Hello, I’ve been looking into email providers. I’m not an activist, just a regular user concerned over privacy.
I used CTemplar in the past until it shut down. Had a cockli email and although it isn’t Google the privacy isn’t stellar either. I tried to get into Proton, but being unable to use Thunderbird on he free plan was a massive turn-off for me since I like switching easily between different accounts.
After a bit of searching the following came across for me as the best services: [free] Autistici, PARANOID, Disroot. [paid] Posteo, Elude.
Assuming I theoretically got invites for all the free services (they’re all reliant on manual approvation), which one would you recommend?
@edit: After reading a bit on the free services, I decided that I will choose them in a Disroot > Autisci > PARANOID order of priority,
I’m not sure what the official advice is but, I’ve been pretty happy with Proton Mail. They have a free and several tiers of paid options.
I missed the line about proton. I’ve seen others be successful with thunderbird but idk there may be some breaking things going on.
Can’t sign up to their services completely anonymous, if you try to sign up using Tor/VPN it requires SMS confirmation, a previous email (and they block temp addresses) or a donation. Suspicious. There’s also some iffy stuff on how they encrypt your emails.
Also, in their old ToS (pre-2022 update):
we have access to the following email metadata: sender and recipient email addresses, the IP address incoming messages originated from, message subject, and message sent and received times. […] We also have access to the following records of account activity: number of messages sent, amount of storage space used, total number of messages, last login time.
And where this data goes?
When a ProtonMail account is closed, data is immediately deleted from production servers. Active accounts will have data retained indefinitely. Deleted emails are also permanently deleted from production servers. Deleted data may be retained in our backups for up to 14 days.
Sure, this was an old ToS. New ToS:
We employ a local installation of self-developed analytics tools. Analytics are anonymized whenever possible and stored locally (and not on the cloud).
Still unremovable telemetry not totally anonymized. Now they aren’t even clear on what those analytics are, aside from:
Our overriding policy is to collect as little user information (personal data included) as possible to ensure a private user experience when using the Services. We do not have the technical means to access the content of your encrypted emails, files, and calendar events.
Yeah, can assume they’re collecting the same things as before.
Ugh I didn’t know it went that direction so fast. Thanks for this.
Proton Mail, Tutanota or Skiff would be my recommendations.
Nowadays my daily e-mail provider is Skiff.
Can’t link to Thunderbird but that’s the price to pay for E2EE. Personally I’m fine with that but I understand that my needs are different from every other person.
Proton retains your data definitively, and although it is encrypted, they’re the ones who generate your encryption key as well. If they want to act maliciously, they are totally able to. Also can’t register using a VPN or Tor without giving personable identifiable info. Tutanota has the second problem as well.
Skiff collects the pages you visited before using their webmail - creepy:
Automatic Data Collection. In order to protect you and our platform from malicious activity and to prevent fraud, we may collect certain information automatically when you use our Services, such as your Internet protocol (IP) address (temporarily), user settings, and Skiff-provided authentication cookies. We may also temporarily collect information regarding your use of our Services, such as pages that you visit before, during and after using our Services, the frequency and duration of your activities, and other information about how you use our Services.
Pages you visited in Skiff ecosystem.
They don’t know you visited Lemmy before accessing Skiff. But they will know you visited Skiff Drive before you visited Skiff Mail.
pages that you visit before, during and after using our Services,
Nope, pages outside Skiff too.
Source?
They removed that from the ToS but before it was very much there. They still kept this:
Use of Customer Materials. In consideration of your use of the Services, you hereby grant to Skiff, its parents, subsidiaries, affiliates, licensees, designees, and successors and assigns a limited, non-exclusive right to use, copy, distribute and display Customer Materials (i) to provide the Services and related services to you and if applicable, Customer, and (ii) the right to sub-license and share any Customer Materials with other users authorized by you or Customer for use within the Services.
“Customer Materials” means all information, data, content and other materials (including user content), in any form or medium, that is transmitted or otherwise provided by or on behalf of Customer or you through the Services or to Skiff in connection with Customer’s use of the Services, but excluding, for clarity, any Skiff intellectual property.
I’ve managed to sign up to Protonmail a couple of times without having to provide any contact details and I was using a VPN… But maybe I’ve just been lucky
I use Austici because users can have 5 alias addresses, you can delete one and create a new alias, but has a limit 5.
Nobody has my true address, my main address, 100% everyone I email or give out my address are all different aliases. If one alias gets too much spam I delete and make a different one so spam doesn’t reach my inbox.
I have used mailbox.org before migrating to my own server. Pretty solid.
I’ve actually asked a very similar question here in the past: https://lemmy.ml/post/70907
Can second what /u/GreatWhiteBuffalo41 said. I’ve been a free user of ProtonMail for years now, since they’re beta years. Their service is solid. Their development cycle may be S L O W but their product is fucking STABLE.
In my post itself I said why I’m leaving Proton…
You’re right. You did. Sorry about that. I didn’t have enough money for the Not-Oblivious-As-Fuck™ DLC package.
Just good.
Mailbox or Migadu
Comments on Migadu? I’m looking to migrate from Mailbox after they announced their new price schemes.
Form all the services I picked tutanota. They have their values and you have to pay a little bjt overall they seem likeca solid company.
