Trying to de-google and looking for an alternative to Gmail.
Don’t mind if it’s a paid service if it’s robust.
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I use Proton Mail. I recommend that whatever service you decide on, get your own domain name so you can keep your email address if you move to a different provider.
Do you have any recommendations on how to buy a domain?
Not OP, but I used Namecheap. Porkbun is also recommended I think. Setting it up is not dead-brain simple, but Proton does a very good job on explaining it step by step I believe.
IIRC Cloudflare is the only registrar that doesn’t mark up from wholesale prices, or something like that. Basically makes them cheaper than most other registrars. I think the point is that they can then sell you their other (related) services more easily — the services that actually make them money.
I use Porkbun for my domain. you can get a .xyz domain for only $2 for 1 year, though after 1 year its like $8 per year.
I’m using namesilo and it was pretty straight forward to set up. I just got it a couple days ago and no issues so far!
That would make it easier to target you though, or do you use aliases on top of that?
I’m not sure I know what you mean by “target you”. Can you go into more detail about that?
By having a common email address that you give out to each service you sign up on you make it easier for them to aggregate the data and build a more detailed profile on you, in order to avoid it you would use email aliases (dummy address that serve the purpose of only forwarding emails they receive from and to one of your real address). If you use a custom domain name you can potentially create an infinite amount of them, but you expose yourself to being tracked anyway because they would all have the domain name in common e.g.
a@mydomain.me,b@mydomain.me, etc. and they would notice that it all comes from one user for service, so it’s easy to guess it is actually just one real person.
To avoid that happening, you would have to use a public aliasing service so you can blend in with the other usersAny decent email hosting service should allow you some form of aliasing (whether it’s plus addressing or actual aliases). Ideally there should be no “default” address associated @your.domain, it should be all aliases. Preferably with wildcards so you can make them up on the fly when subscribing to a random website, without having to go into the admin settings. And naturally they should also offer wildcard sending (being able to send from [email protected] – this is supported by most decent email clients).
Bottom line, as long as it’s your own domain and you don’t abuse things like receiving/sending limits, attachment size, total storage size etc. you should be able to do whatever you want with your addresses and mailboxes.
I’m using Proton Mail and I like it a lot!
Proton Mail and Tutanota are great free options.
Last I checked, the encryption in Proton Mail means you have to use their app, no third party apps allowed. Is that still true?
Yes, that’s still true. If you want to be able to use a third-party mail app, I would look at Fastmail or Mailbox.org. They don’t have free plans though.
Phone app? Yes you have to use their own app. On a computer besides the browser version you can use Thunderbird and other applications if you download ProtonBridge.
To clarify, this is a paid feature and not included with the free tier
Yup, and it’s kind if a pain since their mobile apps aren’t great. I’ve been using them for many years, and lately have been considering jumping ship.
Email encryption isn’t something I actually care about. If I wanted to send someone a super private message, I probably wouldn’t use email anyways since it’s just clunky, and it’s unlikely the other person is using proton mail too (which means the message wouldn’t be encrypted anyways). All I really want is to not have my email provider be scanning my messages to profit from my data.
But the effort to switch to something else is making me stay…
You don’t use encrypted emails only to communicate privately. If they are not encrypted, your e-mail provider will probably scan them, whether it is for profit or under request from the NSA. That’s what Snowden uncovered.
That’s a good point, but also the more I think about it the more I realize it’s futile. Google is 100% going to scan the messages I send to gmail users, and match it to me somehow.
With Tutanota the Gmail user only gets a link (optionally password protected). Google can’t scan the actual content of the mail.
Same with Proton if you enable encryption for emails to non-proton addresses
I’ll be honest, when it comes to online purchases you may find that a protonmail email will require extra processing/fraud checking due to the amount of fraudsters that use it. Combine that with a vpn and it will just be a pain here and there with online purchases like additional ID verification/delayed orders etc…
Been using protonmail for my main email for three years, never had one issue. But I’m in Europe, maybe in the US it’s different?
I’m more talking global purchases. Just the email will probs be ok but if you purchase using that email and a vpn it raises flags.
This has happened exactly once to me, and it was the VPN, and not the email address.
Paid plan folks can also make use of simplelogin.io
Proton Mail just has 5 gigs for the free version. Doesn’t seem like it’s enough for me to switch to it long term.
They also expand your storage every year, so it’s not like it’s stuck there forever. For reference, I’ve been on Proton for about 3 years now (paid plan) and I have a data storage cap of 540GB and I’ve never had to buy more. Also, I all my emails so far only consume 340MB - so even on the free plan I’d still have years to go before I reached even 5GB.
(Also, I’ll admit I don’t email much.)
Proton
I also degoogled to proton. Now one bill for VPN, drive and my own domain email address.
Proton Mail. https://pm.me/
Paid Fastmail User here since around half a year. Did extensive research on what provider to use and trialed fastmail for four weeks before buying. I went for a 3 year period. Fastmail has a fantastic set of features.
There are providers that are focused more on privacy (e.g. PGP. encryption, not being based in Australia) but that was not my top priority.
I have created a lengthy guide as part of my transition: I published the Markdown file to Fastmail at this link (it is a text file). As it was initially written just for myself, the format might not be very readable :)
Can you send me that to me too please? Do I have to give you my email?
Same, or maybe just throw a link up
I published the Markdown file to Fastmail at this link (it is a text file). As it was initially written just for myself, the format might not be very readable :)
me too please
At this point, I think it is safe to post the link.
I published the Markdown file to Fastmail at this link (it is a text file). As it was initially written just for myself, the format might not be very readable :)
I published the Markdown file to Fastmail at this link (it is a text file). As it was initially written just for myself, the format might not be very readable :)
Fastmail
What’s the spam control like with Fastmail? I tend to get quite a bit and Gmail’s been the only half-decent one so far about stopping it from ever reaching the inbox but I’m considering moving from Google Workspace.
FastMail user for 7+ years. Their spam filtering is good. I hardly get any and my email address is 20+ years old and have been used in public plenty.
@[email protected] @[email protected] Thanks for the information both of you. I realised my Google Workspace subscription lapses in a week so I’ve signed up for a trial of Fastmail and really liking it so far. 😀
🤜🤛
As my app posted the reply as a top comment, here it is again:
One important thing to take note of is: “Once your personal database has seen more than 200 spam and 200 non-spam emails, we automatically start using it to filter your incoming mail.” This means, before you have received 200 spam emails (or marked them as such), the filter is going to perform significantly worse.
Personally, initially it was pretty bad compared to Gmail. However, it significantly improved over time. One thing that helps are masked emails (fantastic) - an email you can create, or is even created automatically for you, and then enter at dubious websites. If you get spam, you can simply block the whole email or fine tune it.
Protonmail
It has all the bells and whistles, is privacy protecting, and is free to use
I’ve heard of Proton, but I never knew you could get the whole suite and that they had the option to subscribe for 24 months, that’s pretty neat.
I do like Proton, and I needed something like it for a forwarding problem with Gmail.
But it actually lacks one bell/whistle that Gmail offers. Both services work to receive mail for forwarding addresses, but, on Gmail, you can also send from your forwarded addresses. Proton will only send from a domain you own. So if you get mail forwarded from [email protected] or [email protected], you won’t be able to reply or send from those addresses on Proton. Judging by how long people have been asking for that ability, I doubt Proton intends to ever provide that.
That’s not strictly true. I don’t know if it’s part of the free plan but it’s definitely a paid feature. With either their Simple Login or the built in hide my email alias, you can reply with your alias.
Ah, I should have said “from a domain you own or one of their own”.
The use case I’m talking about, which is the use of arbitrary domains, not Proton-provided ones and not domains you own and control.
I see that Simple Login provides aliases from its own domains, but not a way to use an arbitrary domain.
Proton’s address support overview mentions organizational addresses, but clarifies in the same doc that this is referring to a business plan where that whole organization will be using Proton.
Proton’s switching guide discusses forwarding, and it only instructs the user to tell their contacts about the new Proton address, which defeats the purpose of forwarding addresses.
Here is further discussion about the missing functionality.
Meanwhile, Google lets you use up to 99 of your own email addresses from whatever domains they are.
on Gmail, you can also send from your forwarded addresses
I imagine that only works if you also host the address you forward to with Google? Otherwise I can’t see how Google can send email on behalf of a domain whose DNS servers it doesn’t control. If that were possible spam would be a lot worse than it is.
It only requires you to demonstrate you control the address.
https://support.google.com/mail/answer/22370?hl=en
Proton, on the other hand, only supports you owning the whole domain, as their only verification is through DNS TXT records.
Gotta go for ProtonMail. Have been running it for a year and I kinda like how it’s doing.
An additional feature is SimpleLogin’s “Hide My E-mail” Aliases, which are “burner” e-mail addresses to use with pre-determined SimpleLogin domains (you can add your own domains as well to go around Proton’s custom domain limit). Those are included in the full suite and Family subscriptions. (10 a month when subscribing for a year)
There’s also a cheaper variant for 3.50 a month but it lacks the SimpleLogin feature. You can get SimpleLogin seperately for 30 a year, however.
Try proton mail. I love it
Yeah I’ll go Proton. Was going to go with Fastmail but then read that they’re an Australian company, a Five Eyes country.
It’s quite expensive whereas you get the same product even better for 12€ a year with posteo.de
Posteo doesn’t allow you to use your own domain, do they? I know OP didn’t ask for that but it’s a really, really good idea to put your email addresses on a domain that you own.
Still, it would be a definite step up from Google.
I tried tutanota but I found it too cumbersome. I prefer Proton
Fastmail is great and has very fast user interface and lots of nice features, such as email address aliases you can create with a button click or integrate it with Bitwarden etc.
It costs money though, just so you know if you want “free” (nothing is really free).
+1 for Proton. I started with just Mail Plus but got the whole package later. It works well!
Another bump for Proton. My wife and I share an account with a few different addresses each going to their own folder. (One for me, one for her, one for shopping, one for spam, etc) Their VPN is great too and includes ad/tracker blocking.
If you’re moving your email address consider using a mail alias. If you move again in the future it will make the process a whole lot easier as you won’t need to go to all your sites to update your email address. You only need to update the one email address with the alias provider.
I use simplemail with my own domain
I just set up my own domain for e-mail and I use aliases for signups. Why would I use an alias for my main email if I have my domain? Just trying to figure out if I should be thinking about setting that up
Yea i did this with proton and a custom domain. Alias freedom!
This is what I’m most concerned about with moving away from Gmail. I have literally everything associated with my Google email address and, since almost every website uses email as credentials, it means I’ll have to create new accounts for everything. If I move to a new email, I’m worried if they go belly-up or just flat out close my account then I’ll lose access to everything.
I’ll have to look into using an alias, that would clear up a lot of my concerns.
That’s not called an alias, it’s called owning your own domain name so you can take it with you to any email service.
Email aliases mean something different (giving a website an address like [email protected] instead of [email protected]).
I currently still use Gmail, but I am looking to move away. I recently signed up for simplelogin.io and purchased a cheap domain name to use with it. I then went around changing my Gmail email address to a different email alias for each and every site I use. It’s a lot of work and I found some sites you can’t change the email address, they refuse to allow email aliases or you have to contact support to get them to change it. All a pain. For the majority though most are now on my own domain’s email address and all point to my Gmail inbox. At least now when I do switch I have done the hard work and only need to update the email address in simplelogin. Since I use my own domain, I shouldn’t lose access to the email account should I need to move it away from simplelogin.
