Today I got a call from someone whom I helped setup with Google Apps for domains. Primarily, he’s using Google to handle his email – it’s pretty much the exact same system that powers GMail, but under your own domain name. We use it too for perceptus.ca email. It’s awesome. You can use the excellent webmail interface, and IMAP for full desktop and mobile email applications. Plus, it’s free if you don’t need very many user logins.
If you have a vanity domain for yourself, get Google to host your email. You won’t find anything better, especially for $0.
Anyway, my client is in China, behind the world’s biggest firewall. And he can’t access his email. His web requests get forwarded to weird places. Ironically, he sounded rather pleased, since he’s actually on vacation, but it did raise some good questions.
Does Google Apps for Domains email actually work in China? I don’t know, it might be a weird forwarding bug. I’m not there now, so I can’t experiment with it. If someone reads this and can confirm success or failure with Google Apps for Domains, that would be excellent. Unfortunately, this is some info that I can’t seem to find on the Internet.
As an aside, in trying to figure this out, I stumbled on Google’s Transparency Report. It’s a fun way to see if Google services are blocked in different countries at any given time.
I wonder if any of Perceptus’ websites are blocked in China?