used gmail for a couple of years with no issues

You need to register a name through the domain registrar in your country (or elsewhere). Then you need to "park" that domain somewhere which will host it and make it "live" on the internet. I use EasyDNS but there are many others.

The host will usually handle the domain registration for you too if you want. The domain reg costs an annual fee. Some hosts will do basic other stuff for nothing.

The host will then let you create email addresses from your domain and forward them to wherever. They will also let you block some if you want.

For example if my domain is mydom.ca, I have it set up so that anything coming in to xxx@mydom.ca gets forwarded to my local isp. If one particular address (say yyy@mydom.ca) has fallen into the hands of a spammer, I can set the host to trash anything to that address without passing it on. I can also set other specific forms of the address to go elsewhere (family members etc).

Note that if you route something from your personal domain through Gmail (and, I suspect, others; more as time goes on) you will have to make sure its set up properly … particularly DKIM, SPF, DMARC records … at the host. (I don't really understand them either. I stumbled through mine with a lot of help from EasyDNS). They help to prevent the nefarious from spoofing your address.There is a big push on email spam detection/prevention these days).

Edited By Peter Greene 🇨🇦 on 21/06/2023 18:37:27

If possible use your actual name, or nickname that you are most known by. It is really annoying seeing something come in from say RT491 and have to remember that is you, and it is likely to get labelled as a spammer anyway. Also annoying to have to remember what you call yourself when trying to add you to a lost of people to copy a mail to.

Note there is a difference to registering a website and having associated emails on the same name structure and just arranging for an email on its own and some of the advice may be conflating the two.

Reading this, I just wondered if the question is "correct "- it seems from Robs initial post that he is fed up with Hotmail as his email provider, and is looking to get a new e-mail address (or have I got it wrong?).

There are many companies providing e-mail services, some better than others – Gmail is suggested in the thread. Personally I dislike the intrusiveness of Google – my email provider is Mail.com (LINK) , which have used for years – it allows you a lot of flexibility in selection of an e-mail address, is free, and I have had no problems with it.

Well, he did say " Please can anyone offer advice on how to obtain a personal internet domain name"

Hopper – Interesting to hear about your positive experience with Gmail – my experience was entirely the opposite. It never seemed to learn what spam was, and I got sick of having to recover non-spam emails it had blocked. I finally disabled the spam interception. I also (sometimes) experience long delays in mail delivery – people phone me to ask 'have you seen my mail'?, which hasn't arrived, then may turn up as late as 2 or 3 days later. And complaining to Google is a total waste of time.

I am also fairly conscientious about erasing 'dead' e-mails that I no longer need, so never really have a lot of stuff in my inbox – maybe only 20 or 30 mails. However, one day I was searching through Gmails settings for something, and came across what seemed to be a "History' page – it contained literally every single email I had sent or received over a 15 year period, even though I believed I had been deleting them. (hence my comment earlier about Google intrusiveness). It took me quite a long time to erase them all, and nowadays, although I still have the Google Account, I rarely use it, precisely because they seem to retain everything.

Added: it regularly used to dump private ME mails as scam.

Before you ask, I have no idea how I got to the page I mention, although I have since looked for it several times.

It would seem that what is sauce for the goose is poisonous to the gander.

I moved on the Mail.Com as a result.

Edited By An Other on 22/06/2023 08:00:33

Hopper, Thanks for your reply – but it was none of the possibilities you mention, which is why I was concerned. It was definitely not the "Sent' folder, and it contained both sent and received emails – absolutely everything. I not only used to empty the inbox, but all the folders you mention. As an aside to this, I recently had to help a friend who had no idea that all his deleted mails, etc, actually still existed, and had just been moved out of sight, until one day his mail began to act erratically because it was full. Deleting the contents of the bin, and other folders, solved the problem.

In view of Googles well-known propensity fro data-scraping, I keep as far away from any of their products as possible. There are better alternatives, fortunately. One has to wonder why they have an interest in personal emails.

Rob – sorry this has deviated from your original query – I'll shut up now!

UK2 for me as well.

I`ve also used one of the email addresses I have as a sort of throw away one. Anything I think I might get spammed from uses that address and trusted sites get a different one.

For many years I have used what is now Ionos but was 1and1. Have to pay but we get at least 5 email addresses, my own domain and website if I want it, spam filtering, access from regular email clients such as Thunderbird or Outlook, and webmail from any browser. My wife uses it from the Apple email client on her Macbook and the Gmail client on her phone.

**LINK**

Added: they take care of all the domain registration stuff so you only need to deal with Ionos.

Edited By John Haine on 22/06/2023 09:52:41

…and on the rare occasions where I've had a problem I couldn't sort myself their phone hotline answered quickly and was very helpful.

Edited By John Haine on 22/06/2023 09:54:35

I have been with GMX for 15 years, free no hassle, 10 alias names, view through a browser or app. I can also forward mail on my linux desk top using Thunderbird, can't fault it.

Pete