[BlueOnyx:12770] Re: Uncool email

[shouldbe q931]

On Wed, Apr 3, 2013 at 6:47 PM, Ralf Quint <Smoothwall at gmx.net> wrote:
> At 09:28 AM 4/3/2013, shouldbe q931 wrote:
>
>>Well I use gmail for all my mailing lists, and the web interface is
>>much easier than having to manage a POP3/IMAP client, it also does
>>"plain text" reasonably well. I can see the headers with one click.
>
> Sorry, can't concur here at all. I use several GMail addresses
> myself, the first one since the first round of "invitations" more
> than a decade ago now.
> But I use their web interface only when I am not anywhere near a
> computer of mine and would have to check out an email that I can't
> read properly on my phone or need to get a printout/download of an
> attachment...
> All mailing lists are retrieved from accounts either on GMail or GMX
> (which I have longer than Gmail) via POP3, as I do not need to be
> online to read and or look for old posts/topics, as all is stored
> (and backed up!!!) locally.
As I said, I only use gmail for mailing lists, I have no need to
access it offline.


> Nice to have if I decide to get out of the city and seek a quiet spot
> up in the hills where there isn't any Internet access for my laptop
> or my phone..
>
> All business or more important private accounts are handled via IMAP.
>
> Both POP3 and IMAP take mere seconds to set up and I can organize my
> email far better than on Gmail and those stupid "labels". And you can
> not even do half of what I can do with either Eudora or T-Bird in
> terms of filters/rules to manage emails...

Oh I completely agree that labels are no substitute for folders.

>
>>Spam filters don't belong in web browsers, they belong on email
>>servers. IMHO Client based spam filtering is a waste of resource, spam
>>filtering should be done at the perimeter...
> So much for the theory. Would be nice if you could relay that for
> example to the folks at Yahoo, Earthlink or Verizon, those poor souls
> get inundated with spam despite all the (false) promises of their providers.
> Even my now 8 year old version of Eudora does a better job of
> catching what comes occasionally through, T-Bird does an outstanding
> job too. And try to hijack either one and get hold of my contacts to
> spam them, something that I see all the time happening at work with
> people that use a web browser and web based email providers only...
>

I fail to see your point, you seem to be saying that because there are
people that still have POP3/IMAP accounts with service providers that
don;t so any spam filtering, perimeter spam filtering is a wast of
time...

It's been a while since I've seen a CSRF for Exchange, I do accept
that this is an attack vector, however the ease of having all traffic
going over HTTPS rather than needing outbound 587 and 993 is huge for
people that need to be able to work in environments where they re only
allowed outbound 80 and 443..

I'm not sure what you men by "my now 8 year old version of Eudora does
a better job of catching what comes occasionally through" is this an
admission that your mail server's spam filters are not as well setup a
an 8 year old copy of Eudora ?

>>Granted I only use gmail for mailing lists, I wouldn't use it for
>>"real" email. For "real" email I run Exchange, as I am yet to find an
>>open source shared nothing clustered email solution that is as easy to
>>use.
> Exchange? Easy to use? =-O
> "Nobody knows the troubles I have seen, nobody knows my sorrow..."
> Sorry, Exchange is a cest pool. The only thing that makes it viable
> is the way contacts and calendar integrate and that stupid iCrap
> devices can only use dreaded ActiveSync and even then loose all info
> if for whatever reason the account settings get screwed up or get
> lost.

Interesting how you completely missed the specific point I made, but
very interesting to see that even you begrudgingly accept that the
contact and calendar integration works well.

Had to go through this mess over the past Easter weekend for a
> client who changed Internet providers at the end of last month when
> most users were already gone for a few days...
>
Sounds like a "schoolboy" error was made, but changing IP addresses
isn't an issue for Exchange.

> Granted I only use the email on BlueOnyx for some info mailboxes on
> Open Source projects I am involved in and to provide email for a
> couple of friends who roam this planet out of the country.
>
> For myself, I use actually hmailserver, which is not Open Source but
> free of charge and that does both a good job (I use it set up for
> IMAP) and is easy to set up/use.
>
> As I am using an Android phone (couldn't be arsed into using a Jesus
> Mobe) I use Google Calendar though which syncs "all by itself" ;-)
> and for contacts, I use Zindus to sync between my address book in
> T-Bird and Google/Android phone. And that keeps contacts and calendar
> even if my home/office IP changes or becomes otherwise unavailable...
>
Aah, see where I said "shared nothing clustered" earlier ? my "mail
server" exists as four copies, two at main site, two at DR site with
automatic failover between them and active DNS to change between the
sites if one site goes down completely. I would certainly not expect
any of the ISP connections IP addresses to change.

>>My perimeter spam filtering is however most certainly not on Exchange :-)
>
> Not only would that set up back quite a few more bucks, but there
> isn't much that works too well either (and I have used several on my
> previous job, including GFI and Symantec)

You seem to be agreeing with me :-)

> I am running DSpam on my (Linux based) perimeter firewall, so for all
> email that's going to my own server, I am not worried at all. Has a
> far higher percentage than any commercial spam filter I have deal
> with so far...

I would suggest that the commercial systems you have dealt with were
probably not setup by somebody that knew what they were doing, as I'm
sure you're aware, setting up  spam filtering system can be quite
complex. I find that RBLs and rDNS lookups catch over 99% of the spam
that my spam filter based sees.

Thanks for the link to DSpam, it looks interesting

> Have set this also up at a couple of clients, in front of their
> (Exchange) email server and it works there just as well...
>
>>Different horses for different courses...
>
> Exactly! Use a web browser for just that, browsing www, and a proper
> email client for email. Using a web based mail client can be an
> alternative in "cases of need" but I would never, ever recommend that
> as the primary way to use email...
>
> Ralf
>

I actively use more than half a dozen computers, not having mailing
lists on them makes it possible for me to not store ~15GB of
additional email on each of them without needing to do any manual
archiving. Storage is cheap, but IMAP is slow, and I've never
experienced what started this thread with Outlook and Exchange.
,
Cheers

Arne