What's up with Opera Mail?

[catilley1092]

For a few days, I've ran into problems logging onto Opera Web Mail. It was reported that site maintenance was taking place. Now, when I click onto the shortcut for it, it reports a "404" error.

This is one of my important email accounts, where my forum, some personal, and some business emails goes. It's my #2 email account, second to Hotmail.

Anyone else having trouble with this service? If this keeps up, I'll just move it to AOL or RR Mail, as I don't care for disruptions. This has been going on for at least a week.

Cat

 

[etalmar]

Cat,

I just logged into my Opera Mail account without any issues, but I did notice that they have recently gotten away from their traditional red and white login page and are using a new site that appears to have been integrated into FastMail, which they also own.

This notice may help to explain their recent changes ...

The Operamail.com service has previously been hosted by several external companies, but from today it is hosted and run by Opera Software, by the same team as FastMail.FM and with the same service and features that FastMail.FM is known for.

Other than the login page redirect and cosmetic changes, I didn't have any problems accessing my account.

 

[catilley1092]

I didn't get a redirect, and I used both IE & FF to attempt a logon. I'll try using the Opera browser and see what happens. If I can't get in, I'll look up FastMail.

You'd think that they'd give a notice of change on these type of things.

Cat

 

[etalmar]

Cat,

I took a screenshot of the login page I receive when I access my Opera Mail account via this link ... http://www.operamail.com

 

[catilley1092]

Thanks, etalmar, I found it. I was able to login to FastMail w/my Opera Mail credentials. But my saved emails are not yet showing, there was a message that it may take days for them to be there.

Still, some advance communication would have been the proper thing for them to do, where it not for you, I'd still be out of my account, as I've never heard of FastMail prior to this.

Thanks,
Cat

 

[catilley1092]

Cat,

I took a screenshot of the login page I receive when I access my Opera Mail account via this link ... http://www.operamail.com

View attachment 2645

Are all of your emails in there yet? Only the last few are in mine, and only 12 of my contacts are. I have some important things in there.

Cat

 

[etalmar]

No, I do not have any messages showing in my account, but that's only because I wasn't using my Opera Mail account as even a secondary email address. I opened an account a while back, but rarely used it. I just found the address in an old folder and tried it, since you mentioned you were having some login issues with it.

I'm not sure if you received this explanation on their introduction page, so I have copied and pasted it here for you to look over, as it may answer some of your questions.

WELCOME BACK TO OPERA!

The Operamail.com service has previously been hosted by several external companies, but from today it is hosted and run by Opera Software, by the same team as FastMail.FM and with the same service and features that FastMail.FM is known for.

PRACTICAL INFORMATION

You can log in with your existing user name and password at https://www.operamail.com and you keep your existing @operamail.com email address. Your old messages will also be copied into your new account during the next few days.

Our goal is that you should be able to continue using your account with minimal interruption, but feel free to take some time and explore the new options and features of the new system. We have an extensive help system. If at any time you need help, you can:

• Click Help at the top of each screen to get help on that screen
• Click the Start here link at the bottom of every screen to get detailed, searchable information about any feature
• Post on our dedicated forum at http://forum.fastmail.fm

TERMS OF SERVICE AND PRIVACY POLICY

Terms of Service and Privacy Policy for Operamail.com have been updated to mirror those of FastMail.FM. You can view the current version of these documents at any time at these links:

• http://www.fastmail.fm/help/overview_privacy.html
• http://www.fastmail.fm/help/overview_terms.html

If you have any questions about these, please contact [email protected]
If you prefer to cancel your account after these changes, simply go to the Options tab and choose Cancel Account.

TECHNICAL INFORMATION

A few accounts will change account name for technical reasons, but the old user name can still be used for login, sending and receiving of email.
In addition to the improved Web interface, all users can now read email with their local email software such as the Mail client in Opera's browser, Microsoft Outlook or Evolution on Linux. With IMAP you can even read email with the built-in mail client in most smart phones.

IMAP:

• Server: mail.messagingengine.com
• Port: 143 (or SSL IMAP port 993)
• Username: (e-mail address removed) (must include @operamail.com part)
• Password: your Operamail password
• Root folder/path: INBOX
• Folder separator: . (period)

Premium users can also use our SMTP server for outgoing messages. This is not available for free users.

SMTP:

• Server: mail.messagingengine.com
• Port: 587 (preferred) or 25 or 26 including STARTTLS support (or SSL SMTP port 465)
• Authentication: PLAIN (Our SMTP ports are for authenticated SMTP only; you'll need to make sure your software supports authenticated SMTP and also set up a username and password)
• Username: (e-mail address removed) (must include @operamail.com part)
• Password: your Operamail password

See this section of the help for more details about setting up your email clients to work with Operamail: https://www.fastmail.fm/help/remote_email_access_server_names_and_ports.html

PREMIUM USERS

If you have a premium account at operamail.com, you will receive a 12 month free upgrade to FastMail's Full service level. Free accounts also get improved storage space and feature set compared to the old service and you can upgrade your account for as little as $4.95 per year. For more details, see https://www.fastmail.fm/mail/personal.html

FINALLY

We hope you find the new Operamail.com the fastest and easiest way to access your email. If you have any comments or questions, try checking out the links at the bottom of every screen. Feel free to email us at [email protected], but remember to please read this first: http://www.fastmail.fm/help/overview_documentation_help.html

Welcome back!

From their explanation, you should be able to access all of your folders and messages soon, as they continue to migrate to their new server location.

 

[catilley1092]

Thanks, etalmar, it would have been thoughtful of them to deliver this notice to their users, but that's life. I'll get over it.

Hopefully, those emails will be forwarded like they say. Being that Opera owns FastMail, I wonder why it wasn't this way from the beginning. Mabye there was a merger, Opera taking this service over, then putting their name on it. My last job, which I held from '93 thru '06, was taken over by acquisition in '98. We were taken over, with no notice, and I was in management, an operations manager over the local distribution center.

Then, for a week, I was accused by the ones that I oversaw, for conspiring against them. I had no knowledge of anything. Finally, I had to clamp down and tell them if they don't want to be here, there's the door. That was the end of that.

Happens all of the time in the corporate world.

Cat

 

[etalmar]

FastMail is an e-mail service from Victoria, Australia that was bought out by Opera Mail in 2010. Its servers are located in New York City with a backup in Norway.

I have had a FastMail account for several years and it is excellent. Virtually no spam, easy on the ads and reliable servers, so it may be something for you to consider as a backup to your Opera Mail account, although both services are now hosted by the same servers, so if one service is down, then most likely the other one will be as well.
​

 

[catilley1092]

That's over around Mychael's side of the world. And I do recall that Opera has offices in Norway, so that explains that.

Hopefully, the new service will work out OK for me. Opera Mail has been a very reliable service, just the last week things were acting up. I don't plan on ditching them. There was just a little spam, but most of it came from accepting free software. Ashampoo will bug the crap out of you. A few months ago, there were links on this forum for about 5 of their services, I installed 3 of them, then trashed them the very next day. One of those services (an internet accelerator) screwed my modem configuration up, I had to reinstall it.

Thanks for the heads up.

Cat

 

[etalmar]

Cat,

Received this notice when I logged in to Opera Mail today. Since you said you were still waiting for your messages to be transferred from their old servers, I thought I would post the update here, in the event that you did not receive this message about their ongoing service changes.

We are in the process of migrating stored messages from the previous provider. You can send and receive email immediately, and you should be able to see your stored messages within the next few days. Please read the welcome message in your Inbox for more details or read this blog post.

Operamail.com has been migrated to Fastmail.FM

March 10, 2011 — Rob Mueller

Operamail.com is finally back where it belongs: Hosted and run directly by Opera Software.

Over the past few months, we’ve been preparing for the migration of operamail.com to Fastmail’s servers. That migration has finally started today. Over the last hour, we’ve switched across the domain operamail.com to point to Fastmail’s servers, so users going to http://www.operamail.com will see the new login screen. Existing users can login with their existing operamail.com username and password (see below regarding some accounts showing a different name after logging in)

Any new email will be delivered directly to your new Fastmail based account, however we have to migrate existing email from the old servers to the Fastmail servers, so you may not immediately see all existing folders and emails. We’re doing that in the background, and prioritising users based on their most recent login time, so over the next few hours, you should see all your existing folders and email re-appear in your account.

We’ve also migrated across all other information we could, such as address books, some preferences, etc.

A quick summary of some of the advantages of Fastmail over the existing accounts

• Increased storage and paid levels with huge amounts of storage
• Ability to access your email with email software (eg Opera Mail (M2), Thunderbird, Windows Mail, etc) via IMAP
• A fast and powerful web interface
• Heaps of extra features: host your own domain, online file storage, chat service, one-time passwords, etc

Other notes:

• Login problems – For a short time during the migration some users could not login. This should be fixed now
• Username changed – Some users had usernames on the old server that were not compatible with the new server. In those cases, we’ve renamed the account name to a new name, but we’ve created an alias so email sent to your old email address still goes to your account, and you can login with your old account name. In fact the only difference you’ll notice is the username in the top right hand corner when you login is shown differently, and system notification emails will mention your new account name, not the old account name.

 

[Kalario]

Hey Cat...

Why not try gmail? It's pretty good. At least better that hotmail

 

[Nibiru2012]

Even though I don't really like Google all that much, Gmail is one hell of an email provider and their spam filter is the best I've seen or experienced.

 

[catilley1092]

That FastMail program that Opera bought last year is fine. The spam filters are much better than before. Before, I reported emails as spam, and I continued to receive the same ones. Now, I don't, so FastMail is looking good.

I just need to watch that 25MB limit. Hotmail offers a lot more than that.

Cat

 

[yodap]

25MB??

That's ridiculous in this day and age. RoadRunner which is a p.. poor service offers 100MB and that's ridiculous imho.

 

[etalmar]

25MB?? That's ridiculous in this day and age.

Yes, 25 MB for mailbox quota is considered very low by current email provider standards. FastMail offers a 25 MB "Guest" account so that people can try their service to see if they like it well enough to consider upgrading to a paid account with no ads and stronger spam protection, plus many other features. FastMail offers 3 tiers of paid accounts in addition to their free guest account. I have been using a free guest account for several years and can count the number of spam messages I have received on one hand, so IMO their service is superior to most of the other email services out there in terms of spam prevention and general uptime reliability.

 

[catilley1092]

I'm watching FastMail's box closely, it looks as though I'll be OK, as far as space is concerned. There are some things that I can unsubscribe to that will help.

But there's one particular thing that I don't like in FastMail, compared to the original Opera Web Mail. I use that email for fourms, whenever I click onto the link that leads to the post, it opens it in the same window, regardless of what browser is being used. Then, I have to click the back arrow to get back to my email box.

With the original Opera Web Mail, it always opened links in a new window, which I liked a lot better. Unless I can figure a way to make it open in a new window, I'll just have to use another email account for forums, as I get a lot of activity there.

I may consider using that basically unused AOL Mail account, and try it out. Probably with this forum first, as most of my forum traffic comes from here.

Cat