I switched from Gmail to Proton, but now with everything coming out about Proton I’m switching from them too. I started using Posteo which I like but a lot of my accounts having to do with money and finance (including my bank) aren’t accepting the Posteo email. They have rejected it over and over and even locked me out stating that I was hacked.
Do you guys have any recommendations for email providers to use that also won’t send red flags to my more official accounts?
If it helps, I’m US-based.
I’ve not found a viable replacement for mxroute (I know us based). All the other email services seem to be priced by the number of accounts. I have a bunch of accounts I need to keep separate, some personal and some business. Some accounts have a few aliases as well. But Aliases just don’t cut it on their own.
One with my own domain name attached has always been my go-to because I can migrate to a different provider easily without needing to update all my accounts.
I’ve been using Migadu for last couple years with no issues. All you need is a custom domain.
You can bring your own client, but there’s webmail too (requires no JS if I recall) so you can access your inbox from anywhere too.
Posteo is a very legitimate email provider based in Germany. Your bank is really stupid for flagging and rejecting it, their is absolutely nothing about them that should trigger their systems.
An alternative would be Mailbox, it’s very similar to Posteo and I have made good experiences with it.
Why did you switch away from Proton? Most drama surrounding it is very overblown and the consequences of being a large company, not everyone always does everything right who works for them.
I agree, I haven’t felt like there’s any reason for these accounts to flag me.
I’ve seen Mailbox be floated around, I’ll definitely give it a look. Thank you
Besides their controversies and responses I’m not really a huge fan of their shift to a large suite. Its feeling very google adjacent and I don’t want to put my eggs all in one basket again. While they’re really convenient and easy to use, I just think they’re not for me and my needs anymore.
I use Tuta with a custom domain name. Never had any issues. About $12 a year.
I personally suggest against Tuta as they refuse to implement support for open-standard E-Mail encryption like PGP. But they’re definitely better than Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo, GMX, etc.
I’m genuinely curious if PGP is used on emails much? It seems like most email these days is just receiving updates or mailing lists, and those aren’t going to be using PGP.
This is rather a niche case, but I regulary file complaints to data protection authorities in Germany, and many of them do actually offer the option to encrypt the emails they send to you using PGP, same for a police report I once made.
I respect your choice and right, Tuta is not compatible with PGP, but that doesn’t mean I (a Tuta user) can’t send an encrypted message to someone on another service or receive one. In that scenario, there’s just a bit of server code that users interact with in between to enable my encrypted message to be read by others outside of Tuta.
The process is documented here: https://tuta.com/blog/email-encryption-guide-how-send-encrypted-email
If the email’s recipient is on Tuta, they just read my message in any of the available client apps.
I agree just supporting PGP as an option in Tuta would be better, but I think someone considering their options should know about the above. The current Tuta process works for me.
I share this concern.
I’m new at this, but the biggest reason I’m not going with Tuta is that I want encryption that is interoperable with other providers that offer encryption.
What do you mean by refuse? Did the shoot down a feature request?
Their marketing shoots down PGP on their website with false claims why their encryption is so much better. They for example claim that PGP does not encrypt the subject line, which is false as that is already supported, just not adopted everywhere yet.
Purelymail.com … cheap af, just works. I use my own domain and have never had deliverability issues. Support is fast. You’re also under the radar because it’s not a huge outfit.
Thank you! I’ll check this one out! Any troubles with your custom domain being flagged or going into recipient’s spam folders?
Not that I know of, nobody ever seems to complain.
I’ve been using Fastmail for a while now, and I like it. Clean interface, good apps, and lots of support for CALDAV (including tasks!). Frankly a much better interface than many other providers. I was also tired of using Thunderbird with my hosting provider’s email.
I spent quite a while looking for a good email provider as well. Proton didn’t work for similar reasons, and I didn’t like having to use the bridge on Linux. I settled on Fastmail as it’s cheap, and does what I need (email, calendar, tasks).
I wasn’t excited that they have servers in the US (they’re an Australian company), but I had to make a compromise to degoogle. “Perfection is the enemy of progress” is a common phrase for me.
I’m interested to see what other opinions come up though.
I use Fastmail too because I used to work there, but I happen to know firsthand that internally they’re strongly in favor of mass surveillance. That said, they can’t read shit if you use PGP.
Interesting. I had read something similar. Thing is, unless you host your own or give up conveniences, email will always be a means of surveillance. I try to do everything I can to keep my digital footprint small, but I also value my time. Going down a rabbit hole and hosting my own service, or never being satisfied with an email provider seemed like a waste of my time. I’ll do the best I can, and focus on what I can control.
Yeah it’s a necessary evil, unfortunately. One of the biggest lessons I learned working there is not to bother hosting your own email, because now it all goes through several dozen intermediary spam filters whether you want it to or not, and if even one of those gets tripped up, you’re not sending or receiving.
Thank you for the suggestion! I’ll definitely look into this
What’s the issue with proton?
Its more of a personal thing. Theyre fine. I started to not like that they’ve become a, I’m not sure of the right term, but a google-like hub where I store all my info. (Email, drive, VPN, meets, etc.). Plus I dont want to support a company that aligns themselves with far-right ideologies. So it is a personal thing, but they work well enough.
They don’t get ad revenue, and they don’t have a huge percent of paid users, so by expanding its offerings, they can attract note paid customers, and now businesses-which will both support their free tier customers. I’m happy they didn’t “enshittify” and drop free or go ad based.
Idk about the right wing thing, but if they’re outside the US, their “right wing” is probably far different than the maga extreme here. understand that’s all propaganda by the left and billionaire class, and the amount of actual Trump supporters is small.
I’m not at all supporting Trump either by this comment it’s usually the billionaires who own the ads, the media, and keep everyone busy with “left vs right” or black vs white so we don’t look “up” at the wealthy who control everything making our real problems.
Oh yea honestly for a bit there I was pretty happy to be using a more privacy-friendly suite. But after a while it just kind of started feeling a bit too familiar to our “do no evil”-removing google and I got uncomfortable.
Totally, not every country’s “right-wing” is the same. But unfortunately they have been very open about their support for Trump and many other questionable people. I feel like their interests greatly contradict their model for privacy. It’s a lil spooky.
I believe in this sub there is another post showing Proton’s official response to their latest controversy which has ultimately led to my decision.
But I will miss the convenience of their suite. I do view their products as pretty solid.
Their suite of apps directly competes with Google’s and their webmail does feel very familiar compared to Gmail. But that’s where similarities end. So far, being non-US based of the biggest factor as well as offering a site of trustworthy apps that function well.
Unless that changes (with privacy), I’m OK with it being bigger and popular. It’s also A LOT easier to convince friends and family to switch to something “branded” vs indie Dev or get them to install something from Github. It gives the general population a sense of trust, smaller/lesser known apps can do.
And that is all completely fine for you to choose for yourself. Would be nice to see a mass migration away from google to proton over all of the blind support google gets.
I’ve been gradually using more of their services, now I’m not so sure anymore… What do you make of their response?
They offer a very convenient suite, so if you feel it works for you, no judgment here. The response you linked is kinda nice to take accountability for supporting (in a way) a controversial creator. Unfortunately it’s not enough for me. They openly support Trump (which I understand is a personal preference) and I was starting to get uncomfortable with how much their suite began to feel a lot like google. I dont really want to put all of my eggs in one basket again, y’know?
