Operamail future?
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horseshrink last edited by
@rif Opera is now owned by a Chinese investment consortium. FastMail is Australian. I wonder if evolving trade tensions between the two countries is a factor.
https://www.engadget.com/2016-07-18-opera-browser-sold-to-a-chinese-consortium-for-600-million.html
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leocg Moderator Volunteer last edited by
@horseshrink When the browser making part of Opera was sold to the Chinese group, Fastmail was already no longer owned by Opera.
And no, I don't think it's related to politics or international relations.
It's been a decade that Opera has nothing to do with the email service and now the last connection with it is being cut.
Just business following its path.
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horseshrink last edited by
@leocg Trying to figure out what Opera had to lose by continuing to allow the Operamail brand to be used.
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leocg Moderator Volunteer last edited by
@horseshrink A very important thing, its name.
Back there in 1998 it made sense to offer an email service, have its name associated with an special email domain, but now in 2021 it no longer makes sense.
Also, a lot of things have changed in those two decades and Opera now basically makes browsers and has nothing to do with that email domain/service and, I guess, don't want to still have its named associated with it. -
horseshrink last edited by
@leocg Received this from Fastmail Customer Support:
"Hello {me},
Thank you for contacting Fastmail support, I can absolutely understand your reluctance to move away from the operamail.com domain.
Unfortunately, this decision is out of our hands. Opera has decided that from June 2022, we will no longer be able to offer our customers email addresses at operamail.com
When Opera takes the domain Operamail back in June 2022, they will not be offering their own mail service with it, and they don't have any plans to offer email in the future.
So I am afraid there is no option to keep your operamail.com email address past June 2022.
This is why we are encouraging people to change their email addresses now so they have time to let everyone know about their new email address.
Please feel free to contact us again if you have any other questions or concerns. We're here to help.
Cheers,
{FastMail support person's name}" -
arobbo last edited by
@boonstra apologies - somehow the ";" got included in the URL and it's a furphy - this should work [https://vivaldi.com/blog/vivaldi-mail-technical-preview/](link url)
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hughmar last edited by
It sucks (
Like others here I've been an operamail user since day one and it's a bit like having a limb removed to lose my email address this way.
I'm even more annoyed since I've only recently paid fastmail for two more years use of their service. I doubt they'll offer a refund if I decide not to continue. -
burnout426 Volunteer last edited by
@hughmar said in Operamail future?:
I've only recently paid fastmail for two more years use of their service. I doubt they'll offer a refund if I decide not to continue.
They might. They're pretty awesome at Fastmail.
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boonstra last edited by
@burnout426 -> Agree, and the service of Fastmail is quite OK. I had a little issue with Outblaze in the past, but that's it.
Still some things are strange, i know of 3 people using Operamail. Just one has gotten such a mail. Personally I did not receive such a mail of unilateral stopping service...
Then the other thing i'm very curious about, how many operamail users are left ?
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alphaville last edited by
@boonstra I would assume there are quite a few of us - the operamail address has cachet which means those who have it want to hang on to it. It's my main email address and I would very much prefer stay put. OK so I've got a couple of years to move over to
somewhereelsenotexactlywhatIwanted@anon.combut why break something that has worked perfectly well since time almost immemorial. There must be other solutions.I tend to agree with the suggestion that this is a test run to gauge resistance - after all if the perpetrators were serious about it, then every single operamail account holder would have received the same email. And I can't believe it is that difficult to make alternative arrangements to continue with this email address.
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admiralty last edited by
I have hunted around for other threads with operamail but cannot find any. As a long time Opera user, I also signed up, many years ago, to operamail. This service was hived off and is currently operated by fastmail (an Australian company).
I am very well satisfied with the service. Unfortunately fastmail have recently advised me that they will not be able to renew my subscription because Opera is taking back the operamail address.
I can see nothing here concerning this. I amvery keen to retain my current operamail e-mail address so would like to know what, if any are your plans in this respect?
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sgunhouse Moderator Volunteer last edited by sgunhouse
@admiralty Must not have looked too hard - there was a discussion started a couple of weeks ago on this. Let me see ... merged with existing thread.
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admiralty last edited by
@sgunhouse thanks for putting me right. I don't pretend to be an adept of these forums, but I did search quite widely, using both operamail and opera mail. In any case, the important step seems to me to identify whichever of the splintered parts of Opera now hold the operamail domain so that they can explain what they propose.
The suggestion that whoever it is wants to protect the opera brand doesn't wash with me. I would guess that most/many of the operamail users are also long time opera users and that, having been happy when opera chose fastmail as partner in place of its German predecessor they/we cherish the quality of the combined/linked services.
Any suggestions on who to contact and how?
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sgunhouse Moderator Volunteer last edited by
@admiralty No idea, sorry. Like you, unsure which Opera you'd need to deal with.
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alphaville last edited by
The message I've received from Fastmail is unequivocal, there is no chance whatever that Operamail addresses will be returning to use. The fact that not all Operamail account holders have received an email informing them of the withdrawal of the address is not because Fastmail is testing the water. Instead they are informing account holders in batches so that they don't have to deal with responses all at once.
As with another poster, I suspect there's a political agenda involved here as nothing else would seem to explain the unwillingness of the Chinese company that owns the Opera browser and domain to hand administration of Operamail addresses to another party. The email address itself has long since lost any association with the Opera browser so there's no way that Operamail can be accused of tainting the "brand".
Operamail was a good email address to have while it lasted, but a change is as good as a rest and I've decided to run with it.
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admiralty last edited by
@alphaville Noted, but i'm not quite willing to throw in the towel just yet. I had a similar battle with compuserve before I moved to operamail. While I eventually lost that, I did get pointed to a work round which allowed me to retain my ancient (numeric) compuserve mailbox for a further year or two
In the case of operamail I figure it is just as likely to be an unthinking screw up, as to be part of a machiavellian plot.
i'll keep this forum informed if I make any progress. I remain open to any suggestions as to who to contact. -
boonstra last edited by boonstra
@admiralty -> Yeah, ditto here, when I made a mailadres in august 1998, there was no limitation. Also for the "hotmail" there was no expiry date. Conditions were the same.
Moving from Opera, to Outblaze, to Opera again, and to Fastmail, it's possible there was a "small print" in the conditions, about ending usage... But I doubt it.
This would be similar to owning a website, this cannot be withdrawn just because somebody else wants it. How did your fight for the xxx@SC-com go ? Legal advise ?
@sgunhouse -> Possible users will be informed in batches, to prevent overload of complains, but I think there will be a max of 1000 operamail-owners nowadays ?
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arobbo last edited by arobbo
I emailed Fastmail service regarding these matters, providing links to both this thread and the similar points made in comments on the Vivaldi (mail) blog. They were nice in pointing out the difference between "email service/provider" like Fastmail, and "email client", as Vivaldi would provide. Dashed hopes there for my idealism.
Unfortunately as to my request for number of operamail.com account holders, a flat refusal: "...we take our customer's privacy and security very seriously. As such I cannot answer give you this information."
Obviously I am not interested in individual account information, but apparently even a ballpark figure might be "commercial-in-confidence". Who knew?
I didn't even ask if Fastmail could offer a redirection service to honour their operamail.com stakeholders. I kept my original "fastmail.fm" account when then pushed for everyone to change to "fastmail.com" several years ago. I know of others who also preferred and kept the unique "fm" address (?). I wonder whether a corresponding redirection could have been introduced (e.g, old operamail.com = new 0p3r4m41l.com (in leet))? Just spitballing, obviously I have no expertise in the matter. -
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admiralty last edited by
@sgunhouse Thanks for the clarification, and thanks to @arobbo for your input. In general I am all in favour of fastmail's strict approach to privacy, but in our case it works against us, firstly since we can't get a handle on how many we are, and secondly because they might have offered a means of getting in contact with those responsible. Thus far, I have had no joy in trying to get in contact with either Opera Software ASA, who, I believe, own the operamail domain, or Golden Brick Capital Private Equity, who I believe, effectively own Opera Software. I'll give it a week or two more
