Posts made by arobbo

@string - great job, much appreciated!

Skimming through the responses and a thought just occurred to me: perhaps the undignified shafting of @operamail.com (domain, email service) and the resulting outcry relates more to the loss of trust such a move has generated. Another signal that our "digital signature", or presence, really counts for nought in a technological environment that while it may say much about the value we represent as individuals (looking at you, Outlook365) - we are aught but electrical commodities to these businesses of "communication". I think that no-one is served to be treated or ignored as a "neo-Luddite" for not simply adopting a new digital "skin" when losing a decades-old email identity. Especially when it has worked so well for so long, and been paid for the service.
My 2c (with archaic English for garnish)

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.

@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)

I am spamming my own thread but it seems that a fellow Australian has already outlined my thoughts in the comments section to https://vivaldi.com/blog/vivaldi-mail-technical-preview/:

OziIan3880 last month
Hello all from Australia.

YAY Vivaldi Team!

Only this week I was told by my email provider (Fastmail) that Opera M2 would no longer be able to access their servers (for security reasons).
In fact it was the Fastmail support team who provided a link to this forum.

I've used Opera from about v3.2 and Operamail M2 was, and still is, so fantastic.
It is a tribute to those early M2 developers that M2 has worked perfectly, without updates for over 20 years.
That has to be a software record!

I've used Vivaldi since 'The Split' from Opera.
I've always championed an M3 but became disillusioned that it would never happen, so I stayed with M2.

But Now ...

Well done John & the Vivaldi Team and Thank You.

@horseshrink - nothing wrong with nostalgia - I reckon it keeps us sane in an emerging technological climate apparently devoted to upgrading for the sake of upgrading. Lot of false economies we can look back on, in the hardware area.
As to software and email clients I believe there is intrinsic value in preserving even such abstract examples of provenance, or "grandfathering". I don't know how many of us still fly the flag for the original Operamail but how good would it be to be taken back into the fold with Vivaldi?
https://vivaldi.com/blog/vivaldi-mail-technical-preview/

@leocg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otello_Corporation#Acquisitions
but what would I know?
Wouldn't it be wonderful (?) if Vivaldi Mail could take up the slack for loyal OperaMail users? What a fairytale ending that would be E.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vivaldi_(web_browser)#Future_additions
I would very happily transfer the service I pay to Fastmail to Vivaldimail to keep my Operamail.com address going.

@horseshrink, and also @rif,
thank you for confirming my situation. Also a user since the start, around 1998. Nice to see that the Norwegian company, Otello, took over the email opera-tions rather than see everything disappear behind the great firewall of China (interests taking over Opera's browser aspect if I understand correctly). I can't see why Otello couldn't assist with the continuance of the original OperaMailers, would provide a positive public relations message and demonstrate good faith with the worlds longest-running (?) "free" email service. My OperaMail account predates my gMail account by several years. Even if Otello could provide a diversion feature for "(at)operamail.com" - I realise that Fastmail maintains the servers - I think would be win-win for all.

@leocg thanks for your response, but more information from Fastmail:
"Why is this happening?
The operamail.com domain is owned by Opera, not Fastmail. We've handled mail at the operamail.com domain on Opera's behalf since Fastmail staff bought back the company in 2013. Opera has since advised us that they will no longer allow us to handle mail through this domain. We're troubled that we need to ask you to make this change. "
...so my question to Opera really should be - is there a planned alternative for loyal users of their email service? I think it sends a poor message to just burn the bridge in this manner.
<still dismayed>

Hi I've been using Operamail since the very beginning - it was my first non-institutional (university) email address and I have used it as my professional contact on research publications since 2002.
I stuck with operamail when the accounts were taken up by FastMail, and continued using it as my professional account as a paid service. However I received notification from FastMail support that:
"We're disappointed to share with you that we’ll no longer be able to support sending or receiving mail using addresses ending in @operamail.com, effective June 2022. "
I am dismayed that I will probably have no option but to retire my operamail account. What is Opera's plan to kill off or replace this service that has been running in its name for so long?
<Dismayed>