10mo ago

Recommendation for Email-Provider

It's me again with another question for recommendation 🙈 This time I am searching for a new Email-Provider:

Currently I am using mailbox.org (privacy-friendly provider based in Germany). Since my subscription is comming to an end there, I tought about switching to proton mail-plus. What I like about them is, that they have an easy way of creating alias-emails and also support the option to use your own domain.

But maybe you gals and guys have another great provider which offers good features for a good price.

Also: I dont need Cloud-Storage or anything like that, so just mail is fine.

Thx in regards :)

59 comments

Personally i use proton with my own domain
- same here. Proton with own domain!
  
  I use Proton and really like it, but I don’t know how to go about using my own domain (though I am interested in it). How difficult is it for someone without webdev and self hosting experience to get set up?

I only know 2 good providers: Proton and Tuta.
- do they allow you to create anonymous accounts by paying with monero? And connected via TOR browser?
  
  I think tuta does

Just a reminder: with Proton you can't use IMAP for your email client, you either need their mail client (mobile) or bridge app (desktop).
- While technically true, bridge is ultimately an IMAP server you run yourself ... and they do have good reasons for this design.
  
  do you know theit reason?

Somehow I always end up hating Proton. I was using TOR Browser to create an account and they wouldn’t let me. I had to give either another email or my phone number, and I’m not willing to do either. I even tried creating a throwaway with mailbox.org (works using TOR) and sending the confirmation email there but it never arrived, so I gave up on Proton.
I also tried Tuta and they wouldn’t let me create an account at all using TOR. So eventually I’m sticking with mailbox.org
- This also provides you with more freedom as in freedom as you aren’t forced to use their Clients/Apps.
  
  Yeah. One of the major reasons I never plan to use Proton or Tutanota is that none of my email apps will work and I will rely on whatever interface they provide.
  
  Yeah I think it’s cool that you can even take control of your private keys. Although I’m thinking it also adds another point of failure / exposure if not done correctly.

- Has any more evidence ever been produced to show Tuta is a honeypot? The guy who made the original claim is in jail for 14 years for passing on secrets while he was director of RCMP intelligence.
- +1 for Migadu
- Thank you for introducing me to these, they look great.
- Why did Proton adding a Bitcoin wallet cause you to look elsewhere? If it's a product you're not interested in, just don't use it. Otherwise you're stuck using providers that offer exactly what you want, no more and no less, which seems like such a narrow needle to thread, you'll never find something or can't stick with it for long.
- I dont think it matters if an email service is a honeypot because if you want E2EE communication then use Signal, not email. And if you are sending emails to other email providers then there's probably not E2EE and it's unecessary to be a honeypot because the metadata can be collected anyway very easily. Almost all data passes through Google/Microsoft/Amazon/Cloudflare.

I have both Proton Unlimited and Mailbox. I prefer keeping my Mailbox account for mail, calendar and contacts. With Proton, I'd have to use their apps or some bridge, whereas Mailbox can be used with any app. I also have multiple domains connected with Mailbox and use plenty of aliases, so I don't really see why Proton would be better in that regard.
I don't have any suggestions to add, but as someone who subscribes to both, I was simply wondering what Mailbox lacks compared to Proton in your opinion.
- well the easy if use for the temp-emails is better on proton I'd say. and keeping files in Switzetland is better then saving them in Germany (i think).

Proton, Tuta, Mailbox.org, Posteo
All are equal in terms of their overall quality of service, just different in what advantages they offer (except for Mailbox.org and Posteo. They're just offering standards compliant email servers without any bullshit and let you roll your own encryption)

Runbox, a privacy-focused email provider out of Norway. Our family has been using it for many years with zero issues. The prices are very decent.
- Another vote for Runbox. Been using them for almost 5 years now with no issues. They are also an employee owned co-op if that is of interest.
- Can I open an account with TOR browser and pay with monero without having to give any info like a secondary email or phone number?
- I looked inyo runbox and it looks like a really good option. what concerns me is, that it is hosted in Norway and that Norway is part of the "Fourteen Eyes alliance". Would you still recommend it?

Check out Posteo!
- They are very cheap, only $1 for 10 aliases and then then $0.1/month for any additional aliases. But can't pay with monero.

https://www.privacyguides.org/en/email/
- Hmm... how does one anonymously pay an internet service provider with cash? Mail it in an unmarked envelope, with just your account name? Roll up to the front door and hand it to the receptionist?
  
  yes. mail
  or crypto like monero
  or prepaid credit cards
  or voucher resellers, etc

they have an easy way of creating alias-emails
With mailbox.org and other normal mail providers you should just be able to set a catch-all address, then you don't have to create aliases at all, just type "whatever-you-want@mydomain.com"
If an email provider charges you more to create 'aliases' run far away and pick something else.
I wouldn't switch to Proton personally, they require that you use their own apps or use an IMAP bridge which doesn't work on Android/iOS. Their ecosystem feels very restrictive.
I don't see the point of an encrypted email provider like Proton, since 99% of the emails we all receive aren't encrypted anyways, and sending encrypted emails only easily works to other proton mail users.
- oh ok, I have not tried that yet. I have only set up one address which I use yo send and receive from.
  about the encryption: I thought the point with e2ee encryption on proton is mainly, that the mails are stored encrypted one their servers so they can not read them or hand them out to anyone.
  
  Basically all email is E2EE already since SSL/TLS is usually used for transport, even gmail and similar. But encrypted at rest in theory would help with stopping people from reading emails off the server.
  You also have to trust that Proton truly doesn't have your keys to decrypt, but I imagine they do since you just login with a username/password combo and that's enough to decrypt the emails.
  Although I don't think it matters that much, my email is basically receiving notifications from services I use and occasional emails with a friend about planning a trip or something like that, nothing that particularly needs to be super private, just using a mail provider that isn't actively scraping my data for ads (aka; gmail) is enough for me.
  For private communications I would use something more suited to that, like any of the reasonable E2EE chat apps.

I don't think the email alias thing comes with Mail Plus, it's part of Proton Pass. You either need to get Unlimited which includes all of their products or pair mail plus with the paid version of Pass. There's a chance I'm wrong because I have Unlimited and haven't really explored it, but look into it before you commit.
- You get 10 aliases on mail+
- How does the bridge work? Do i have to have it open all the time?

As a user of mailbox.org myself iam just asking: What dont you like about them?
- i like to have temp-adresses but it is a little to annoying for me to extend them after 90 days 🙈 with proton this is easier since you dont need to remeber that and you can find this option pretty easy when in tge webbrowser of choice.

Proton and its services have been pretty good. Some things to know about proton mail:
Search is only for titles, as content is encrypted
You can do search in the body in your browser. It downloads your email into the browser and searchers locally. It takes a while to do this and build up indexes. I haven't had too much issue searching for things though.
Since they don't read your email, no automatic calendar events if there isn't a .ics
The VPN had been great
The storage isn't enough for me to be able to move off of my main cloud provider. There also isn't a way to pin a file on Android for it - and the 500gGB of space is less than I use
The Pass app is handy and it's easy to make aliases, though it often doesn't know to fill in, doesn't do it, or something, and I need to open the app to copy paste. Pretty trivial though.
I'm sticking with them. I don't really have a reason to leave. The aliases are really nice, the catch is that it's not easy to have them go to a sub email address that I use - it has to go to your primary email. Not a huge deal though.

I have proton for many years since I started de-googling. Very happy with it.

I use posteo.de which costs 1€/month. It is simple, but works fine.

I quite like Fastmail. It's a bit expensive but the service is very reliable and they have a well established reputation. You can create masked emails using their domain or your own from the web interface.

Proton Mail?

Hey, I outlined some tools in my list here! TL;DR is Proton Mail + addy.io is as good as it gets, with Tuta and SimpleLogin as close contenders. Good luck!
- Fair warning though, using a service like addy.io with randomly generated emails can go bad if they ever shutdown, you'll be left with tons of accounts on email addresses that no longer exist.
  
  It's better than using the same email for everything, which still runs the same risk. I try to minimize the services I use that require an email for this very reason. I will note, self hosting + addy.io provides much more control with the same benefits and drawbacks.
- i already bookmarked the list, great work btw. I will look into the options you wrote.
- Proton purchased SimpleLogin in 2022 and the creator/dev has been working there ever since. Also, you can easily create random email aliases in Vaultwarden/Bitwarden via the SimpleLogin API.
  
  Proton purchased SimpleLogin in 2022 and the creator/dev has been working there ever since.
  I knew this, I'm trying not to keep my eggs in one basket.
  Also, you can easily create random email aliases in Vaultwarden/Bitwarden via the SimpleLogin API.
  This still requires a SimpleLogin/Proton account, so there's no added benefit. Plus, this is true for Addy as well.

Another thumbs up for tuta.

Can anyone here comment on countermail.com ?

Email isn't a private system

59 comments