FYI you can't use thunderbird with the proton free tier, only with premium. Switched recently and that was quite a surprise to me.
this post was submitted on 25 May 2025
308 points (97.2% liked)
DeGoogle Yourself
12418 readers
170 users here now
A community for those that would like to get away from Google.
Here you may post anything related to DeGoogling, why we should do it or good software alternatives!
Rules
-
Be respectful even in disagreement
-
No advertising unless it is very relevent and justified. Do not do this excessively.
-
No low value posts / memes. We or you need to learn, or discuss something.
Related communities
[email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected] [email protected]
founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
I'm a bit confused why there's a profit share indicator on the legend when seemingly none profit share. Otherwise, this is very cool!
Sorry, that is a bit confusing. The other guides have companies with that indicator. Should have removed it here though.
Been using fastmail for over 10 years and it's fantastic. Two thing you should be aware though: 1st Australia is part of the five eyes, 2nd they have their servers (last I checked) in new york.
I considered switching from Proton to Fastmail, because Proton seems to run slow in Australia. Immediately stopped considering once I realized they delete your account if you don't pay for 6 months (and by extension, you'll lose all your connected accounts).
So if you're homeless, arrested, deported, or in a coma and come out of it you'll end up losing your entire digital life.
I've used mailfence's paid entry tier for several years now. Been happy with them.
They are on the "other excellent options" list, but wanted to give them a highlight.
There are so many good choices that it is hard to showcase them all - Mailfence often gets recommended
I feel like I’m the only person here who doesn’t want encryption in email, I just want something that works with any client.
There are a lot of privacy-focused alternatives, but not all of them are. Fastmail and Infomatrix are two excellent options that are more focused on convenience
Has anyone heard about disroot.org? Is it a trustable service? Am considering switching there
This doesn't say anything about DMARC and DKIM. Ni should probably go figure that out.
This doesn’t really help. Which ones support custom domains? Have spam filters? Support “+” based addresses? Support DKIM/DMARC?
Not just “do the have an environmental pledge”
mailbox.org does all of what you asked for.
Do your own research. This is supposed to be a starting point.
If you want to de-google you should also look into murena.io as it also includes cloud storage and document editing.
...and USA-free phones: Fairphone (from Holland) with /e/OS (open source, France) https://murena.com/
Switzerland is still not part of the EU. Proton, Informaniak and Kolab should have the Swiss flag and not EU. It's not the same laws and they are not forced to apply GDPR to their policies.
I'm neurodiverse and I can't see this properly due to colours and layout. Can anyone give me a hand?
A free or very low cost service for hosting my catchall domain address
Can't beat the pricing of https://purelymail.com/. I've been using them for a couple years now.
Ive never paid for a single email client in my life, so yes you can beat any pricing except for free.
I just recently switched from gmail to Mailfence with a custom domain, and I'm pretty happy thus far. I looked into it for a while trying to find the best option, and Mailfence turned out the best for me. Tuta was too locked down for me and Mailbox just rubbed me the wrong way. Mailbox has had a known major security issue with custom domains for literally 7 years now and still has yet to addressed it, their webmail is extremely slow and buggy (would switch to German randomly), they don't encrypt messages at rest (which to be fair isn't too important, but a lot of other services still do it), and I've seen multiple reports of their support being sub-par. I feel like they're probably still fine, but I just feel more confident in Mailfence.
where does hotmail (Microsoft) and Yahoo fit in?
Garbage tier IMO. So much worse than Gmail in terms of UI and legit email going to spam or not being delivered at all. So if you're going to use a free one, just use Gmail.
There is also „poczta interia” which is email provider. They support third party email clients and it’s free. Their official app has ads and interface is in polish
Fastmail is my favorite. I tried Proton but the android app is awful. Tuta seems decent, if a bit messy. But Fastmail got my money for 2 reasons:
- Not Google or Microsoft
- Email, contacts, calendar, notes, and files are all in a single app. Didn't realize I'd care about that until I tried it.
self host is the best solution if you want total control of your emails
Too true. self-hosters represent!
How hard is that? And how secure would it actually be? Not criticizing just curious why more people don’t do it.
Every time I've looked into it, most advice I've gotten was that it's not a good idea.
It sucks ass. The following was my experience when I tried it- you may have better luck.
- I was bending over backwards to convince other email providers to accept my outgoing messages
- The spam. Good God, the spam.
Is there a european version of this?
There's a lot of cheap mail-hotels, and a domain name is not costly either. I pay maybe 10 $ a year for both, and the mail is completely mine. I use Thunderbird as my mail-client on both windows, linux and android. Never had an issue, it just works.
I think that the biggest issue for a lot of people is, that they have to spend a little money on it. They buy shoes for 100 $ without thinking much about it, but private communication they often want for free...
I don't know about others, but I only have 2 emails, one with Google Mail and the other with Proton Mail.