On Tue 17 May 2022 at 13:52:03 (-0300), Chris Mitchell wrote: > Also note that you very much do *not* need to run your own MTA to > achieve the goal of an address you own and can move from provider to > provider.
Very much agree. And with a good choice of provider, you may not want or need to. > Once you own the domain, you can set up your DNS MX records > to delegate to an email provider. If you later decide to switch email > providers or host your own MTA, you change the MX records to point to > the new provider or server. (If you have mail *stored* on your old > provider's server when you terminate your account with them, you'd need > to download it or lose it, obviously.) Hosting your own MTA makes the > problem ten times more complicated, and it's not at all clear that > there's any relevant advantage in terms of the stated objectives. Even this makes it sound more effort that it need be. When I bought my domain (it's more accurate to say you lease it rather than own it), I subscribed to an email provider (currently £4 pm) who bundled the domain cost for the first three years. /They/ set up the MX records, they actually renew the domain every two years (currently £6 pa), and I just pay for the entire service by direct debit (aka ACH) on a credit card. They provide imap4, pop3, smtp, webmail (for which it would have to be a dire emergency) and web hosting (I don't currently use), with support by web, email, and telephone. What's not to like? > In particular, don't expect running your own MTA to gain you any kind > of privacy. Email is a store-and-forward protocol that may route > through an arbitrary number of intermediate servers on the way from > origin to destination. All of those servers at least temporarily store > a copy of every email that passes through, and any of them may be > permanently saving, reading, data-mining, or selling those messages. Any > email that's not encrypted is simply not a private communication, > regardless of who runs your MTA. Cheers, David.
