I was surprised after receiving a call from Google about a new domain name I set up to hear that Google app for domain name which I used to set up email hosting was no longer free. I have previously benefited from this and now have to revert to boring site host email system. I have been giving a few more days for the switch ( FREE trial ends). Apologies if already mentioned. I most have somehow missed this announcement and update. Any alternative solutions that is similar.
Google for domains was never useful for me, so nothing to lose on my side. Funny thing is that Google seems to be operating like a giant drug cartel; they give you something for free, make you enjoy the benefits and when you are and addict, they try to sell you what used to be free probably thinking that you won't have other option than keep dopping yourself, ermm I mean using those druggy services.
I am disappointed to be honest. They already had a paid version of this app, which had more features. They fact that the majority of customers used the FREE version doesn't mean they had to monetize it all. I hope they will soon realize this before the lose a huge percent of their customers.
For free ended quite a while ago. The only use I had was for email, but that is easy enough to get around (just set up Gmail to send as and set up a pop3 account with you webhost). Comparing them to a drug cartel is extreme to say the least. It's a common strategy many people and companies use. Welcome to the world of marketing. We are all wanting to make money/are making money, so why shouldn't other companies?
Thanks, will use this for email. It had a lot more benefit with the integrated app including mailchimp, manymoon etc. I can still use these outside google app.
It's quite useful to instead have send as set up in Gmail and fetch in the emails via pop3 as then you can just have one account for many email addresses. Also, in Settings -> Labs it's possible to enabled Canned Responses and use that to make multiple signatures. Of course, you need to insert manually, so it's not perfect, but it's not any major effort (for me anyway heh) for the benefit of email all-in-one-place on the web.
I have also some regrets that isn't for free anymore. But sometimes for the good things you have to pay. In this case we can still work around this issue of e-mail and use it in another way. I used this option in certain domains, cool thing.
You can try this tutorial ( http://www.labnol.org/internet/google-apps-free/26926/ ) . Otherwise go for Outlook.com.
I was under the impression that all free Google Apps for Domains accounts were grandfathered in and won't be shut down or require payment. Am I wrong?
I was referring to my latest google app for domain. I already have about 3 other existing domain accounts.