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?
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.
It’s covered by paying users. I’m one and happy to have my subscription cover Anyone who wants a free, private email address.
It is, they can’t access anything it’s all encrypted and truly private to you. My only problem with the free tier is that there’s a signature at the bottom saying it was sent with proton mail, which isn’t even a big deal you just have to remember to remove it every time you send something. That and the 1 gig storage limit fills up quicker than you’d think.
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.
I’ve been using Posteo for a while now. They have the most sane privacy policy out there. They also support IMAP and POP3 ootb for external email clients, unlike some other email providers (e.g. Protonmail).
I also use Posteo, one thing to note though is that Posteo doesn’t (and probably won’t any time soon) support custom domains. If that doesn’t bother you, it’s a great choice.
The other alternative I found during my research, which doesn’t have that limitation, is mailbox.org.
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.
I can vouch for Mailbox, too.
It’s also easy to get it set up on third part email clients.
+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 with Fastmail for a year and it’s always been a very positive experience. Good support. If I had to pick a weak link, I think the spam filtering could be better.
I’ve not actually had any I don’t think, although one thing which is marked as spam… Isn’t. I don’t seem to be able to prevent that one email going there, it’s irregular though.
I would like to have an email, please
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.
Obligatory Eylenburg link https://eylenburg.github.io/cloud_comparison.htm
I’ve had nothing but positive experiences with Posteo. Their features list is very good for the pittance they charge per month.
I agree. I also use Posteo. Their privacy policy and website seem to be one of the most sane ones. They also allow you to use external email clients.
im just overwhelmed by the endless flood of minor services that leach “a dollar here… a dollar there”. add them all up and they drain you dry.
skip some and you lose essential coverage. "just $2 more a month… i swear bro! "Posteo isn’t a monthly charge to your credit card. It uses a credits that you can top up whenever you feel like it. I usually put in a year’s worth of credits in advance which costs me around $17CAD.
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?
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 have good experience with Soverin.net