End of an era

[RogerS]

Many of us took out an email address with Demon Internet in 1992 in the heady days of the internet. They were the original 'Tenner a month'. Since then Demon Internet have been sold on from company to company. Throughout all these moves, our email addresses have remained unchanged.

The format of the email address was brilliant [email protected]
I effectively 'owned' xxxxxxx which meant that I could instantly put anything in front of the @ sign. Great for anonymity. Great for signing up for all sorts of things where they blocked you if you had registered before using the same email address.

My actual email address is registered with countless companies, e-commerce sites, you name it. I can't even begin to think where they all are.

Now, Vodafone have sold us to NamesCo. No notification. Nothing. Quite by chance, I discovered that they were going to start charging for my website hosting. No notification. sprouts.

But it gets worse. Buried in the Demon website is the little known fact that within two years, we are all going to lose our Demon email address. :evil: :evil: :evil: I've had that email address for over twenty years. It's almost a part of me. I have a strong emotional attachment to it.

I can't even begin to think of where or on what sites my email address is registered. To say that I am hacked off is an understatement.

And you can guess which company is top of my s**t list.

 

[Eric The Viking]

I feel for you.

I had a brilliant Demon address for many years (started with them around 1992, very soon after they started). I backed away after they were bought by "Thus" (stupid name), but kept using Turnpike until last year. It continues to frustrate me that there's no email apckage I can find that comes close in terms of robustness and features.

The idea, way back, that genuine techincal people would participate in the newsgroups (d.i.s.t.,etc.), and that they really cared about the quality of service... and Cliff Stanford's "Demon Dispatches"... heady days, sadly long gone now.

If you used one today, I expect you could still probably tell what sort of connection you got, by the noises the modem made. I still have my US Robotics Courier V-everything in a box somewhere...

 

[JakeS]

For what it's worth: while it's no salve for all the other headaches associated with losing an email service, regarding the sign-up-for-websites-with-throwaway-address problem: you can stick a "+" and some text after the local-name part of any email address with most providers/software, and it should be routed identically. So if you have (for example)

[email protected]

then you can sign up to Axminster with

[email protected]

and it should still get to your inbox - handily still with the original to: header so you can filter it or block it or whatever you want to do. Check with your particular setup before relying on it, but I've been doing this for some years with my own hosting's email accounts and with my GMail address and only once had a problem (when a site refused to believe that a '+' character was valid in the local name, so it never resulted in lost mail).

 

[RogerS]

Hi Jake

Good tip. I've also found that I can set up a CatchAll email address with a hosting set-up which I've now done. Now all I have to do is wade through my Inbox and other sources to start changing over my email address :evil: Interesting thing is that NamesCo's offices are literally just down the road. The temptation to go down and see the MD face-to-face is growing on me.

 

[Rhossydd]

The only long term sensible approach is to buy your own domain name. Then you have total control and can use any ISP.

 

[RogerS]

The only long term sensible approach is to buy your own domain name. Then you have total control and can use any ISP.

Yup...you're right. It's all done and dusted. Just the small matter of updating everywhere

 

[Panda]

Used to have a Demon address too in the past, but luckily stopped using it a while ago already. Now considering changing my email address to one which has the domain name of my website in it. Might go for this option: http://www.1and1.co.uk/email-address. Anyone who has experience with 1&1 email service?

 

[RogerS]

Used to have a Demon address too in the past, but luckily stopped using it a while ago already. Now considering changing my email address to one which has the domain name of my website in it. Might go for this option: http://www.1and1.co.uk/email-address. Anyone who has experience with 1&1 email service?

What will you do if they go bust? I decided to have my own domain in the end. Less hassle.

To anyone in a similar position, one Gotcha that nearly caught me out was an item I had listed on eBay/PayPal as the email address used for the item is tied to that item at the time it's created. Affects PayPal payments to you if you sell it. Luckily it timed out Unsold before I switched off my old email address.

 

[DrPhill]

Used to have a Demon address too in the past, but luckily stopped using it a while ago already. Now considering changing my email address to one which has the domain name of my website in it. Might go for this option: http://www.1and1.co.uk/email-address. Anyone who has experience with 1&1 email service?

I use 1and1 to host my website (such as it is) and to 'manage' my domains - I have my own - so I cannot comment on the particular package. Of their customer service I can only say 'at least adequate'. They have solved all my problems in a reasonable amount of time, clear billing. I have a 30-day rolling contract with them for a relatively small cost - I am on the minimal package but can still ssh in and use git to host my files (yes I am a tight-wad).

I use an email client to access my mail and have had no problems.

I would second the recommendation to get your own domain. You can control stuff you never realised. I have a throw-away domain myownspeed which I can prefix with anything and funnel the results into one bucket. So I give each dealer/service/insurance company a different address eg saga@...... Then when I get spammed I know who leaked the address. Also, with Saga, no amount of 'deregister me' got rid of their 'customer information bulletins'. So I just redirected all their emails back to their own marketing department. Childish, yes. May cause them to stop sending me stuff. Cost me nothing.

I also have a domain using my surname, which is an unusual one for this country, so the myownspeed one is useful to avoid spelling out my name on the phone etc.

There is some jargon and such to learn, but it is worth it for the extra control.

As an example, NEST pensions misplaced some of my money and were taking ages to sort it out (3 months and no progress). I registered the domain NESTPensionsLostMyMoney.uk, and made my grievance public. I then sent an email (from [email protected]) to the board of directors pointing them at the domain. The problem was solved in a week. It cost me £1.20 for the domain registration (for the first year!), but I kept it only until the problem was resolved. Cheaper than phone calls or letters, and a damn sight easier.

Sorry, that turned into an essay.....

 

[Panda]

Thanks RogerS and thanks DrPhill for your extensive explanation! It might indeed be worth it to create my own domain. even though it sounds a bit more complex.

 

[RogerS]

Thanks RogerS and thanks DrPhill for your extensive explanation! It might indeed be worth it to create my own domain. even though it sounds a bit more complex.

It's not that difficult. If you go to any good hosting company (I use 123) then it's virtually all done for you anyway. IIRC the only thing I had to do was set-up the email address. If your domain is registered with the same company then they will take care of the two DNS settings you need to change.

 

[Panda]

Ok, clear Thanks again!