I’ve got a couple of e-mail addresses with the main providers, but I’m looking to switch to an ad-free and more secure provider.
I’ve been looking at ProtonMail, but what do you guys use or recommend?
You must log in or # to comment.
I’m happy with Proton
I’ve been using Proton Mail for a while, it’s been good for me.
Is the free tier truly free? The saying, “if a product is free, you are the product” comes to mind.
As far as I can tell, yes. I signed up for the free tier before paying for the service, and the worst I ever got was a banner here or there advertising their paid service. Proton encrypts all your data with your password, so they literally can’t access it even if they wanted to. The only info they have on you are things like when you logged in and your IP address (and I believe they’ve turned that info over to law enforcement when required, like any legitimate company would have to do), but their servers are in Switzerland where there are better privacy laws.
I used their free email for years with no issues
I went to the trouble of creating a custom domain and pay for that service and I have no problems with it. I subscribed at the level that gives me the VPN which works very well and blocks most ads and trackers.
After a Tuta vs Proton comparison, I went for the first because of their use of renewables, and I’ve been there for over a year now after fully ungoogling. Their search kind of sucks, but I feel they focus on creating a safe service with neat features, so I’m staying. I also combine it with SimpleLogin. Awesome service!
This
I’ve used Mailbox.org for years as a service that replaces most of my Google services at once. I know you just asked for email and Mailbox is worth checking out.
+1 for mailbox, have had their 1€ tier for a year now, definitely worth it. Works great with ThunderBird and K-9 Mail.
Fastmail. Proton is too limited and has terrible search
I’ve been impressed with Fastmail. I also use Tuta, which is pretty cool (but I barely use it).
I’ve been pretty happy with Tuta. I just have a free account, but it does seem like it has pretty good features and phenomenal security.
I switched from Tuta to Fastmail. Tuta was mostly fine, but being restricted to only their client was really annoying. I can use Fastmail with Thunderbird/FairEmail/etc just fine.
I get what Tuta is trying to do with encrypted email, but IMO they’re better off joining up with Fastmail on better specs that allow for the things they want to do, instead of limiting what email clients you can use.
The inability to use my own client was the deciding factor of why I did not go with Tuta when I was email shopping. They’ve got good features and a fair price but that one decision is a serious turn-off imo.
I’ve had nothing but positive experiences with Posteo. Their features list is very good for the pittance they charge per month.
I roll my own. Postfix, dovecot, spamassasin and dmarc friends. Easy to setup? No. But takes about an hour/year of my time to maintain once the ball is going.
I’ve always heard fastmail as the go-to for personal domain email hosting. They’re the go-to for almost everyone I know who doesn’t just setup forwarding to Gmail.
I’ve been paying for Tuta for a couple years, and like it. I have my gmail forward to it just in case, but these days have basically completely switched, and barely ever get any legit emails forwarded from my gmail anymore.
I’ve come to the end of my patience with hotmail/live, my email is out there on a list so I get tens of spam mails a day and they almost never correctly identify them, but any new service I sign up to and it goes straight to spam.
Proton mail seems expensive for a single offering and the bundle has too many unnecessary things I don’t need. Also the lack of protocol support means you are restricted on clients you can use.
I’m pleased you posted this as I’m going to give all these a try too, but I’m becoming a pessimist and I’m thinking as soon as I’ve fully switched they will put up the price. Your personal email is becoming one of the hardest things to change.
My top priority is the ability to have individual addresses for each service I use going to a single inbox, that way if my email is leaked by a company, I can just nuke that alias, and I’ll know who leaked it. May be a good feature for you too?
