Comparison Chart between hMailServer and Postfix

hMailServer is an open source email server for Microsoft Windows. Postfix is an open source SMTP server for Linux, BSD, etc.

Since hMailServer contains an SMTP, POP3, and IMAP server (all-in-one “package”), and Postfix is only an SMTP server (POP3 and IMAP require third-party software), I won’t be comparing anything with hMailServer’s POP3 and IMAP servers.

Note: The chart is meant to show a general overview of the differences between hMailServer and Postfix. More specific features and performance may vary depending on the user’s setup and configuration.

Mobile users may need to manually swipe the table to the left to view all of the chart.

Feature hMailServer Postfix
Open Source Yes Yes
Platform Windows Linux, BSD, MacOS X, Solaris, HP-UX, etc.
Config Storage Supports multiple storage options (e.g. MySQL, MSSQL) Supports multiple storage options (e.g. MySQL, LDAP, PostgreSQL)
Administration GUI-based administration interface Command line and web-based administration interface (via third-party software)
Security Supports SSL/TLS, STARTTLS Supports SSL/TLS, SASL authentication, STARTTLS
Scalability Limited scalability (requires third-party software to sync data for a fail-over setup) Limited scalability (requires third-party software to sync data for a fail-over setup)
Ease of use Simple and easy to configure Steep learning curve, but highly configurable
Email Delivery Good performance Good performance
Email Filtering Yes (advanced options via ‘rules’ you can setup to tell hMailServer what to do with individual email messages based upon different conditions) Advanced email filtering options (https://www.postfix.org/FILTER_README.html)
Anti-Spam Yes (built-in & third-party support) Yes (built-in & third-party support)
Program Stability Excellent Excellent
Security Track Record Excellent Excellent
Programming Language C++ (server), C# (GUI) C
Community Support Small community forum Large and active community
Special Notes No longer under active development. However, there are third-party developers that occasionally add to the software, and the software is still perfectly usable in its current state. Under active development
Website
https://hmailserver.com/

https://github.com/hmailserver/hmailserver
https://www.postfix.org/

 


Posted in Computers, Internet and Servers, Software

Merry Christmas 2022!

Merry Christmas!

Luke 2:8-20    New American Standard Bible (NASB)

8 In the same region there were some shepherds staying out in the fields and keeping watch over their flock by night. 9 And an angel of the Lord suddenly stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them; and they were terribly frightened. 10 But the angel said to them, “Do not be afraid; for behold, I bring you good news of great joy which will be for all the people; 11 for today in the city of David there has been born for you a Savior, who is Christ the Lord. 12 This will be a sign for you: you will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.” 13 And suddenly there appeared with the angel a multitude of the heavenly host praising God and saying,

14 “Glory to God in the highest,
And on earth peace among men with whom He is pleased.”

15 When the angels had gone away from them into heaven, the shepherds began saying to one another, “Let us go straight to Bethlehem then, and see this thing that has happened which the Lord has made known to us.”16 So they came in a hurry and found their way to Mary and Joseph, and the baby as He lay in the manger. 17 When they had seen this, they made known the statement which had been told them about this Child. 18 And all who heard it wondered at the things which were told them by the shepherds. 19 But Mary treasured all these things, pondering them in her heart. 20 The shepherds went back, glorifying and praising God for all that they had heard and seen, just as had been told them.


Posted in Biblical Accounts, Christian, Holiday

Simple Ways to Get Less Spam in Your Email

We have all been there. Wake up in the morning and find you have a dozen or so spam emails sitting in your inbox, all mixed in with your legitimate emails from family and business. You may have wondered how you can prevent so much spam from hitting your inbox.

The truth is …there really is no “magic formula” when it comes to fighting spam. Some people seem to never get any spam even if they give their email out to everyone they meet. For others, they seem to have been “blessed” with tons of spam, when they have been very careful who they have given their email too.

Here are some ideas that may help you prevent spam from hitting your inbox. Please remember, none of these ideas have any guarantee that you will not receive any spam.

  • (As mentioned above) Be careful who you give your email out to. Never just hand over your email to just anyone (e.g., an online “signup” form to potentially win a prize).
    • There are several places on the Internet where people collect email addresses to put into lists to sell to spammers. Unfortunately, many of these signup forms look legit and people fall for them, not realizing that they are getting setup to be spammed.
    • Many companies that require your email have good intentions, but their systems may get compromised and their customers’ emails get leaked to spammers. In this case, that is not your fault. Life happens.
    • In addition, your friends’ and family’s email accounts may become compromised at a certain point in time. This will undoubtedly cause their address books to become leaked. You can guess what the hacker will do with all the emails he collects.
  • Use a third-party email spam filter (e.g., SpamAssassin).
    • Some examples of third-party spam filters are: SpamAssassin, rspamd, and Gmail.
      • SpamAssassin is a self-hosted software program. When your email server receives an email, it sends the email to SpamAssassin which then tries to determine if the email is legit. However, SpamAssassin also has quite the learning curve. So, unless you have time to learn how to set it up properly, I would opt to using a commercial third-party spam filter.
        • SpamAssassin can be trained what emails are spam and what emails are not spam.
      • rspamd is another self-hosted software program for filtering email. While not as popular as SpamAssassin, there is no reason to disregard the program, if you want an alternative to using SpamAssassin or another email filter.
      • Gmail has an excellent spam filter. There are people (mainly businesses) who purposely forward all mail to a Gmail account they setup to have Gmail’s system filter out the illegitimate emails. They can do this even if they own their own domain name, and are not using a Gmail email address for their business.
        • Since Gmail is not self-hosted, all your email ultimately gets seen by a third-party. Some individuals and businesses may not be comfortable with this idea.
  • Use a “catch-all” anti-spam system.
    • What a “catch-all” system does is redirect all your email to a “bin” of sorts and lets you – later – review all the email you wish to forward to your email.
    • An example of a program that does this is “Tagged Message Delivery Agent (TMDA)”.
      • You can do a Google search to learn more about it.
    • The only downside to this type of anti-spam is you now effectively have two emails to manage instead of one. You must watch and manage the “anti-spam bin” and you still must monitor your real email. For many people, this would not be acceptable or practical.
  • Use an email alias instead of giving out your real email.
    • This is when you have multiple email addresses that all forward to your real (main) email address.
    • This is like having a forwarding address at the US Post Office.
    • For example, you have your personal email: alfred@example.com.  Now you want to sign up for a new online service, but you do not want to give out your personal email. You setup an alias ad130@example.com and give that email to the online service instead of your actual email. Now anytime the service emails you, the email is forwarded from ad130@example.com to alfred@example.com.
      • In the event the service gets compromised and you start getting spam to ad130@example.com, you can create another one ad250@example.com and continue using the service while stopping the spam that started coming to the other email alias.
    • Unfortunately, there are a couple of problems with this idea.
      • 1. With several email aliases, you must now keep up with all these virtual email accounts, instead of just one (your main email).
      • 2. Unless you are self-hosting your email, in which case you can set as many email aliases as you need, some free email services may not allow you to create 20+ emails for the purpose of forwarding to another email address. It would depend upon the email service’s “Terms of Service” …what they allow and do not allow.

Posted in Computers, Internet and Servers, Software, Tips & Tutorials

List of Free and Public DNS Resolvers

Here is a list I compiled of free and public DNS resolvers you can use. Hopefully this will save you some time looking for an alternative DNS resolver.

Last Updated: August 2022

Name IP Address & Notes
Cloudflare

1.1.1.1

1.0.0.1


No DNS filtering; everything allowed

Cloudflare

1.1.1.2


Filters malware domains; useful if you have a public Internet service (e.g., library, coffee shop)

Cloudflare

1.1.1.3


Filters malware & adult content

Google

8.8.8.8

8.8.4.4


Google Public DNS is purely a DNS resolution and caching server; it does not perform any blocking or filtering of any kind, except that it may not resolve certain domains in extraordinary cases if we believe this is necessary to protect Google’s users from security threats.as of August 2022

Quad9

9.9.9.9

149.112.112.112

2620:fe::fe  [IPv6]

2620:fe::9  [IPv6]


Filters malware domains & DNSSEC validation

Quad9

9.9.9.11

149.112.112.11

2620:fe::11  [IPv6]

2620:fe::fe:11  [IPv6]


Filters malware domains & DNSSEC validation + ECS enabled

Quad9

9.9.9.10

149.112.112.10

2620:fe::10  [IPv6]

2620:fe::fe:10  [IPv6]


No malware domain filtering, no DNSSEC validation

OpenDNS

208.67.222.222

208.67.220.220


Without an OpenDNS account, supposedly it blocks some malware and phishing domains; with an account, you can have much more control over what it blocks and does not block

 


Posted in Computers, Internet and Servers, Software, Tips & Tutorials