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Comment by jordand | Hacker News Reader

I'm looking at alternative email provider options, and I'm struggling to find options that have banned GenAI, and have the features and reliability I need. I will gladly pay a premium for a provider that's not going to let AI creep in gradually, and take a bigger role over data and security

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Fastmail is excellent. They haven’t banned AI, but IMO that would be equally as extreme as what proton is doing just in the other direction

Fastmail is excellent. They haven’t banned AI but their approach (set up MCP so AI power users can pull in their email data) is a lot more thoughtful and entirely nonintrusive so far.

I've been happy with fastmail. Their product and UX looks a little dated even - in a good way I realize. It's not trying to be anything its not.

Also iCloud paid accounts allow custom domains for email. The Apple mail product is way worse but it was amazingly simple to set up and I am happy I have my own domain.

Apple is extensively and heavily using GenAI internally, and I've not got confidence in their product quality going forward (macOS is still declining in overall quality, from my experience)

I’ve been using Fastmail for years. I haven’t seen any AI fluff yet…

Fastmail uses AI extensively for support and announced an MCP server earlier this year. Their CTO has also posted about using Claude for patches.

https://www.fastmail.help/hc/en-us/articles/16278789555215-A...

https://www.fastmail.com/blog/an-mcp-server-for-fastmail/

> To be clear about what this isn’t: we have not integrated AI into Fastmail. There’s no chatbot bolted onto the inbox, and your mail isn’t being piped through a model in the background. The MCP server is simply another API endpoint for you to use, if you want to, with the AI client of your choice.

> That distinction matters to us. Our long-term values include “Your data belongs to you” and “We are good stewards of your data”. The pattern we try to follow is: rather than continuously reworking our UI to follow every new trend, we give you the interfaces to use your data however it suits you. MCP continues that pattern. It’s there if you want it, and nothing changes if you don’t.

An MCP Server for Fastmail – National Email Day - https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47870988 - April 2026 (14 comments)

I have had no problem getting a human for customer support in a timely manner.

(fastmail customer)

The OP was asking about providers that have banned Gen AI. Fastly is definitely not that provider.

Using AI for support is such a dick move to your customers. I can't understand how companies don't see how disrespectful it is. I ran into that at work with Sonicwall recently, and had to contact our account rep to get my case to a human, not a clanker. It really made me feel like they don't care about solving my issues, and as a result I doubt very much if I would ever choose the company if I were given the power over that decision.

i've been using fastmail as one of my email service providers for 5+ years and they've been always quite cordial and friendly which i think is rare to find in large b2c email services.

at least when i contacted fastmail support early this year, i had no problem getting in touch with a real person and asking follow up inquiries back and forth in a timely manner.

I run a small email hosting service. It started out as something I set up for family and friends, but has since grown into a small customer base.

We're deliberately keeping things simple. No AI, no scanning your emails for other purposes, and no selling your data. That's not something we're planning to change.

The focus is on doing email well: deliverability, reliability, and keeping our outbound reputation clean through strict anti-spam policies.

We support SMTP, IMAP, POP3, webmail, and custom domains. It's fairly bare-bones, and we expect customers to know their way around email config.

It's also just $5/year.

https://www.cheapestemailhosting.com

But gmail have basically spotless security record? If you care about security, gmail is the option that basically had no security incidents in last 10 years (aside from "someone's mail password leaked from somewhere else" which is not gmail fault).

Only problem (and a big one) is just fact it is US company

And that you have to do business with Google, who have a religious objection to providing any meaningful customer support.

I get better support from AWS as a $30 per month customer than I did with GCP and Google Workplace spending $300k per month at work.

As am I. Please let me know if you find any! I will do the same.

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