I’m looking to use a custom domain to set up an email address. Really, I’ve got a couple of questions:
How do you come up with a good domain name? I don’t really know what I want it to be - I feel like “[firstname]@[fullname./com]” looks a little strange myself, but I can’t really think of anything else. Does anyone have some good examples or general ideas?
Assuming you own a domain, which email provider is best to use? I’m leaning towards Proton Mail at the moment, but I know there’s some others out there too like Skiff and Fastmail. Any personal recommendations?
I’m not in the same situation, as I mostly registered my domain for the fun of tinkering with things (I’m weird like that), but a couple of thoughts:
If you’ve thought about using domain hacks like [email protected], be careful. Depending on the TLD you choose, you can be in for a shit ton of trouble with spam filters and address validation. Might be able to get away with it if your last name ends in a common tld though. Also depending on what you plan on using it for, you might not even want to go with a standard [lastname].com style domain.
I like protonmail a lot so definitely recommend them. But personally I don’t bother as I rarely need to send emails from my domain, so I ended up just going with a CloudFlare email routing thingo that catches all incoming emails and forwards them to a Gmail inbox I have set up specifically for it. Also, depending on who you register with, they might include permanent email hosting, or potentially hosting for your first year or whatever. That’s definitely the easiest option if you find a registrar you like
And whatever you do, don’t try and host your own email server. I’ve never tried to, but from what I’ve heard it’s a pain in the fucking arse, breaks regularly, and unless you bounce your emails through somebody else’s servers on the way out, you’re likely to have your emails caught in spam filters. Ultimately as long as you don’t go with a provider known for sending large amounts of spam, all of them will be very similar, with the primary difference just being how much it costs and what support you receive
I hosted my own mail server late 90s. It’s a drag but not the end of the world. You want it locked down. There’s many things that legitimately port scan but once the MX records went live port scanning went through the roof.
I bought a domain from cheaper domains, connected it to paid ProtonMail and turned on Catch-All emails with the SimpleLogin Proton plugin thingy.
I love it even more than I thought I would, I just make up a new email for everyone (I don’t need to create the address in advance) , and can turn them off individually, and will know who’s leaked my info because the address will be [email protected] or whatever.
I’m looking to use a custom domain to set up an email address. Really, I’ve got a couple of questions:
How do you come up with a good domain name? I don’t really know what I want it to be - I feel like “[firstname]@[fullname./com]” looks a little strange myself, but I can’t really think of anything else. Does anyone have some good examples or general ideas?
Assuming you own a domain, which email provider is best to use? I’m leaning towards Proton Mail at the moment, but I know there’s some others out there too like Skiff and Fastmail. Any personal recommendations?
I’m not in the same situation, as I mostly registered my domain for the fun of tinkering with things (I’m weird like that), but a couple of thoughts:
If you’ve thought about using domain hacks like [email protected], be careful. Depending on the TLD you choose, you can be in for a shit ton of trouble with spam filters and address validation. Might be able to get away with it if your last name ends in a common tld though. Also depending on what you plan on using it for, you might not even want to go with a standard [lastname].com style domain.
I like protonmail a lot so definitely recommend them. But personally I don’t bother as I rarely need to send emails from my domain, so I ended up just going with a CloudFlare email routing thingo that catches all incoming emails and forwards them to a Gmail inbox I have set up specifically for it. Also, depending on who you register with, they might include permanent email hosting, or potentially hosting for your first year or whatever. That’s definitely the easiest option if you find a registrar you like
And whatever you do, don’t try and host your own email server. I’ve never tried to, but from what I’ve heard it’s a pain in the fucking arse, breaks regularly, and unless you bounce your emails through somebody else’s servers on the way out, you’re likely to have your emails caught in spam filters. Ultimately as long as you don’t go with a provider known for sending large amounts of spam, all of them will be very similar, with the primary difference just being how much it costs and what support you receive
I hosted my own mail server late 90s. It’s a drag but not the end of the world. You want it locked down. There’s many things that legitimately port scan but once the MX records went live port scanning went through the roof.
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Used to work at a big ISP, and before the days of Outlook 365, there were 5 engineers working flat out on running the staff email servers.
Last time I heard from them, they got retrained and now look after the entire Microsoft 365 tenancy for the whole organization.
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Same for ventra. Can’t be bothered hosting my own mail server any more. Bought firstnamelastname.com about 15 years ago.
Thank you so much! That’s super useful :)
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I bought a domain from cheaper domains, connected it to paid ProtonMail and turned on Catch-All emails with the SimpleLogin Proton plugin thingy. I love it even more than I thought I would, I just make up a new email for everyone (I don’t need to create the address in advance) , and can turn them off individually, and will know who’s leaked my info because the address will be [email protected] or whatever.
Ah yeah, I watched a video about doing something like that pretty recently - thank you for the response! It’s such a good idea