Having a generic email like gmail where the country is not immediately identifiable from the email address is useful. As in some relatively IT-unsophisticated countries or companies you might have to buy from or deal with and some app or website providers in some countries, may make decisions to exclude you, de-list you or channel ypu incorrectly. Based on you having an unexpected email address even if it’s only used as an identifier.
Numerous incidents of this include
ebay forced UK VAT on a transaction that had nothing to do with the UK bought on ebay.fr shipped from Germany to France… UK not French VAT was attributed just based on tbe longstanding username being .co.uk with 6 country addresses of which the UK one is not even the account prime address.
Credit Agricole decided to put me in a group for non-residents based on my .co.uk address (longstanding) without communicating, Even though I"d declared to them as a resident with docs multiple years previous. So incorrect treatment and info provided and to get correct treatment they asked me to change my email.
some websites won"t even accept an email for delivery. or signup if not .fr but they have to accept .com
many apps such as leclerc supermarket - but not just - unnecessarily geolock their app from download or use for a user they identify as from another country. Amongst other ways they may use an email address. or email address used as a username. to do this (rookie IT decision)
etc.
a gmail.com address at least avoids this level of annoyance
I’m in the process of moving emails, in my case from gmail to Protonmail. Protonmail has a free tier which is very good. It’s also very secure - that’s its main selling point.
It’s a chore but not too bad. Certainly worth doing now, because at some point you’ll need to do the same with phone numbers!
I use various email addresses one of which is btconnect. We moved to France 17 years ago and at the time I spoke to BT asking if I could keep it. I still have it without any charges but prefer to use gmail or when registering with French sites I use a.fr email.
Yes I have a Leclerc account but I think I set it up while I was in France; I also have a Super U account.
With both I used my dot-Mac email address.
The E Leclerc app does show up in the UK App Store so maybe they have loosened things now.
The Carrefour app works as well from the UK, including allowing you to put in a UK address (not much use for livraisons which of course are France-only, but hey…)
Sometimes the stumbling block with these French apps is the non-French mobile number not the email.
Mine’s .org which is nicely geo-agnostic, my registrar keeps on trying to push the .net equivalent which would be cool but I’ve better things to spend four figures on annually.
Given the number of Banks, NS&I, Pensions, Savings, Investments and then the stuff like Apple, Amazon, ebay and then subscriptions like forums, I really don’t relish the prospect of reaching out to them all and jumping through hoops.
Maybe I’m better off just paying BT via DD the £7.50 a month and hope they don’t realise I’ve moved out of the UK
BT email addresses are free to keep with limited features, or you can pay for Premium email to access all features.
Free Basic email
** Free email service with some of the same features as Standard or Premium email*
** You can only access your email using a web browser*
** You don’t need BT broadband to have Basic email*
Premium email
** Costs £7.50 per month by direct debit*
** Includes the same functionality as Standard email, plus additional features like multiple inboxes and access through email apps*
** You can create up to 10 extra email addresses for family and friends*
It shouldn’t be too bad, assuming you have kept a record of your username (or email) and password for each of them somewhere… it can be done simply by amending one’s account online usually - hoop-jumping optional!
£7.50 a month to BT just for email seems a bit extortionate to me when you can normally get web hosting as well for that price.
I suggest getting 2 gmail accounts:
one for sensitive information (eg family, banks etc)
and the other for shopping, subscriptions, social sites etc.
This approach enables me filter junk fairly easily and also to some extent protect my ‘sensitive’ email address.
BTW until a couple of years ago I had my own domain name with virtual servers, however the hassle of renewing the domain every couple of years plus updating the domain admin contact details etc became a pain.
If I were you, I’d set up a Gmail account and just use that. Keep the BT one for maybe a year whilst you’re settling in over here, and gradually start updating your accounts to use the new Gmail address instead of the BT one.
You’re gonna have enough on your plate during the first year, so take some of the pressure off yourself by biding your time.
Unless you plan to run your own business or you have a hobby that could benefit from having a website that you manage, then going down the route of buying your own domain and hosting your emails yourself is overkill, imo.
I mean, I get the whole privacy thing, and how if a service is free then you’re the product, blah blah blah… and in the past I’ve had my own domain and hosted my own website and mail server so can talk about DNS and MX records and TTL, etc… until the cows come home. But you’d spend as much as BT will charge you anyway, so unless you want to do it all yourself then just get a free Gmail address and use that.
I have gmail but also proton (the free service) which, as @Porridge says, is supposed to be very secure.
I’m retiring soon and will no longer have access to my work email so I’ve been working my way through the list of companies, organisations, etc. and changing the email address. Haven’t encountered any problems so far.
Unlikely that the actual risk is any different to be honest? All products can have unforeseen bugs but potential reputational damage for these big companies tends to keep them on top of their game. The main risk is more likely to be the way people use the products (eg wrong configuration, poor passwords, non use of 2FA, clicking on dodgy links, etc, etc).
Is it perhaps easier to hack into a Gmail account than, say, Proton? Certainly my Gmail account has been hacked in the past.
Last time I was back in N. Ireland, my mum noticed she hadn’t received any emails in her btinternet inbox for a few days.
I contacted BT and they talked me through the process. Basically, I had to log into her account using Chrome and private browsing. I changed her password. Then went to Auto-forwarding and disabled it. And deleted the email address of the scammer which appeared in the box below. For days, all her emails had been going there.
I don’t think Gmail is any worse or better than anything else these days for personal use. As long as there’s a good password regime in place and 2 factor authentication is in use (becoming mandatory these days) plus people being sensible and being careful when clicking on links, including those hiding behind graphics, then the risk of having your email being hijacked should be minimal. Other good practices can help such as making sure any paper documents with personal data on are shredded after use, being really careful who you speak to on the phone and keeping all devices up-to-date with security updates etc.
Protonmail makes a big deal out of it’s encrypted data etc but if someone’s got the data you use to login or compromised your device then that’s not going to help much!
One thing I might personally recommend with Gmail (and likely applies to other providers) is that I turn off the smart features and personalisation feature as that stops Gmail looking at the content of your emails for smart replies etc. But that could just be me being at bit more risk-averse.
On the other hand if you’re a business using email to pass sensitive data then other factors come into play and a good business risk assessment would help to identify these.
Yes I’m more inclined to trust Apple than GMail - they do seem more interested in their customers’ privacy than in making a quick buck my flogging their data, unlike Google, whose whole raison d’etre is collecting and selling information.
