New Swiss-Hosted Anonymous Surfing Packages

We're now offering Anonymous Surfing packages hosted on new servers in Switzerland. These packages offer much higher bandwidth limits than our current plans, as well as a lower cost per GB for additional bandwidth usage.

In addition, Switzerland is outside the EU and is not subject to the EU directive on data-retention. Comprehensive privacy legislation makes Switzerland one of the most privacy oriented jurisdictions in the world.

You can sign up for any of the new Swiss hosted NeoTunnel packages by clicking on the relevant package link below:

NeoTunnel Swiss Basic - 5GB per month. $49.95 per year.
NeoTunnel Swiss Silver - 10GB per month. $74.95 per year.
NeoTunnel Swiss Gold - 15GB per month. $99.95 per year.
NeoTunnel Swiss Platinum - 25GB per month. $149.95 per year.

The cost for extra bandwidth units with any of these accounts is $2 per GB.

The new packages are not yet integrated with our automated account setup systems, so you will not get instant access to your new account, but we will get it set up for you as soon as we can once we receive your order. For fastest setup, please send us a mail with your order number and desired username (minimum 5 characters) once you've placed your order.

You can also upgrade your current Netherlands-hosted Anonymous Surfing or Offshore Secure Email package to use the Swiss NeoTunnel service. Of-course you will receive full credit for unused time left on your current subscription. If your current plan includes email service this will not be affected by upgrading your anonymous surfing to one of the Swiss-hosted packages.

To upgrade your current subscription, please contact us.

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Server Upgrades

We've just completed OS and server software upgrades on some of the US servers, and improved load balancing to ensure snappier performance.

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Vastly Improved Webmail

We've just completed upgrades on our webmail interface, and a new webmail mode is now available - Dynamic mode, which offers a far more responsive user experience rivaling a desktop email program.

We've made this the default webmail interface, though you can still access the old interface, via the Log In page, by selecting Traditional as the interface type.

Another mode, Mobile mode, is also now available, for use on devices with small screens, such as cellphones and PDAs.

All three interfaces (Traditional, Dynamic and Mobile) are available in over 40 languages.

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New NeoTunnel Installers

The NeoTunnel installer packages for both Windows and OS X have been updated.

The new installers take care of installing and configuring the support software for NeoTunnel, making it much easier to get started using the NeoTunnel service.

If you've already installed NeoTunnel support software on your computer, we strongly recommend that you use the new installers to install it again. The new packages contain the latest configuration and binary files.

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Grey-listing Active

We've now implemented grey-listing on all incoming SMTP servers. Grey-listing is a user-transparent anti-spam measure that involves initially rejecting incoming mail from unknown sending address / host combinations, with a temporary SMTP error, and accepting it when the sending host tries sending it again.

All real SMTP hosts will retry sending a mail if it is initially rejected with a temporary SMTP error, but spam bots often do not. So the grey-listing mechanism is a simple and effective way to completely block a lot of incoming spam, while leaving legitimate messages unaffected (other than a small initial delay in delivering mail the first time mail is received from an unknown sending host / address combination).

Grey-listing is enabled at the system level and doesn't need any user intervention or configuration.

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More control over aliases

Some users reported that spammers had started to invent random addresses at their Neomailbox subdomains (or their custom domains), and they were receiving an unusually large amount of spam as a result.

To deal with this, we've created a default deny mode for subdomain aliases. In this mode, only those aliases at your subdomain (or domain) that you explicitly enable will receive mail. Mail for any alias not explicitly enabled by you in the control panel will be rejected.

To switch your account to default deny mode, or if you have any questions about this, please contact us.

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New Improved Webmail

We've moved over to IMP as the primary webmail system for our US hosted accounts. IMP provides numerous features not available on the previous webmail system, as well as snappier performance.

IMP also supports OpenPGP encryption and digital signatures, so Neomailbox users can now send and receive PGP encrypted and/or signed mail from anywhere, using the new secure webmail system.

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Servers Upgraded

Maintenance upgrades on all IMAP and POP3 servers.

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New Webmail System

We've just upgraded to a new IMAP-based webmail system with rich interactive features, including drag and drop mail management and faster screen updates using AJAX techniques.

The old POP3-based webmail system is still available here. It will remain available for a while, to enable you to copy your contact addresses over, or if you'd like to keep using it while you try out the new system.

The new webmail system is based on the IMAP mail protocol, rather than the older POP3 protocol. This has some important and possibly surprising implications:

• If you've never downloaded your Neomailbox email to a desktop email program, but have used the old webmail system exclusively to access your account, you'll find that you have a lot of old mail in your mailbox in the new webmail system.

  This is because the old POP3 webmail system did not delete mail from the main mail server when it fetched mail into webmail. Any mail you deleted in the old webmail system was deleted from the webmail system only, not from the main mail store.

  Mail would only have been deleted from the main message store if you downloaded it using a desktop email program like Outlook Express or Applie Mail.

  With the new IMAP-based webmail system, you have direct access to your email as it is on the main mail server. This is why you're seeing messages which you had earlier deleted in the old webmail system.

  You will need to delete all unwanted mail from the new webmail system to remove it from the main message store. Alternately, you can use a desktop email program to access your account via IMAP and delete messages using the desktop email program.

• You may have created folders in the old webmail system, which will not be visible in the new one.

  You can contact us to have your folders from the old webmail system migrated to IMAP folders which will be visible in your desktop email program, as well as in the new webmail system.

The user interface of the new webmail system is more like a desktop program and less like HTML-based webmail systems which update via page refreshes. In particular:

• In the new webmail system, you have to double click on a message to view it.
• You can select multiple messages in much the same way you would in a desktop email program, and delete them by pressing the delete button, or move or copy them by dragging and dropping as you would in a desktop email system.

If you have any trouble using the new webmail system please don't hesitate to contact us.

And remember, the old webmail system continues to be available here.

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PayPal Ordering Now Available

We now accept orders via PayPal. You can also use PayPal to pay using your credit card, even if you don't have a PayPal account.

To order an account using PayPal, simply select the PayPal option in the shopping cart.

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Neomailbox Joins GDCA

Neomailbox is now an accredited member of the Global Digital Currencies Association (GDCA), a leading industry association of merchants and exchange providers who accept digital currencies such as e-gold and Pecunix.

Our membership in the GDCA signifies our intent to abide by the GDCA's constitution, designed to promote high quality performance standards, integrity, and sound business practices.

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Servers Upgraded

Major server upgrades completed, with zero downtime for users, thanks to our multiple replicated servers.

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Ordering Simplified

Our new shopping cart brings all payment options together into one integrated ordering system, making it easier to quickly order the packages you select, using any of the payment mechanisms we accept, including credit card, PayPal, e-gold, and Pecunix.

The cart will also automatically apply the 10% discount we offer on all orders placed using a digital gold currency.

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Webmail Upgraded

We just finished upgrading the webmail system. The new version adds numerous new features.

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Major Website Updates, 1GB Mailboxes

Neomailbox has been running for over two years now, and we've been hard at work on (among other things) a completely new theme for the website.

Today we switch over to the new design - it's faster to load, easier to navigate, and presents an expanded FAQ and new service packages.

We're also upping the disk space on our Offshore Secure Email plan to a whopping 1GB, and introducing a new low-cost stand-alone secure anonymous web browsing package.

We welcome your feedback on our new design, and continue to work day and night on new enhancements to be unveiled soon.

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Secure Tunneling Proxy

Users of our Offshore Email Account which includes secure anonymous web browsing now have access to our new NeoTunnel secure tunneling proxy as well.

The NeoTunnel proxy anonymizes and secures your web browsing much as the current 'rewriting' proxy does, but it can handle the entire gamut of websites out there, some of which can't be viewed with the rewriting proxy because of the way it works.

Basic information on using the NeoTunnel proxy is here. We'll have more detailed information with screenshots online soon. As usual, we would love to hear from you about this or any other aspect of Neomailbox.

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Servers Upgraded

We've just finished major upgrades on our US servers, including updating to the latest OpenBSD release, and upgrading the SMTP server and the ClamAV anti-virus system.

This was all accomplished transparently with zero downtime for customers, as backup servers carried on processing mail and servicing customers while we performed the upgrade on the main servers.

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Outgoing SPF

Neomailbox now publishes SPF records for its SMTP servers. SPF (Sender Policy Framework) is a proposed Internet standard to provide a method for SMTP servers to prove to each other that they are authorized to send mail for the domains they appear to be sending mail from.

The idea, of-course, is to make it harder for spammers to send mail with forged headers without being detected. We're working on also adding SPF headers to incoming mail, so you can set up filters based on this information.

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RSS feeds by email

Now you can receive RSS news feeds for your favorite websites and blogs directly into your Neomailbox account, turning your normal email program into an RSS feed reader.

RSS (Real Simple Syndication) is a way for publishers and websites to distribute (syndicate) information about regularly updated web content.

Using RSS feeds with your Neomailbox account, you can receive news headlines, weather updates, stock reports, blog items, and any kind of web content, directly in your email, freeing you from the need to purchase and install a separate RSS feed reader (also called RSS feed aggregator) to benefit from this useful, time-saving technology.

Read more about our RSS gateway here.

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Secure Anonymous Web Surfing

Our new anonymous web proxy acts as an intermediary between your computer and any web sites you visit. It prevents the web sites you visit from identifying you by your IP address, which can reveal your exact geographical location, which ISP you use, and other personal information.

Additionally, the proxy uses the SSL protocol to encrypt all communication to and from your web browser, so that no one can monitor or censor where you are surfing, or what you are reading or downloading. Read more about anonymous surfing.

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New Offshore Servers in the Netherlands

Different countries differ significantly in terms of laws regulating data protection, privacy, and freedom of expression. Your needs for privacy and security may be better served by hosting your email in one country in preference to another.

Recognizing this, we now offer a choice of email hosting in the Netherlands as well as on our existing servers in the USA. For more information click here.

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Disposable Email Addresses

Whenever you reveal your real email address to anyone, you lose control over how and by whom it is used. Once your email address is "out there", you can quickly be flooded with junk mail that can be impossible to turn off. There's no practical way to get someone to stop sending you spam, or to stop them from passing on your address to others.

Neomailbox solves this problem with new functionality to turn your existing unlimited subdomain email addresses into disposable email addresses, that you can turn on and off at will. Click here for details.

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SSL IMAP Service

We're pleased to announce the immediate availability of SSL IMAP service to customers of our SSL POP3/SMTP email service.

IMAP is an Internet protocol designed to enable synchronized access to email from multiple devices and email programs. IMAP differs from the older POP3 (Post Office Protocol v3) primarily in that an IMAP compatible email program works directly with email stored on the mail server.

IMAP compatible email programs enable you to access your email from multiple devices, while ensuring that you always see a consistent view of your mailbox from all the devices you use to access your mail. Click here for more information about IMAP.

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