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!
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.
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.
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.
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'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!
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.
I use posteo.net for 10 years now, and I am super happy with them. I don't get spam, and I have never missed an email.
They choose not to use a spam folder system, and I understand their reasoning, and agree with them.
They sometimes get criticized for some other decision (something to do with certificates, if I remember correctly), but after reading their reasoning, I agree with them.
In my experience, they have now real downside, and I recommend them to everyone I know when they come to me with email problems.
Thank you for pointing this out. I am no way expert but trying to study and understand. I then found other negative comments regarding the lack of DMARC, while on posteo website they say:
"We have a DMARC "none" policy for Posteo email domain names, since DMARC is currently not recommended for mailbox providers. Outbound DMARC policies are primarily "best-suited for transactional emails and semi-transactional emails" (dmarc-org FAQ). At the present, DMARC has implications which do not meet customers' individual use of email."
link
The dmarc-org FAQ is interesting too. I understand that Posteo publishes thier DMARC record, if I am not wrong
I would appreciate your opinion, you seem competent! Thank you
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
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 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.
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
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.
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.