Hi All,
I would like to choose a new email provider, where security and privacy of the email is one of my main concerns (nothing to hide, but want to keep my data private, differently than what happens with the major providers). I have read maaany posts and websites guides but I am still confused.
I am happy to pay a euro or so /month, so I had reduced my choice to Mailbox, Posteo, Mailfence. The problem is that each of them has some flows that don’t let me go ahead with them!
Mailbox: uses PGP, so not straightforward to send encrypted emails (unlike with tutanota) and to have encryption at rest. No mobile app. Alias reuse after 90 days
Posteo: no spam folder. ALias reuse after 24 months
Mailfence : has no encryption at rest , no mobile app. Not sure about alias reuse
Have you got any comments on the above providers and /or other suggestions (except for Tutanota and Protonmail)? thank you, appreciated!
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I like Proton Mail. It does have a free tier, but the paid tier is pricier than you suggested in your post.
The free tier is only 500mb, but I’ve been using it as my primary email for a year and with spam management I’m only at 100mb.
You wrote that 500mb is too small tho. 500mb are enough for me as well for mails.
If I wasn’t deleting unnecessary emails, that would run out in about 24 months.
Well, it’s always a good idea to delete unnecessary mails and junk mails
Why do you need a mobile app? It’s just email, all IMAP clients should work.
I have a mailbox address since years, never use the webui for checking mails, only for changing some settings, I access my mails with Thunderbird on desktop, Fairemail on Android. Both apps have builtin PGP, so you shouldn’t care what the provider supports.
The spam filter in mailbox is glorious, never got a spam there.
Well imap isn’t encrypted, right? That’s why one can or rather needs to run a software with proton called proton bridge to get imap locally
Yes, but for me standards are more important than encryption. I can encrypt mails with pgp, than they are end to end encrypted, imap doesn’t matter. I considered proton when I switched to mailbox, but usually I don’t send encrypted mails, because the reciepents cant read them, so I wouldn’t use the pros of proton.
How come that the recipients can’t read them?
If I send some proton encrypted email to a random gmail address what happens? On gmail side it’s not encrypted. So what’s the point for encrypting something only on one side? For PGP afaik we have to get the public key of the recipient so it requires some setup on both sides before the first mail. I wanted to say, usually I don’t send emails like this,I send them to mortals, who would freak out if I would start to speak about things like this.
Once I setup pgp in thunderbird, but I never had the incentive to setup again after a reinstall, because I never used it (I still have my keys saved though). For encrypted communication about important topics I use Signal, and I could convince my most important friends to install it.
You have two ways. Either the person made there public key available or you set a password for your mail that only you and the receipient know (you may want to forward a mail and share the password via Signal).
Yeah I’m also mostly using Signal but at least Proton provides an easy ux/ui to encrypt mails.
Thank you. If I have not confused the different email proveiders, with mailbox encryption in transit is always active, while it needs to be activated while at rest. I do not understand why someone would not want their emails to be encrypted even at rest, by the way.
I’ve been using protonmail for a while and it works great for me, that said i’d go with tutanota if i could start over. They have a linux app and their android app is on fdroid, which for some reason proton refuses to do
Pretty sure the protonmail app is on fdroid
No it’s not, only Proton VPN
It’s on izzyondroid, not fdroid proper, and as i understand the Proton devs weren’t the ones who put it there. Ideally they would put it on fdroid proper, or failing that host their own repo, rather than relying on the community to copy it to izzyondroid. It’s often behind the play store version as well, which is an issue for security
I’m using fastmail.com as my email provider in the USA. They’re a small company based out of Australia with global servers. They pride themselves on privacy and security. Been using them for several years now. They’re not the cheapest game in town, but they have an impressive feature set. They actually host a domain and web site for me that’s included with my mid-tier account fees. I have zero complaints with them.
Even paid accounts with companies like Microsoft, Google, and Yahoo do not guarantee privacy. Yahoo has been known to scan email content for targeted advertising. Discovering that is what actually motivated me to use a paid service.
I also use 1password and there’s an easy “create masked email” feature where a fastmail marked email is set as the email for a new 1password login… love it!
PGP is great. If you learn how to use it on your own device, it doesn’t matter what host you use. If you post your OS, I’ll can point you to instructions on setting it up locally.
You’re never going to get the bulk of senders (library, town council, your aging parents) to encrypt their mail to you. Can you make peace with that?
It is important to find a host that has a funding model based on subscriptions instead of monetizing users.
My recommendation is find a host with a good subscription model and in a county that respects user privacy. I like KolabNow in Switzerland.
Thank you. I had come across KolabNow, I will look into it again. I have never used PGP and it does not seem a smooth mechanism to me, as I am used to encrypt emails with password. Maybe I am wrong … PS: I am onWindows
Oh, it is not a smooth mechanism at all. If it were, everyone would use it. Google started to develop a browser extension some years ago to make key management and encrypting easier but it was abandoned because it would inhibit their ability to do targeted advertising.
Here is a link to set up PGP on Windows.
Thunderbird has PGP built in and it’s pretty seamless once it’s set up.
Thank you @digger@latte.isnot.coffee
Google developed that!? Or has it been an extension for google mail rather?
I’m not surprised they got rid of it.
I’ve been on Soverin.net for a while.
How’s the interface?
I’ll be honest, I chose them because they’re a private European email host. Their web UI is pretty rudimentary, but I use other email apps anyway.
I know that feeling i also tried most , iam atm with Proton mail for secure stuff and Microsoft email for general but the spam protection on microsoft Absolutely SUCKS.
searching too a paid provider.
i have found this to be a useful comparison. they stress that the results are not necessarily in order - but everyone has their own desires, and it’s easy to hold them up against this summary
Protonmail and/or Tutanota, both fit my current needs and works fine for me.
I’ve switched to protonmail and I’m happy with the free plan for mail
Absolutely can’t recommend the entire proton suite enough. I use mail and drive daily, vpn when needed, and just waiting on calendar and contacts to be developed out a little more.
I came here to recommend proton, the default quota is too small at 500mb, but if you manage spam etc it’s a good app/platform.
I hope they offer an entry plan like with Google One at A$2.50.
Why the need for a specific mobile app for Mailbox? I use Mailbox in combination with FariEmail app on Android. It even supports PGP. Couldn’t be happier.
Thank you. True. I did not know that FairEmail supports, optionally, PGP! Is that an easy process to be set-up? I have never used PGP and it does not seem a smooth mechanism to me, but maybe I am wrong ?
It’s easy but it needs an extra app (OpenKeychain) in which you store your PGP key(s). I don’t remember all the steps to make it work but I remember that it was easy to setup.
Yeah, with inbound encryption every email gets encrypted. But with 2fa turned on one can’t use imap afaik
Their critic is that pgp isn’t as convenient
Still haven’t found the perfect email service provider but Mailfence has worked for me. It’s easy to set it up with a mail client or use PWA, and I feel its calendar function is overall more robust than the competitors. Service and troubleshooting has also been timely and good for me. Not the most user friendly but best balance of everything in my opinion.
I’m currently using skiff, I don’t know if it suits you or not.
- Modern Interface
- E2EE
- Aliases available (can send messages using aliases)
- 10gb of storage
- Has a mobile application
Came here to say tutanota and protonmail. Guess I will leave now…
I second proton mail. Totally satisfied and really like their calender.
