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Good web hosts & IMAP/webmail

Posted: Fri 23 Feb, 2007 18.29
by scottishtv
Hi guys. Looking for some recommendations here.

Basically I bought a domain name a few years ago as I was jumping between email accounts (switching ISPs a lot /moving to university etc etc) and got all my email forwarded from my domain to whatever email address I had at the time. Then a couple of years ago I wanted to set up a little website to share pics, use for file storage and have a couple of pages on (not a big site at all). I therefore decided to use my domain name properly with a host and use a webhost's email system as well - I went with Active 24 and found their POP email far too slow and website loading speeds farical. I'm currently with 123-reg and think they are pretty good.

However, I'm now travelling a lot and accessing my email at the domain remotely much more. However, I also want to keep my Outlook at home up to date when I'm there. Basically, I'm looking for a host that offers a good IMAP service, good web hosting (for a small, low usage site) and has a good webmail interface as well.

Any recommendations? I see that Amenworld offer IMAP email (and use SquirrelMail webmail). Pipe Ten also offer IMAP. Have you guys got any tips? i don't really mind paying for a decent host and one with easy, good webmail facilities.

Also, is it possible to get Outlook Web Access with an IMAP system or is this very complex and expensive? and is that only really for business users right now?

Thanks in advance. :)

Posted: Fri 23 Feb, 2007 19.27
by Mich
Outlook Web Access would probably be quite pricey; i'd suggest "GMail for your domain".

I've used the service for around 9 months and it is really excellent, all of the features of GMail (so you can download your e-mail into Outlook) have a look at... http://www.google.com/a/org/.

Posted: Fri 23 Feb, 2007 21.01
by cdd
Hi,
One host I would NOT recommend is 1and1... really slow folder access and crappy support. However, it is cheap and OK-ish if you are willing to put up with a bit of shoddy service (I use them, and they're Ok 90% of the time). The main reason I am still with them is because it is too much hassle to change, plus the one thing they are good at is server side spam filtering (catches all my junk!)
GMail is all well and good but doesn't support IMAP, it only offers POP. That means that your mail won't copy to Sent-Mail (although you COULD use your mail client to BCC all your e-mail to [email protected] because gmail supports plus-filters), and messages statuses won't be synched amongst GMail or your machine, and you have to always download the entire message, you can't leave off the attachments. As long as none of those are a problem for you, GMail might be a nice option. If you must have IMAP, everyone.net are supposed to be quite good - plus they offer it at a reasonable price. You just point your host's dns settings for your domain to their mx servers and you're set.
Word to the wise, though, if you go for IMAP, don't use Outlook. You shouldn't use Outlook anyway, as it's a horrid mail client that breaks every standard in the book and produces HTML that is plainly grotesque and promotes bad standards (just see http://dan.mail.info!) - but it's alright on the whole; however, that can't be said of its IMAP support. Its main problem is that it insists on freezing up the whole mail client when it's performing a server-side action (and that could be anything, from updating headers, which can take a LONG time using Outlook if you have lots of mail! - to downloading an attachment that it has decided that you want). And you can't purge messages automatically, so deleting a message with IMAP is inevitably a two-step process - Delete the message, then Edit > Purge Deleted Messages In This Folder, then click Yes to the dialog. Not fun. The final thing with the unholy marriage of IMAP and Outlook is that you are inevitably limited to the size of your mailbox - probably 2GB or something. When that fills up you need to back up your mail, unlike POP where your mailbox folder size is limited only by your hard drive! With Outlook, backing up is an absolute nightmare involving the weird nonsense that is PST files, and it's all very unpleasant and painful. And Outlook won't even do you the honour of copying your mail to Sent (you have to set that up manually as a filter, believe it or not!).
So long story short, Outlook's support for IMAP is flaky at best. Outlook 2007 resolves some of these problems but they are still present to an extent, plus Outlook 2007 is even slower than the 2003 version, and latency with mail clients is the last thing you need - when I was using Outlook, it got to the point where I started dreading checking my e-mail because it would be about 1 minute (i.e. a long time in computer terms!) before anything was accessible. Oh, and did I mention you can't download IMAP messages to your PC properly using Outlook?
If IMAP is the way you're heading, you should use some other mail client - Thunderbird is a good one, with the added bonus of being standards compliant, but even Outlook Express is better in its support for IMAP than its 'big sister'. However, if you're staying with POP, then none of the above problems really apply and Outlook will do your job just fine.
FYI the reason Outlook's support for IMAP is so shoddy is because it is obsessed about Microsoft Exchange Servers - basically Microsoft's idea about how IMAP should work. While it's actually not all that bad (if you ever used Hotmail Outlook Live, you get some idea), very very few servers support it, and those that do want lots of cash (we're talking hundreds here).
Hope that helps you out a bit - I've used IMAP for about 2 years, so if you'd like any more info on the pros/cons of IMAP, just ask :)
Chris

Posted: Fri 23 Feb, 2007 22.25
by scottishtv
I knew Metropol wouldn't let me down.

Thanks for the GMail suggestion although I don't really think that's for me.

Chris, you have been a mine of useful information here. I was getting confused between IMAP and Exchange servers - something I found out more about since my original post.

Basically you're right and you know exactly what I'm looking for. I want everything to syncronise without any hassle and I want decent webmail. At the moment, I use POP3 but leave a copy of the messages on the server so I can see them in my webmail browser. It's still awkward, and I always end up confusing people by CC-ing myself in on emails when sending through the web.

The reason I was looking at IMAP is because my university used it (as do many others I believe) and it was very good. I accessed through webmail on campus, and Outlook Express in my room in student accommodation. I didn't realise Outlook would prove to be more frustrating than it's baby brother, so that's given me something to think about.

I'm leaning towards someone that offers an Exchange mailbox to be honest as we use those at work and I've become spoilt by the features of sync-ing calendars and address books etc. I see that 1&1 offer it for about £85 a year although i'm a bit wary of them after your last post. I'm also considering Aventurehost and Fasthosts as they offer it too.

One other thing to add in here though is that I'm planning to buy a new Sony Ericsson phone (the K810i when it comes out) and it supports "push email" but the manual says POP and IMAP. I suppose it Exchange would be incompatible here?!

My head's starting to hurt - and I can't believe I'm posting on this topic at 10.30pm on a Friday night!