[jmiserez]

You don't need an email provider, you can just set up a mail server on your own computer. If the person you are sending your mail to also has their own mail server you send it directly to them without any provider every seeing it.

EDIT: Yes I know... It's not trivial to setup and keep running, "own computer" might need to mean hosted somewhere (VPS, datacenter, etc), and all your contacts might also need to setup mail servers because providers like Gmail might reject your mails. In the end it might not be worth your time, but there's absolutely no technical reason why you'd need a mail provider for emails.

[bryankeithmoore]

Except that most consumer ISPs block outgoing traffic on port 25 to make spamming more difficult. So you won't be able to send mail directly to the recipient's SMTP server.

[ryan-c]

> You don't need an email provider, you can just set up a mail server on your own computer.

Not really. It's not possible to send mail from a dynamic IP at all, and there is a lot of technical minutia to not get thrown in the spam folder for major providers. In fact, many major providers simply assume mail sent from an unfamiliar domain and/or IP is spam by default, and you will have to contact them to ask for permission to send to them.

[hannob]

> and there is a lot of technical minutia to not get thrown in the spam folder for major providers. In fact, many major providers simply assume mail sent from an unfamiliar domain and/or IP is spam by default, and you will have to contact them to ask for permission to send to them.

These myths are popular, in my experience they are not true.

[ryan-c]

> These myths are popular, in my experience they are not true.

I am speaking from personal experience. I've run my own mail server for about 15 years.

A few months I had to publicly complain on twitter about Microsoft blocking my email in order to get them to stop putting my email in the spam folder (after having to move to a new IP). Their support people before I publicly complained just kept responding with a form letter with advice for commercial senders sending transactional, newsletter and marketing content.

[gsich]

I haven't asked anybody for permission, yet email still works. Just follow the basics. Reverse DNS, SPF and DKIM will instantly grant you a place in non-spam.

[ryan-c]

I just went through the pain of switching to a new IP for my mail server a few months ago.

All major providers except Google were putting my messages in the spam folder by default despite me getting myself whitelisted in DNSWL and having proper FcRDNS, SPF, DKIM and DMARC configuration.

The IP was not in any reputable public blacklists, and the domain had been in use for many years.

[_urga]

Did you check the reputation of your /24 neighborhood?

I have seen Microsoft blocking entire /24 neighborhoods on the basis of a single IP sending spam.

You were probably hit by that as collateral damage.

[ryan-c]

Yes, I did. It was clean as far as I could tell. It was not just Microsoft, I also had issues with Yahoo, AOL and some others. The block I'm in is listed in some RBL called "spamgrouper"[1] but as far as I can tell nobody pays attention to it. No other lists showed any trouble.

1. http://www.spamgrouper.to/

[xg15]

> ...and all your contacts might also need to setup mail servers

If you can already get your contacts to install software for you, why stay with email at all? You might as well use Telegram, SSB or whatever you want then.