I happily used mailfence.com for about 4 years before work necessitated that I move my email over to M365.
As I mentioned earlier in the All Free option, as a private small email itās ok if webmail and 500MB are enough for you.
You can always add free aliases and domains if one address is not enough for you. And get everything for free all the time. Of course you have to do it around if you donāt want to pay for email.
If you choose something other than proton, you can still get free domains and aliases without the support of an email provider.
Not every free email offers unlimited aliases and catch-all options, especially catch-all is not available when we have a shared domainā¦
Thatās why I prefer to control my own subdomain on a free domain, and redirect messages to any destination email account.
Using dedicated addresses per resource not only gives you better control over spam, but in the event of a leak you can see where it came from and you can easily drop that particular address without having to change your email.
They only log IPs. And they only gave the IP address.
Anyways, on the topic of mail, I prefer https://skiff.com or https://protonmail.com. Protonās a convenient daily driver for me, since Iām paying for unlimited and the convenience across their suite is kinda neat. Since they own Simplelogin, itās super convenient to run aliases too!
Do any of the free tier options have support for the equivalent of ms outlooks .pst files and a good free way to convert said pst files over to them.
Yes Iām well aware of my data hoarding issues!
Rackspace Email
When I last checked, it was a 10 USD minimum spend, not per user; hopefully that is still true because the current rate is 2.99 USD/user and the comments about an old discount I found down to that 1 USD price seem to say it is no longer available. If you found a working discount, please tell us.
Protonmail
From what I have read, Protonmail is basically an implementation of user friendly PGP, with PGP implemented in javascript for webmail.
The added benefit is that every unencrypted incoming email is also encrypted by their servers with your PGP public key, so all your emails (presumably drafts as well) are stored PGP-encrypted once they arrive.
Note that PGP encryption never encrypts headers (To, From, Subject), only the contents of the email (including attachments).
This is the most significant downside to me; my guess is that searching is still server-side, and since PGP encrypts the body but not the headers, the subject is all their servers can search. I have never tested the bridge program on a paid plan, but in theory your webmail client could do full-text search on any downloaded emails, right?
I have not checked thoroughly, but Tutanota seems to be a similar implementation.
Kolab Now
I have also heard of Kolab Now, which has a cheaper but still somewhat expensive email-only tier. I have a soft spot for it since it runs (or at least ran when an employee gave this talk) on OpenPOWER hardware to have fully opensource firmware; avoiding Intel Management Engine or AMD SP/PSP/Pluton risks.
Kolab itself is the webmail/calendar/file-sharing software is open-source; Kolab Now is just the service offering.
I have been using this service since before it was acquired by rackspace. I just spent some time re-familarizing myself with Rackspace offerings and logging into my admin panel.
I can see that I am running under a legacy plan that does not seem to be available any longer. Additionally, they really try to get me to upgrade to their current offering, which would be at least three times as expensive (no, thank you).
Sorry for getting hopes up.
As things go, I may find myself revisiting this thread for alternatives, soon
Maybe what we really need is a wiki thread, with a table; something like:
Service | IMAP/POP | Added Encryption | BYO Domain | Price |
---|---|---|---|---|
Protonmail | paid+desktop only | PGP in-webmail, plaintext is PGP-encrypted on delivery | yes, paid only, higher tier | _ USD |
Tutanota | ? | yes, PGP? | _ EUR | |
Posteo | yes? | no | no | _ EUR |
KolabNow | yes? | no | yes | _ CHF |
GoogleWorkspace | yes | sort-of?, client side encryption | yes, mandatory |
Oh, a strange but surprisingly cheap option, you could get five accounts with a custom domain at ~1 USD/month if you pay for Appleās lowest tier (50GB) iCloud+ offering.
Apple probably will secure it email service better than similarly cheap email hosting via a hosting or domain provider.
I remember hearing that Appleās US credit card can be signed-up for without an Apple device, maybe this too could be used without one?
As ProtonMail is adding an Arbitration clause to their agreement, I think my slow personal migration to it is over. Literally the next day I watched Louis Rossman talking about Zoomās Arbitration clause, I opened my ProtonMail to see their Terms update.
Any free mail services that I can use with the minimal headache possible there in this planet?
Bringing this old thread back up.
I have lazily left my email hosted on GoDaddy (and definitely overpaying) for years now. It was actually very solid until they switched to Microsoft and now it creates random issues.
This weekend, I built a new PC and cannot get Thunderbird to work. It shouldnāt be that hard.
Wondering what others use as email hosts these days.
Self-hosting is a project I donāt want and donāt have the wherewithal to even think of tackling.
Thank you for any input.
Iirc $1/month