I’ve had the same @iname email address for about 8 years now. I’ve been using Mail.com’s Iname forwarding service to forward to wherever I’m keeping my mail (usually on a Linux box I host) so that whenever I want to move my actual email account somewhere else I can. However, every year the iname forwarding service seems to get a little worse with numerous outages. Considering Go Daddy offers domains for around 8 bucks a year which includes mail forwarding I decided to make the switch.
Here’s my new completely convoluted setup which I’m trying out instead of iname coupled with SpamAssassin on my linux box (which just hasn’t been cutting it for me as a spam filter, perhaps I don’t have it configured correctly):
I have my new Go Daddy registered domain forward email to my GMail account. My GMail account spam filters and then forwards to my linux box (an address I don’t give out so I can change it when I need to). On the Linux box I use Pine, IMP, or IMAP to read my mail, respond, and compose messages with the From header set to my GoDaddy registered domain.
The main reason I did all of this is so my email address will never need to change again. I thought that was going to be the case when I went with iname but alas vendor lock-in is often problematic over the long haul. With complete control over my mail setup and how I forward it, spam filter it, etc… I’m optimistic that I can happily go about using my new email address for the foreseeable future.
The problem is that there is a growing trend in spam filtering to reject email where the smtp and the domain don’t match up. A lot of the big providers are considering this.
For years I have been giving out a mail.com address which forwards to my isp account (not given out). I use my isp’s smtp and set my From and Replyto to be the mail.com address.
If this setup starts getting rejected by hotmail and the like, you and I will need to find a solution where our public address provider can provide outbound smtp.
Hi Nick, while that is a problem with a mail.com forwarding address, it is not a problem with the approach I describe of getting a Godaddy domain (which is cheaper than mail.com and offers mail forwarding). When you own the domain then the smtp and domain can match up and I do this by using my hosted Linux box to send through.