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by mmh0000 562 days ago
Here's how I do it:

* Buy your own domain, (Through a reputable registrar that has existed for a long time (enom; joker; namecheap; aws).

* Host DNS through a 3rd party (Cloudflare in my case)

* Use Fastmail for email hosting on my custom domain

* Run a nightly cronjob using offlineimap (https://github.com/OfflineIMAP/offlineimap) to sync all hosted email to my local NAS.

This protects me from:

* Fastmail bans me: I'll pay for email hosting elsewhere, update DNS records, and upload all my backed-up email.

* DNS host bans me: I'll move to a different DNS host.

* Registrar bans me: I'm a little fukked; old emails are backed up, but new emails would be tricky. Though, this is much less likely

* House burns down: Buy a new house and NAS and redownload all my email.

* Nuclear war: I'm dead and email doesn't matter anymore.
3 comments
thiht 561 days ago
Just a few points of attention: if you use a ccTLD (2 characters) for your domain, make sure you’re using the ccTLD of the country you live in, and make sure you have no plan in permanently moving to another country. ccTLDs don’t necessarily follow ICANN rules and can change their rules as they see fit, overnight. They can decide that you’re not eligible anymore if you don’t live in the country for example.

This happened with .eu for example, UK residents stopped being eligible to own a .eu after the brexit. Another example is .au, they started requiring an Australian presence in 2022.

My advice as someone who worked in the domain name industry : just get a .com or a .net. There are also some reputable newGTLDs (.dev for example), but you can’t go wrong with .com/.net.

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eddd-ddde 562 days ago
What if you survive nuclear fallout? I don't think this has enough protections...
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cdaringe 556 days ago
Have you ever been a victim of domain squatting? One time I went to renew my domain one day late. Ask me how that went.
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mmh0000 555 days ago
No.

I prepay for all domains five years in advance. I have a calendar reminder to add additional time every year in September. Plus I have auto-renew enabled, but, I don’t trust fully trust it. Hence the calendar reminder.

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