Hello everyone! So I’m in the transition of kicking Google to the curb for my storage and email needs. My intended goal is to move soley to open source software and find an email provider (in the meantime while I absorb information on self-hosting an email unless I’m satisfied with said email provider). I already have my Nextcloud server active and deployed; which I am soon to be stopping Google Drive once and for all.
Which currently brings me to this question; what would be an ideal email provider that focuses on privacy, won’t sell data to data brokers, etc? Custom domain name would be awesome, but not required. I do have a registered domain to eventually intergrate.
One vote against proton. They screwed me over when I tried to downsize due to lack of funds. They were less than helpful. Currently I pay about $1/month for email host;
I have found that some places won’t let you use protonmail accounts, as they have been harmed/caught-out/shown-up by people in the past abusing the quazi- anonymous nature of it
It’s been almost a decade since I had started using the service, so memory is hazy. I was paying what at the time was their second tier service, which included 3 emails. When I couldn’t afford to pay, I tried to drop down to their free tier but got no response. I didn’t have too much on their servers so it wasn’t a great loss, but it was frustrating as hell at the time.
Honestly Oracle was the only one I can think of, and when I recently tried to do a Radeon Rewards.
I think some shops, but they are probably the ones who have all sorts of tracking cookies/selling the data elsewhere anyway.
It Does work in a few places.
I have set up a Tuta Nota account, but not tried it.
There is a lot Less noise about Tuta Nota, so I suspect it would have less bad ju-ju, but this is just a suspicion with no proof.
Bearing in mind; email is not a secure or private system one should view it as a postcard system, where any carrier on the journey can inspect it in the clear. If you want security, then encrypt the contents. The sender and receiver and subject are still transmitted. Not that it makes a difference, but “secure email” needs to be coordinated between parties?
I semi-recently moved to fastmail because google finally managed to agitate me enough to spend the energy to leave. They have a good reputation in tech oriented spaces, and since I’m an actual customer I can call someone if there’s a problem, which is important since email is a critical gateway to much of the things I need to do in life. I’m very happy with it.
They have privacy in that they don’t sell user data, but they are not a defense against a threat model involving governments. IMO email is a bit of a lost cause for actual communication if that’s a concern.
What fastmail call “masked emails” is amazing. Making a generated address for every since thing that wants you to sign up to login so they can spam you or sell your address to spammers is so nice. Then you can delete it anytime you want, and it can even let you know who either sold your address elsewhere (or in some cases, let you know who had a security breach, the site owner may appreciate you reaching out). Other services should have something similar.
And if you are truly looking to degoogle, https://kagi.com/ recently removed the search limit on their non-basic offerings. I’ve been happy with them as well. Duckduckgo is alright, but still a downgrade from google, whereas kagi seems to be mostly superior to google for my more technical agriculture oriented searches.
I have personally used Protonmail for years and am very happy with their service.
A few of my older, not tech-savvy relatives have switched to it to get away from their old ISP Email Addresses after asking for my recommendation and were all happy too.
Proton offers in my opinion the best technical and legal protections out of the “private” Email Providers, being based in Switzerland and their E2EE and other code getting regular audits from a third party.
They have already set precedents, similarly to Signal, where both the Swiss legal system and their technology protected activists data.
A relative of mine switched to an unpaid plan after using paid features and there was no hassle with it, they got to keep the additional addresses. Although this was within the last year, so it could simply be that they have gotten better at handling those situations over time.
Same here, not a fan of proton for locking me down to 3 label and 3 folder after the fact …
I was having a hard time paying the pro fee in order to use my domain, and given how many advertisement i get from them i’m happy i didn’t lock myself in.
Ive used protonmail for about 3 years now. Its definately a top option for what your looking for. The only other real options for private respecting email are “Tutuanota” and “Skiff”. I have not personally tried either of them but from what i remember protonmail has more features and thats why i chose protonmail. Highly recommend switching.