I use FastMail. For one FastMail offers email for your domain, which Gmail no longer does. FastMail has archiving, great search, and a superior interface. The Gmail interface is pretty bad IMO. It's cluttered with a lot of stuff that have nothing to do with email like:
1) A black navigation bar across the top that doesn't help with email.
2) 300px wide box across the top right dedicated to a social network no one uses (not email related).
3) A loading screen when the page first loads.
4) New mail compose window (no need for an explanation here).
> I use FastMail. For one FastMail offers email for your domain, which Gmail no longer does.
I'm 100% certain Google lets you get Gmail for your domain. You have to pay for it (but you have to pay for FastMail), and you get other services alongside Gmail, but it certainly exists.
Looks like you have to get a business account. Which is reasonably priced. So yeah, I was wrong, it's still possible to get it. Kind of a hack, but you can get it.
I pay $15 per year for a FastMail family account,[1] which allows me to use my own domain. The account includes only 200MB of space, but that works for me because I delete email from the server so that the US government can't access it, which they can do without a warrant.[2]
> For one FastMail offers email for your domain, which Gmail no longer does.
You're still able to get a free one-user Google Apps for Domains account by going through Google App Engine. [1] I've used it to get catchall email addresses for any new domains I've recently registered.
When I migrated back from Windows 8/Phone 8 to iOS, I looked at this - but this loophole, from everything I've read, has been closed for a few months now.
Yes, I agree the new interface is a killer(as in bad).
But Gmail/Google's ease of use is its USP. You can have chat in browser, GTalk, Adium, Android , Pidgin and all then synced to mail box.
You can have calendar everywhere, taks..you name it.
So, until some business - like FastMail, PoBox, come up with such close integration I don't think there's much sense to move other than privacy and paranoia. Because once outside you end up setting up a workflow dependent on very different services and worry which one is gonna break when and then look for sth else.
1) A black navigation bar across the top that doesn't help with email.
2) 300px wide box across the top right dedicated to a social network no one uses (not email related).
3) A loading screen when the page first loads.
4) New mail compose window (no need for an explanation here).
5) Ads