[ancymon]

You don't really need own email server to solve such problem. If only you had own domain, you could have moved it to different provider and still have access to the services which require your email address.

By the way, I often hear how it's good for privacy to use (basically all the time) such VPNs. But my experience so far is that using internet via popular VPNs is annoying. Some websites won't let you in, you get a lot of random CAPTCHAs to solve (e.g. to get Google results) and it seems you can lose email account. For me it's too much hassle.

[doublerabbit]

It's what infuriates me about google. I have my own colocation and run my own VPN. Because the ISP is me which is not not public listed I get captcha's. And it's not the simple "Click here" either, click on traffic lights and wait seconds for the image to forever fade.

I would always recommend everyone to run their own email server. However that has its caveats such as of needing to build up IP reputation.

[Shared404]

> I would always recommend everyone to run their own email server.

Any chance you could point me to some good documentation on that? I'm about to set up a homelab and play with OpenBSD some, is 'man opensmtpd' enough to start out with?

[jcynix]

While I don't have an OpenBSD system to check that man page, I doubt that it is sufficient to set up a proper mail server.

You may find one of the printed books on Postfix helpful. No Starch Press has a decent one, which, regardless of its age, still is a good one.

Make sure that your server cannot be used as an open relay to deliver spam. Take a look at http://www.postfix.org/SMTPD_ACCESS_README.html to learn how to do that. Postfix is a well written piece of software and (IMHO) rather easy to maintain once you understood the basic principles. I've been using it for more than a decade now.

[Shared404]

Many thanks. I'll take a look at that book, I haven't gone wrong with No Starch Press yet.

Edit: For anyone else who is looking and can't find it on NSP's website, I found it with 'filetype:pdf The Book of Postfix' on duckduckgo.

[mulmen]

I haven't made time for it yet but this guide seems pretty comprehensive and will be my starting point: https://www.c0ffee.net/blog/mail-server-guide/

[Shared404]

Nice! That does indeed look like quite a nice resource.

[viraptor]

> I often hear how it's good for privacy to use (basically all the time) such VPNs

This kind of got out of control with YouTube ads for VPNs. I want to scream "what is your threat model!?" at people who tell me they use it all the time. Using them without having a specific reason why is silly. And as you've noticed it's not without downsides.

[mulmen]

I don't understand how adding another party (the VPN provider) that can monitor your traffic is automatically beneficial to privacy.