone).
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Use the AdBlock extension. If you can't, use a better browser! I rarely see ads.

There is a non-google version of Chrome, called Chromium. It may be available as a browser called Iron.
 
I found myself in the same circumstances last month - historical BT email address though not a BT customer any more, and with a possible alternative via my own domain which has webmail facilitates. I also have a gmail address which I'm sure google would love me to use as my main email account.

When I looked at all the online changes I would need to make; the banks and utilities I'd need to contact, amazon, paypal, ebay, all the personal contacts I'd need to update, plus the hassle it would cause my son and daughters who have sub-accounts, I decided to pay the £1.60/month and forgo all the aggravation. Life's too short.
 
I am coming to the same conclusion. Consider a change only if/when BT foul up.

Re ad blocking, AVForums gets very snotty if their ad feed is blocked.
 
Black Hole said:
Re ad blocking, AVForums gets very snotty if their ad feed is blocked.
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That is no reason not to do it, I have been using Adblock Plus for a number of years, and only had the occasional request to disable ad blocking on AVForums.
 
I do use some adblocks, but mainly to kill pop-ups. I don't object to ads in principle - all this 'free' stuff needs to be paid for somewhere along the line - but I'd rather it was discreet (ie. not blasted out on top of what I'm doing), relevant or novel, and not privacy invasive.

I use Chrome partly because it is generally a good browser, but also as mentioned earlier because it syncs my stuff across the two PCs and tablet I regularly use. I'm prepared to accept a slight loss of privacy in terms of browsing history (and my ISP can grab that anyway) for those features.

What I really want to sort out is a decent mail client that can use address books on my 1&1 server and has versions for Windows and Android. Have a feeling it doesn't exist however.
 
Back to email, this is definitely a BT link (ie not a phishing scam):

http://www.bt.com/newemail

The link redirects to bt.custhelp.com. I notice it says nothing about 16th September, and nothing about having to pay (that I can find).
 
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