Choosing Your Main Email Provider: Insights on Security, Reliability, and Owning Your Domain

When choosing an email provider for crucial accounts like banking and government correspondence, concerns about arbitrary lockouts (like with Gmail) and a desire for greater control and privacy are paramount. This Hacker News discussion reveals a strong consensus on how to approach this critical decision.

The Unanimous Recommendation: Own Your Domain

Nearly every commenter emphasized the importance of registering your own domain name for your email. This single step offers several crucial advantages:

Portability: If you become dissatisfied with your email host, you can migrate to a new one without changing your email address. This avoids the massive undertaking of updating your contact information across countless services.
Control: Your email address, a de facto digital identity, remains under your control, not tied to a specific provider's whims or policies.
Security: Users advise locking down your domain registration securely, extending renewal periods (e.g., for 10 years), and providing comprehensive identification to your registrar to facilitate recovery if needed.

Some users even suggest setting up cross-recovery with a trusted friend who also uses a custom domain.

Top Email Provider Choices

While owning a domain is key, the choice of email host still matters. Several providers were repeatedly recommended:

Fastmail: This was the most frequently praised provider. Users consistently reported using Fastmail for many years (some over a decade) with no cons. Key benefits include being a paid service (so you are the customer, not the product), rock-solid reliability, good support, fast search, a pleasant web UI, and useful features like wildcard aliases (e.g., service@yourdomain.com) for managing spam. Fastmail is headquartered in Australia.
mailbox.org: A German (EU-based) company favored for its privacy-respecting, "old-fashioned Unix company" feel. It allows multiple payment accounts to share the same domain securely (each user is their own admin), offers scalable storage, and supports extra domains/aliases. It's noted as financially stable. Pricing is per mailbox.
Proton Mail: Known for its strong privacy and security features, including end-to-end encryption. It's considered phenomenal by some, especially for single users. However, others found its integrations less compatible with their workflows, experienced mobile app issues, or felt it was overkill for their needs if not requiring absolute secrecy. Its Bridge application allows use with desktop email clients, but mobile client options were a concern for one user. The business tier supports multiple domains.
Migadu: Highlighted as a good option for those needing to manage multiple domains and multiple user accounts. The ease of migration, especially with a custom domain, was a plus.
iCloud+: Apple users find this a viable option for custom domain hosting, especially if already embedded in the Apple ecosystem. It's presented as a "lesser of two evils" compared to Gmail for some.
Google Workspace (formerly G Suite) / Gmail: While the OP expressed concerns about Gmail, some users still find it a fine option, especially when used with a custom domain. One commenter suggested Google Workspace for potentially better deliverability, citing Google's control over spam filters. Using tools like imapsync to back up Gmail to another mailbox was also suggested.

Essential Practices for Email Management

Beyond choosing a provider and owning a domain, several best practices were shared:

Regular Backups: Download all your email regularly. Don't solely rely on your host's storage. This acts as a crucial backup if you get locked out or the provider has issues.
Use Aliases: Create unique email addresses (aliases) for different services. This helps in tracking spam sources and organizing incoming mail.
Local Clients: Some users prefer to work almost exclusively with local email clients, downloading everything, while still using webmail for convenience when needed.

Potential Considerations and Caveats

Custom Domain Acceptance: One user reported a bank questioning a custom domain email, suggesting some institutions might be wary. However, this appeared to be an isolated concern in the discussion.
Deliverability: A comment raised the possibility that using smaller providers might impact email deliverability due to the dominance of Google and Microsoft in spam filtering. This was countered by the many positive experiences with independent providers.
Cost Structure: Providers have different pricing models (e.g., per mailbox for mailbox.org, tiered plans for Fastmail and Proton Mail). This can be a factor depending on the number of users or domains.

Ultimately, the discussion underscores a shift towards users taking more active control of their digital identity through custom domains, while carefully selecting providers based on reliability, privacy, usability, and support for their specific needs.