this post was submitted on 18 Jul 2023
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Privacy

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I've been wanting to move on from gmail for a while now, thought about self hosting but I'm afraid I won't have the time or ability to keep it running well for a long period of time. Which service would you guys recommend? I'm not an avid email user, I basically just sign up to websites and send support emails once in a while.

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[–] [email protected] 38 points 1 year ago (3 children)

Proton and Tutanota are both privacy-centric providers who have been around a good amount of time. I'd say both are a good option if you don't want to self-host.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I totally recommend tutanota. I use the free.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Can I ask how you deal with it? Free tutanota lacks even the most basic features i.e. offline mode/search. I switched to proton after a month, it was infuriating

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[–] darkstar 22 points 1 year ago (2 children)
[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Proton just keeps getting better, it seems like they're trying to create a suite to compete with Microsoft.

Email, cloud storage, VPN, calendar and recently password manager.

I do wish their VPN client for Linux was a priority sooner (they're working on it now). Also, I can't get email notifications on my degoogled phone because it uses Firebase for push notifications.

Other than that, I love Proton. I pay for Proton Unlimited, I'm happy to support their growth for a great product range.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Could I ask how you find Proton's search capabilities versus Gmail?

[–] darkstar 3 points 1 year ago

I honestly don't use the search function. Our work emails are through gmail so that's what I primarily use, my personal email doesn't really have too much going on there so I don't really need to do any advanced searching, filters, etc

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

I use their mail bridge to my PC, and then whatever client you want. I use Evolution.

[–] nasa1531 21 points 1 year ago

Proton has a great free tier that may work well for you. I've used them for a while now and it's been great. They have what is probably the most feature-complete private email service out there (unless I'm forgetting something). The main nitpick I have with them is how little they focus on Linux, but that applies more for their other services than email.

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago (2 children)

I really enjoy https://mailbox.org, their custom software can be… esoteric at times, but the company and privacy commitments are top notch, and it has PGP built throughout natively, including an option to automatically PGP encrypt all plaintext emails you receive. I joined it originally as a cheaper alternative to Protonmail but these days I really prefer it.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Also, you can give it out email aliases for work or to other people without giving away that you're actually a conspiracy nut and privacy enjoyer. Much better when it's @mailbox rather than @tutanota or @protonmail

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Or you can also not care what other people think. I think proton.me sounds pretty cool. I'm a physicist too so it kinda makes sense. Tutanota allows quite a few short domains; tuta.io sounds a bit funny but it's short enough to not be strange.

When I am forced to give my email for electronic receipts in shops though...it's a full on {shop_name}@handle.anonaddy.me. No issues or weird looks so far.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Yep @mailbox.org sounds a bit more professional.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I tried it but the design just wasn't mine. I switched to protonmail then and it's a great value for the money. Vpn, password manager, files, mail, calender(, contacts)

[–] [email protected] 20 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)
[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Proton, Tutonota, or Disroot

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Proton. Free tier is fine. Consider using your own domain, cost a few dollars extra.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm a Protonmail user (on a paid plan) and like it. The bridge application works decently well on Linux with my desktop mail client. Their 24 month billing plan makes it $3.5/month.

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[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago
[–] [email protected] 13 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I'm a proton unlimited subscriber and it comes with proton vpn and simplelogin premium on top of the 500GB email inbox. I'm very satisfied with it. Signing up for lots of things with email aliases from simplelogin is very convenient and useful for cleaning your inbox of spam

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Same here but I’m using Firefox Relay instead of simple login. Will check that one out though.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I've made the switch from relay to proton pass aliases. It's great but with relay you can block spam which is not sth that you'll get with proton pass

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[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 year ago (8 children)

I'm surprised no one's posted about Skiff.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

After reading comments from their CEO on the protonmail subreddit I'm surprised anyone would use it in the first place. Also it's only E2EE with other skiff emails. They don't use PGP so their email encryption doesn't interoperate with other providers.

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Skiff uses discord, so.. idk what I think of that, they also lack support for pgp and are in the us afaik

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

+1 on Skiff. E2EE intra- and inbound. Great service, greater support. Free custom domains setup (& catchall aliasing!!!). Comes with a Drive, Pages, and Calendar suite.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Got excited and then immediately sad while reading they were involved in crypto.

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Unless you're a seasoned sysadmin, hosting your own mail server is going to be more trouble that it's worth. It's a lot of work, and when that was a common thing (companies having their own mail servers) usually they had dedicated admin teams (when they bothered hiring more than one admin, that is) to run it. It's a lot of work.

I migrated my domain over to Protonmail a couple of years back, and it's the best money I've spent in a long time.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I use Migadu but you need your own domain for that and also it is paid.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I also switched to Migadu recently, because Mailbox.org removed support for own domains from their cheapest package. Good experience (so far) with both.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

Not sure how many people know this but there is an i2p mail service too that can work with clearnet and inside i2p. The cleanet is @i2pmail.org and the i2p mail is @mail.i2p .

I have not tried it out in years but just wanted to make others aware in case it fits your use case.

[–] yesbutnobutyesbutno 4 points 1 year ago

I've been using Fastmail for almost a decade now, and extremely satisfied by the service, privacy, features and price.

If you're interested in signing up for it, I have a referral link (the above one isn't it, I'm not that shady) you can use for a 10% discount on your first year.

Good luck with the search.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I use proton and absolutely love it!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (6 children)

been using Tutanota and Skiff, had no issues so far

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Another vote for tuta here. Very nice service and having my email @ be tuta.io is very satisfying

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Have a look at Autistici which includes free alias addresses.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I can recommend StartMail. It's from the same company that develops StartPage

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

If you want access to some underlying knobs and buttons, but without running your own email server, then Migadu might be interesting.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I recommend Proton Mail if you just want a simple, no fuss email service. It's free with some paid options, but the paid options are super unecessary and pretty much useless if you just use email to sign up and send support emails. Proton Mail also blocks trackers and cleans links in your emails.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I switched to disroot and am so far super happy with it. especially because it comes with a lot of nice features like file transfer and cloud storage. its also free.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

I'm considering moving to disroot as well.

its also free.

That it is, but please consider donating as it's also non-profit :)

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