Eversince I got my personal domain, sgowtham.com, my mails (that is – anything sent to xxxx@sgowtham.com) were managed by Yahoo Mail servers. For quite a while now, I have been pondering about the idea of having my emails managed by Google Mail (popularly known as GMail) for several reasons:
- One Way Traffic: I can only receive mails addressed to xxxx@sgowtham.com in my Yahoo! Inbox but cannot send anything out as xxxx@sgowtham.com
- SPAMMM: So called Anti Spam Filters in Yahoo! don’t necessarily work the way they are intended to; loads of crap I have to deal in Inbox every time I log in has been draining my patience.
- POP3 Downloads/Forwards: Yahoo! does not allow, at least for standard accounts, a free way of downloading messages to other email readers (Apple Mail, Eudora, Thunderbird, Outlook, etc.) nor does it offer forwarding of mails to another email account. <Whisper>There is actually a free way of leagally downloading messages from Standard Yahoo! account but you need to have a linux machine. Ask me about it!</Whisper>
- Lack of Privacy: There is only ONE Inbox for any/all mails addressed to xxxx@sgowtham.com. So, if there are multiple users with different email addresses in my domain, all of them will have just one Inbox to use and anybody can read anyone else’s emails – more like using public toilets/restrooms!
- Unaccountable Time Lag: Mails addressed to xxxx@sgowtham.com sometimes just take forever to arrive. Yahoo! may not have anything to do with this problem, but it’s still annoying nevertheless.
- and so on…
A late evening discussion on some related topics (i.e., related to Google Mail handling structure) with Matt Buss and Todd Piket in DCS led me accidentally to the Google Apps (standard edition; it’s free and more than what I need) page and several short, very well described steps later, I had switched my mail server from Yahoo! to Google. Here are some screenshots:
Control Panel Login Screen for my domain
Admin Control Panel for my domain
Normal user’s customizable page for my domain
Pretty nifty and easy to understand/manage. Right now, DNS service is provided by Yahoo! and I don’t have too many complaints about it. I am currently looking around to see if Google would actually host my domain too. If it does, then all my stuff will be under one reliable thing and I can cut down on many a sleepless nights…
PS: If any of you have your domains registered at Yahoo! and have your domain’s email handled by Yahoo! (I know of some friends who have done so), please do let me know if you wish to do the same as I did. I can share my $0.02 and work with you on this :)