Hosted Exchange Recommendations

[Guest WearTheFoxHat]

Hi All,

I currently have my website and email hosted hosted by Servage.net. They are great, but one service which I think I would utilise a lot, would be hosted exchange server.

I rarely sit at my desk and connect my TyTN II to the PC to synchronise calendar and contacts. Therefore a hosted exchange would deal with my .com email address, but also synchronise my calendar and contacts with the PC, TyTNII and also Outlook Web access.

Can anyone recommend some good exchange hosting providers?

Would I also need to move my whole domain too, or just the MX record?

Lastly ... free or cheap is good ;-)

[Guest chucky.egg]

Sherweb.com were highly recommended, and seem pretty good (I only moved over a few months back).

I've had a few emails about outages for maintenance, but none seem to have actually stopped me sending or receiving so far as far as I can tell.

1&1 were OK, but their support sucks.

You don't have to move your domain, you can just re-point your records.

[Guest WearTheFoxHat]

Damn was just all set to go with Sherweb, and notice they don't allow "catch all" addresses on hosted exchange. Which is a bugger, since I set up each new site I register on with "[email protected]". I can then see when a certain site starts spamming me, and then blacklist their address.

[Guest grey]

Hi All,

I currently have my website and email hosted hosted by Servage.net. They are great, but one service which I think I would utilise a lot, would be hosted exchange server.

I rarely sit at my desk and connect my TyTN II to the PC to synchronise calendar and contacts. Therefore a hosted exchange would deal with my .com email address, but also synchronise my calendar and contacts with the PC, TyTNII and also Outlook Web access.

Can anyone recommend some good exchange hosting providers?

Would I also need to move my whole domain too, or just the MX record?

Lastly ... free or cheap is good ;-)

[Guest grey]

I am a reseller for a hosted exchange company and have been for a number of years now. Since using this service and selling it I would never go back to the way I had to sync my mobile and numerous pc's up to outlook before. The service offers 99.9% uptime and includes a permanent back up of the data as well as webmail too. All you need to do is change the MX records which is no hassle at all to start using the service, after signing up of course!

[Guest WearTheFoxHat]

Hi Grey,

The solution of using hosted exchange looks to be the way to go. What I do want however is:

1) RPC over HTTPS, so that I can sync my Desktop PC's outlook.

2) Obviously Windows Mobile Sync.

3) Not all providers offer this, but critically I need a catch all address. So anything sent to my domain will end up in my mailbox.

4) The ability to dump addresses too, so if [email protected] started getting spammed, then I could just put in a spam rule to delete it without even delivering to my mailbox.

Can you confirm that I am able to do this with the hosting company you resell for?

Also drop me a PM to let me know whom it is, and I'll have a look and then drop you a line to ensure you get your reseller fees etc.

[Guest spacerace]

Hi Grey,

The solution of using hosted exchange looks to be the way to go. What I do want however is:

1) RPC over HTTPS, so that I can sync my Desktop PC's outlook.

2) Obviously Windows Mobile Sync.

3) Not all providers offer this, but critically I need a catch all address. So anything sent to my domain will end up in my mailbox.

4) The ability to dump addresses too, so if [email protected] started getting spammed, then I could just put in a spam rule to delete it without even delivering to my mailbox.

Can you confirm that I am able to do this with the hosting company you resell for?

Also drop me a PM to let me know whom it is, and I'll have a look and then drop you a line to ensure you get your reseller fees etc.

I have used 4smartphone for about 4 years now, they're very good. Exchange 2007 is in use and they also give you a free copy of Outlook 2007 on anything above the cheapest plan.

I don't know of any hosted exchange service that offers catch all as they all charge per mailbox. A way round this is to leave your MX records with your current hosting provider, set the catch all up to go to one account, and then forward all mail from that account to the 4smartphone one (in addition to the primary address you setup with 4smartphone you get one unique to them that you can forward mail to). This would also handle the 'dumping' of certain addresses requirement.

[Guest chucky.egg]

Hi Grey,

The solution of using hosted exchange looks to be the way to go. What I do want however is:

1) RPC over HTTPS, so that I can sync my Desktop PC's outlook.

2) Obviously Windows Mobile Sync.

3) Not all providers offer this, but critically I need a catch all address. So anything sent to my domain will end up in my mailbox.

4) The ability to dump addresses too, so if [email protected] started getting spammed, then I could just put in a spam rule to delete it without even delivering to my mailbox.

Can you confirm that I am able to do this with the hosting company you resell for?

Also drop me a PM to let me know whom it is, and I'll have a look and then drop you a line to ensure you get your reseller fees etc.

1. With Sherweb I use their webmail service in Outlook 2007, not sure if that's the same thing as RPC but it appears to work well.

2. Naturally

3. I'm sure Sherweb do catch-all addresses. It's not something I use any more, but I'm sure it's there.

4. I've defined loads (20+) of addresses (aliases really), which I just delete from the control panel when they start getting spammed. Sherweb also use a spam filter, which can trap stuff it thinks is junk - personally I dont like it, but I only get 2 junk emails a month to handle. With Sherweb emails to an alias get delivered to your master account email address, so you have to check the message header (not the To address) to auto-delete stuff sent to a specific address. Works fine, but that option is not in some email clients AFAIK

I'm a customer of Sherweb, not a reseller or anything...

Edited April 28, 2008 by chucky.egg

[Guest chucky.egg]

Sherweb DONT offer catch-alls

if a spammer got hold of your domain ... yada yada yada ... Hence, we at Sherweb consider this is a major flaw ... yada yada yada ... and therefore for the benefit of all, we do not allow this feature.

[Guest WearTheFoxHat]

I've just noticed that Modaco also use sherweb :D

Although I wanted the catch all, due to the number of websites I have signed up with, I am now thinking that it would be a good idea to setup some aliases and put in the legwork in the beginning and move to a decent hosted provider. Then I can manage my mail effectively.

I noticed that 1and1 provide hosted exchange with catch-all ... but from what I have read doing google search for reviews ... their service and billing really sucks big time!

mail2web who provide a good service also do not offer the catch all ... but their system is damn fast and customer care is pretty spot on too.

Guess it might come down to price between mail to web's business package, and sherweb.

[Guest chucky.egg]

setup some aliases and put in the legwork

Thats what I do, and it works well for me. I have an alias for most websites I subscribe to, and a generic one for "everything else". Using server-side rules to move emails into sub-folders of my Inbox I get (for example) my Modaco post notification emails delivered but silently.

I was with 1&1 for ages and would not recommend them. Reliability is OK, but if you ever need to ask for help you can prett much forget it - you get long delays and then unhelpful replies, followed by more of the same.

[Guest WearTheFoxHat]

Sounds good to me. I don't like the idea of having to setup all the alias' ... although doing so will make my mailbox more efficient when completed!

[Guest chucky.egg]

Creating Aliases takes a few moments (each) on Sherweb, and I just love to be able to click a button and delete a spammed address.

[Guest WearTheFoxHat]

Creating Aliases takes a few moments (each) on Sherweb, and I just love to be able to click a button and delete a spammed address.

Ok, I've been thinking about this.

1) With a catch-all email address, you don't need aliases. BUT you need a good antispam system, or server side rules, so when an address starts getting spammed, you can instruct the server to "delete and do not deliver". With this solution you do not need to faff about creating new aliases when you sign up to a website.

2) Alternatively if there is no catch-all address option, and you have to create aliases. If one suddenly starts getting spammed, then the easiest option is to delete the alias and the email is no longer delivered. However with this option whenever you sign up to a website, or give someone a new email address, you have to be consistent in creating the aliases.

Am I understanding this correctly? Doesn't it become a pain in the butt having to create new aliases when out and about, say you are in "PC World" and sign up for something and they ask for an email address so you say "[email protected]", but then have to remember to login to your hosting to add an alias.

Just after a viewpoint really, as I guess the two options are:

1) allow all, and ban the bad ones.

2) ban all, and only allow the good ones.

Cheers

T

[Guest chucky.egg]

1. Catch-all is nice to have. You can sign up to sites using unique addresses, have their emails routed automatically with server-side rules, and still block them if they get spammed (by creating an alias for that address, and directing it off to nowhere land). Less faffing for most of the time.

2. Correct. And whilst creating the alias is quick and easy, you've got to boot up your laptop, get to the site, login, create the alias. So the process can be a pain.

The other aspect is that (I find) you create aliases for reputable sites, but for those dodgy ones you only visit once you don't bother. So it's kind of arse-backwards. In practice though you might only need one alias ("anon" for example) in addition to your real address. When PC World spam you just use a rule to block email sent to [email protected] sent from [email protected]

I prefer to ban the bad ones, and I suspect that is slightly easier (but not much) with catch-all

[Guest WearTheFoxHat]

Yeah ... the only thing that I have found is that when an address starts getting spammed, its not necessarily from the organisation that I gave my account details to.

Recently ticketline@mydomain, perfectpizza@mydomain and wesellcrumpler@mydomain have both started getting bombarded.

I've found it rather amusing when contacting these companies and quoting their privacy policy that they "Never pass on your email to a third party". When I highlight that my email address is completely unique to exchanging emails with them, they get very defensive and say "We haven't passed on your details". To which I reply that they either have a security problem in terms of their network, or their admin staff!

One of the above got very rude when I pointed out that he had a problem somewhere. He stated that his "tech guy" said "Oh it must have been a lucky guess by the spam bot." followed by "Oh don't worry about that spam mail, we all got it in the office too!". Duhhhh ... seems you do have a problem then! Since then, that address has increased in the number of spam it has received!

So guess for one off sign ups, I could use an "anon", and then if I continue to use that site's services I can edit my details and give them a legit address.

[Guest 1straven]

I am also looking at hosted exchange (once I move away from orange with their stupid data rates) but also use a catchall address. The best way I have found of sorting this issue out would be to forward all emails coming into the catchall to a single email address which can be hosted on the exchange.

I use 1and1 as a web host so setting this up should be quite simple and work well I hope. Only issue I can see is if I change the mx records for my domain, I would then lose this catchall and forwarding ability. Anyone know of a way around this?

[Guest WearTheFoxHat]

In the end I went with SimplyMailSolutions as they offered hosted exchange with also a catch all facility.

If the provider doesn't offer a catch all, then you are stuck and have to create aliases. 1and1 do provide a catch all, but I simply chose not to use them because of their terrible reputation for customer service.