Secure On-Line Email Solution?

Bud

Bud

Bionic Poster
As many of you know, my long-time AIM/AOL account was recently hacked. I really like the service, it's free and the interface is very similar to MS Outlook. You can create folders, archive email, drag, drop, etc. However, I don't want this happening again. When the hacker infiltrated my account... he also destroyed all my personal contacts, stored/archived email, etc. Everything was completely wiped out.

I'm now searching for an on-line email solution that is fairly secure and is easy to use. I'd love to be able to archive/backup my email and contacts locally as well as online (synchronize them). I also like the Outlook interface as it's what I've grown accustomed to. Google's Gmail interface looks unprofessional and just doesn't do it for me.

Any suggestions?
 
I've used Yahoo mail for years and never had any problems. I use Classic, but I believe the 'new' Yahoo mail looks similar to Outlook. Not sure any online email is hacker proof once someone gets ahold of your password though.
 
Fee said:
I've used Yahoo mail for years and never had any problems. I use Classic, but I believe the 'new' Yahoo mail looks similar to Outlook. Not sure any online email is hacker proof once someone gets ahold of your password though.
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I'm curious if anyone knows of an email program with a similar interface to the new Yahoo or AIM (basically MS Outlook clones)... that has the ability to backup/store all archived email and my contact list locally on my HD.

If something like this happens again in the future I want to be able to restore my folders and contact list.
 
Bud said:
I'm curious if anyone knows of an email program with a similar interface to the new Yahoo or AIM (basically MS Outlook clones)... that has the ability to backup/store all archived email and my contact list locally on my HD.

If something like this happens again in the future I want to be able to restore my folders and contact list.
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Bud, now that I think about it, if you are a paid AOL subscriber you can download your email and contacts to the AOL program on your computer and have a backup of sorts. I don't think its a simple thing to do, but I have had an aol account since the early days and I think I can get my contacts without logging in. Not sure about folders though.

I'm probably not helping you at all. I feel so bad for what happened to you, but I should probably let the real computer types offer their suggestions.
 
For free browser-based email, Gmail can't really be beat. I know you said you don't like the interface, neither do I actually, but the features outweigh its looks. You could always change the colors of Gmail too to make it more aesthetically pleasing.

You can backup your mail/contacts in Gmail.
 
Bud, you can access gmail through some other web interface or desktop client.
As someone said, you can change themes.

Ultimately, its not the look. My other accounts had too much spam, i believe gmail has the best spam filters - at least works great for me.

Also, now they've made https authentication the standard. So if you are on the web interface your password won't go through in the clear.

You have to also figure out how it got hacked. Were you using your account from a cybercafe. Any possibility that you may not have logged out.

Were you doing an insecure login, in some network (office, wifi network, cafe?).

Was your password simple and hackable ?
 
I use Gmail for years now and I have never had any problems. Did you read my "How to choose a good password" post in your other thread?! If you choose a password from that guideline, your account will not be hacked.

What kind of AntiVirus software do you use?
 
Bud,

Another possible issue is using your email password for other applications such as forums, tumblr, twitter. Somewhere that password can go as plaintext and be trapped.

I often make this awful lapse of registering at sites, giving my email address and using the same password on that site as my email address! (Yikes, i hope the mods here didn;t hear that ;-).

Sadly, its quite clear you never maintained an alt id, by which people could have contacted you once they figured out something was amiss. All the best.
 
Use gmail and have it load in a desktop client if you don't like the way it looks ( a very ******y reason not to use something that works well). After what you went through having your slick looking one hacked you'd think you might be a little more open to advice.
 
Sentinel said:
Bud,

Another possible issue is using your email password for other applications such as forums, tumblr, twitter. Somewhere that password can go as plaintext and be trapped.

I often make this awful lapse of registering at sites, giving my email address and using the same password on that site as my email address! (Yikes, i hope the mods here didn;t hear that ;-).

Sadly, its quite clear you never maintained an alt id, by which people could have contacted you once they figured out something was amiss. All the best.
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With vB you can't see any password up to admin stage! You can change it, but you can't see it.
 
albino smurf said:
Use gmail and have it load in a desktop client if you don't like the way it looks ( a very ******y reason not to use something that works well). After what you went through having your slick looking one hacked you'd think you might be a little more open to advice.
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Which desktop client would you recommend?

I'm completely open to advice... hence this thread. I just stated I don't care for the Gmail web client's interface... i like something I'm familiar with like Outlook.
 
Sentinel said:
Bud,

Another possible issue is using your email password for other applications such as forums, tumblr, twitter. Somewhere that password can go as plaintext and be trapped.

I often make this awful lapse of registering at sites, giving my email address and using the same password on that site as my email address! (Yikes, i hope the mods here didn;t hear that ;-).

Sadly, its quite clear you never maintained an alt id, by which people could have contacted you once they figured out something was amiss. All the best.
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Is there some sort of program that stores password locally to use on websites? How do others keep all their passwords organized?
 
Bud said:
Is there some sort of program that stores password locally to use on websites? How do others keep all their passwords organized?
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Check out LastPass, you remember one password for your LastPass user account, then for every login after that you can choose to have LastPass create a random string of generated numbers that it securely saves on its server. And it has plugins for browsers so I never have to really touch it, it auto saves my passwords without me doing anything, and whenever I access a site with a saved login it automatically fills in the info for me.


For email clients check out Thunderbird, from the people who made Firefox.
 
If you want an online email solution that's similar to Outlook, then you need Hotmail, surely? Microsoft made some updates a few years ago that brought the interface into line with Outlook and the experience is quite similar...
 
Lakoste said:
Check out LastPass, you remember one password for your LastPass user account, then for every login after that you can choose to have LastPass create a random string of generated numbers that it securely saves on its server. And it has plugins for browsers so I never have to really touch it, it auto saves my passwords without me doing anything, and whenever I access a site with a saved login it automatically fills in the info for me.


For email clients check out Thunderbird, from the people who made Firefox.
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Thanks Lakoste... will check both of these out more thoroughly!
 
Hey Bud;

You can use IMAP (rather than the more common POP3) with gmail. What this means is that when you make a change in Outlook, it will be reflected in the web interface, and vice versa.

IMAP is sort of like syncing (the outlook interface is a "view" to the authoritative online source), whereas with POP3 you are simply downloading copies (you can chose to leave a copy at the online source, or it will be removed when you download it).

I would vote for gmail + outlook via IMAP

I would also be careful with your computing habits. The strongest password in the world does jack **** when you have malware such as a rootkit surreptitiously installed on your computer, feeding the bad guys your passwords and other potentially valuable information :)

Lastly, KeePass is a decent password database as well.
 
Bud said:
Is there some sort of program that stores password locally to use on websites? How do others keep all their passwords organized?
Click to expand...
1. Firefox manages my passwords locally. It maintains its own database, that is password protected.

2. Since I am on a Mac there's an app called Keychain that automatically asks if i want to store a password in Keychain. I usually say yes.
 
mikro112 said:
With vB you can't see any password up to admin stage! You can change it, but you can't see it.
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Yes, most sites say they do not store your password, but store an encrypted version of it (e.g. MD5 hash) which is a one-way encryption so that even if you crack the database you cannot use the password.

However, this lastpass mentioned above (i''ve not heard of it, and don't know how trustworthy it is), but sounds like it stores a clear-text version of your password that it fills in. So basically your passwords are with someone else. If their system is attacked, or goes down, how do you access your sites ?

I might also suggest that your set a filter in your email program (easy in gmail) that forwards all your mails to an alt account. That way you have a backup of all your mails, and if anyone hacks your account, they cannot touch the other account. You can set another backup account on gmail itself, or hotmail, gmx etc.
 
Bud said:
Can you use both? Will it save email locally and on the web or does it download from the web and then delete it?
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I'm pretty sure it always stays available online too unless you set it up to delete mail off the server after it is downloaded into Outlook. Gmail is probably your answer but do your research.
 
Yes, you can link it(gmail) to outlook or entourtage or mac mail... any of them I believe. and yes it is ugly and not as easy to use, but accessible any where and it has the best spam filtering.
 
Bud,

How were you hacked? Did you have a weak password? Did you enter your password on a phishing site? Did you download and execute something that you did not know what it was?

Seems silly that you assume that AOL is un-secure, and that any other email service is going to be more secure.
 
Bud said:
Can you use both? Will it save email locally and on the web or does it download from the web and then delete it?
Click to expand...
With an IMAP account, when you delete locally, the server copy is deleted. Gmail and most accounts are IMAP.
 
I agree with raiden031, most likely you were just careless and someone took advantage.

It is one thing to hack AOL and destroy thousands of accounts at time and another to "hack" just one individual.

The culpret is most likely someone you know. Who else would have the motivation?
 
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