Hi everyone! Since I was absolutely fucked by Skiff (thank fuck I didn’t pay for it) I’m looking for a new email provider :) I’m not sure I like how proton is transforming into a full on suit, I only need email. Any other recommendations or is proton my only choice really?
deleted by creator
+1 for proton!
I’ve been using it for years, they’ve never let me down!
deleted by creator
Proton = No SMTP/IMAP support.
How would they be privacy-centric if they supported SMTP and IMAP?
Both support encryption and Lavabit probably had much higher standards than Proton when it comes to privacy and still supported those open protocols. What Proton is doing is pushing for vendor lock-in at any possible point so you’re stuck with what they deem acceptable because it’s easier for them to build a service this way and makes more sense from a business / customer retention perspective.
Lavabit probably had much higher standards than Proton
So it’s all based on an assumption.
So you assume that Proton won’t snitch on you whenever the NSA comes around asking for data?.. And I’m sure Lavabit didn’t snitch on Snowden.
I don’t really care that much about any information like IPs, I care about the actual emails which are encrypted.
There is nothing that indicates that they will snitch since that would be terrible for everyone and also illegal for them to do.
But most importantly lavabit is an American company which is insane for if you care about privacy at all.
Proton also published a transparency report while Lavabit is really opaque.
If you don’t need anonymity you could just buy a domain with a single email and use your own email app SMTP. I think it’s cheaper than most email providers.
https://github.com/privacyguides/privacyguides.org/blob/HEAD/docs/email.md and https://www.privacytools.io/privacy-email document services you’ll probably find interesting.
deleted by creator
No SMTP/IMAP support.
That’s because they are encrypted. There’s a bridge
I’ve always considered it for my data not to be read by the company and it’s employees but you bring up an interesting point.
That makes them totally unreasonable and pushed for vendor lockin and proprietary applications you can’t run anywhere.
This is hilarious, people here get all pissed about google and microsoft when it comes to email and then pick an alternative that is less open in all possible ways.
Just use a domain then and switch whenever you feel like.
Have been happy with Tuta
I was pretty happy with tuta, but I just switched to proton for the IMAP/SMTP support.
Been using Tuta for a few years and its great. Can use catch-all with my own Domain
Linux, dovecot, postfix and a large quantity of pain medication.
I just came across this one too, seems rather promising! https://forwardemail.net/en
ProtonMail is good for professional and personal usage. It is stable, it is reliable, will not shutdown, paid tiers subsidise free tier successfully and is treated safe like Gmail/Outlook by email providers. Just not good for activist usage (check Moon of Alabama blog), but 99% of email providers are bad for that.
I found http://mxroute.com/ they offer sane prices for unlimited emails and domains. I’m in the middle of switching to them.
I’m happy with fastmail. Remember that must people you email are probably on Google (Gmail) so there is only so much you can accomplish in terms of email privacy whatever you do.
There isn’t. Self hosting is the only way you can send email without giving your data. All email provider have your data, assuming there is a provider that is private is lying yourself. Even if they have some kilograms of privacy policy.
Plus one for Proton, I don’t use their password manager, but their other products I’ve been using and been pleased with. I consider it well worth the cost.
Proton, Tuta, or mailbox.org are good choices.
Regardless of who you choose. Use an aliasing service. It makes moving to a new provider/email address a breeze on the future. It took me days to go around updating all my 200 sites online. If I ever move from proton it will take me 5 minutes to ensure all my sites now go to my new provider.
My only tip would be to create a new domain rather than using a shared one. This will prevent some sites from blocking you from using an alias.
Email alias indeed helps to avoid spam and helps you to assume separate identity per site, but won’t help in any way to stop mail provider/server from processing your email data for user profiling / targeted ad purpose.
Buying email domain and self-hosting is only the full proof way from privacy POV, but it is really difficult target to accomplish. A privacy respecting email hosting + alias should be next ideal choice, IMO.
Self hosting is best if you have the knowhow, inclination and time to maintain it, but there are alias services that will encrypt any mail they forward using a key you provided so this would eliminate the ability of your chosen non-self-hosted email provider/server to easily read your received mail limiting their ability to profile or target to any metadata and header info that is passed along unencrypted.
Of course, then you are placing trust in the alias service’s privacy and logging policies. But some are open source and you could host an alias forwarding service yourself if you wished as well.
Ah! I was not aware of the fact that Alias service can encrypt email before forwarding to actual mailbox.
Check out YUNOhost. It’s an open source operating system for servers which comes with email already set up. You can install it on a cheap VPS or home server and easily manage it graphically via web portal.
