this post was submitted on 10 Aug 2023
231 points (99.6% liked)

Asklemmy

42489 readers
2019 users here now

A loosely moderated place to ask open-ended questions

Search asklemmy ๐Ÿ”

If your post meets the following criteria, it's welcome here!

  1. Open-ended question
  2. Not offensive: at this point, we do not have the bandwidth to moderate overtly political discussions. Assume best intent and be excellent to each other.
  3. Not regarding using or support for Lemmy: context, see the list of support communities and tools for finding communities below
  4. Not ad nauseam inducing: please make sure it is a question that would be new to most members
  5. An actual topic of discussion

Looking for support?

Looking for a community?

~Icon~ ~by~ ~@Double_[email protected]~

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Trying to de-google and looking for an alternative to Gmail.

Don't mind if it's a paid service if it's robust.

top 50 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[โ€“] [email protected] 52 points 10 months ago (5 children)

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.

[โ€“] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (4 children)

Do you have any recommendations on how to buy a domain?

[โ€“] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

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.

[โ€“] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

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 โ€” the services that actually make them money.

load more comments (2 replies)
load more comments (4 replies)
[โ€“] [email protected] 44 points 10 months ago

I'm using Proton Mail and I like it a lot!

[โ€“] [email protected] 43 points 10 months ago (15 children)
load more comments (15 replies)
[โ€“] [email protected] 31 points 10 months ago
[โ€“] [email protected] 30 points 10 months ago

I also degoogled to proton. Now one bill for VPN, drive and my own domain email address.

[โ€“] [email protected] 29 points 10 months ago
[โ€“] [email protected] 20 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (12 children)

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 :)

load more comments (12 replies)
[โ€“] [email protected] 20 points 10 months ago (6 children)

Protonmail

It has all the bells and whistles, is privacy protecting, and is free to use

[โ€“] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

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.

load more comments (5 replies)
[โ€“] [email protected] 18 points 10 months ago

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.

[โ€“] [email protected] 17 points 10 months ago (1 children)

Try proton mail. I love it

[โ€“] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Yeah I'll go Proton. Was going to go with Fastmail but then read that they're an Australian company, a Five Eyes country.

load more comments (2 replies)
[โ€“] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

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).

[โ€“] [email protected] 15 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[โ€“] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago

I tried tutanota but I found it too cumbersome. I prefer Proton

[โ€“] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago

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.

[โ€“] [email protected] 13 points 10 months ago

+1 for Proton. I started with just Mail Plus but got the whole package later. It works well!

[โ€“] [email protected] 12 points 10 months ago (5 children)

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

load more comments (5 replies)
[โ€“] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago (5 children)

Mailbox.org is what I've used for a long time, before protonmail even existed. The mailbox.org servers are powered 100% by solar energy too!

load more comments (5 replies)
[โ€“] [email protected] 11 points 10 months ago

proton or tutanota, i prefer proton cause of [email protected] mail

[โ€“] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago (8 children)

Skiff or Protonmail.

Skiff gives you 10 GBs of storage and also comes with a drive and a Notion-like Pages app. They even let you add custom domain for free. The only disadvantages are the non-native Android or iOS apps that just feel off and the limits on folders and filters.

ProtonMail only gives 1GB of storage and stuff like custom domains, aliases, etc are all paid features. The Android app is decent but missing some basic features that you only notice when you actually use it (select and delete when searching for example). Definitely the most robust mail service there is though. With Proton Unlimited, you also get stuff like per-site aliases using SimpleLogin, Proton VPN, Proton Drive, Proton Calendar and Proton Pass. But if I'm being honest, only the Mail and VPN are truly complete products.

[โ€“] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (4 children)

Proton drive also seems pretty compete to me, now that they have a desktop app that's working really well (at least for windows, don't know about other OS's)

load more comments (4 replies)
load more comments (7 replies)
[โ€“] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago (7 children)

Idk I'm still using my Hotmail that I got in 1995 so...

load more comments (7 replies)
[โ€“] [email protected] 10 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I'm using ProtonMail and paying for it.

It's decent. The best AFAIK in terms of privacy. Supports labels etc.

The migration process takes so long, I'm split between both still and slowly moving over.

load more comments (1 replies)
[โ€“] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago (2 children)

Iโ€™ve been on Fastmail for several years and like it a lot! It lets you use you own domain name as well. Their app is not particularly great, but you can hook things up with the default iOS/Android/whatever mail app just fine.

load more comments (2 replies)
[โ€“] [email protected] 9 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago)

Other people have mentioned Tutanota; as a user myself I can point out a few pros and cons:

Pro:

  • Extremely privacy focused - everything is encrypted and even they don't have access to your email content.
  • Pretty cheap for a pro subscription (although they recently changed prices and I'm not sure exactly what the new ones are like).
  • Pro subscription you can use custom domains and set up a few aliases.
  • Generally works fine.

Con:

  • Can only use their custom mail clients (in addition to the webmail interface), because they use their own encryption algorithm.
  • Tutanota is so extremely hardcore about security that it seems like a detriment to their user experience. I used to follow the Tutanota community on Reddit and there were so many posts from people who tried to sign up or access their email and were blocked, and they had to go through quite a process to get unblocked. I myself went through a period where I kept being unable to access my account on my phone and it turned out to be that they were blocking me because of "too many IPS connecting to my account from the same IP". I have 2 devices connecting - my PC and my phone, so apparently 2 devices is too dangerous for them. That happened 2 or 3 times for a few days to a week each time, but I haven't experienced it for a while now, though.
  • The user interface is not for everyone. I don't mind it myself, but I've seen a good number of people complain that it's too sparse and/or ugly.
  • Search is annoying - because everything is encrypted, emails can't be searched on the server side so the clients have to do the searching locally which requires building an index. If you happen to clear your storage you have to reindex everything again. It's also pretty slow and annoying to index further back than a few months.
  • You don't get much storage (like, only 1gb or something) and you have to pay to get more.

Overall, if privacy and control over your own email is important to you then Tutanota is a great choice. Just be aware that usability can be kind of a hassle.

[โ€“] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago

Proton mail

[โ€“] [email protected] 8 points 10 months ago (12 children)

In no particular order: Fastmail, Proton, ~~Outlook~~, ~~iCloud~~, ~~Yahoo~~, Gandi (free if you buy a domain), I've heard Hey is ok, but haven't used it.

load more comments (12 replies)
[โ€“] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago (4 children)

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned PurelyMail. Its technically in beta, but I've been using it without issue since the beginning of this year (2023).

load more comments (4 replies)
[โ€“] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago (1 children)
[โ€“] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (3 children)

They dont really support normal mail clients so no, no alternative.

I would look on privacyguides.org

posteo.de, mailbox.org and others are also good

And dont forget about cock.li !

load more comments (3 replies)
[โ€“] [email protected] 7 points 10 months ago (4 children)

I moved to Fastmail last year and it's been entirely unremarkable which is exactly what I want. Mail in and out works, it's reliable, I have my custom domains.

It really depends on the level of privacy you're going for and what features you want. For me I needed custom domain support with catchalls. The only other requirement I had was to not be Google. I debated between Fastmail and Proton for a while (Fastmail for features/price, Proton for the "better" privacy.) Ultimately I ended up on Fastmail because I would have had to pay for a higher than necessary account at Proton for what I wanted.

load more comments (4 replies)
[โ€“] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

proton mail (if you wanna exclusively use it pay for it), tutanota and any eco focused one. if you wanna keep using some Gmail accounts use k-9

[โ€“] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago

I use fastmail so I can easily use a desktop client and create aliases with bitwarden and it's a great service the only downside is it's not as private as proton mail, but I don't consider email private or secure

[โ€“] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago* (last edited 10 months ago) (3 children)

proton mail is pretty decent.
not the most private solution but it's still better

load more comments (3 replies)
[โ€“] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (1 children)

I just use IMAP through my domain hosted on Dreamhost (had it for about 13 years now??) and then use K9 and Thunderbird to read it.

Don't need to deal with all the hosting my own mail server spam and ISP nightmare :)

load more comments (1 replies)
[โ€“] [email protected] 6 points 10 months ago (4 children)

I've been using Zoho mail for a few years now with my own domain linked to it and it works flawlessly for less than 12โ‚ฌ/y. (less than 24โ‚ฌ/y if you also add the domain cost)

load more comments (4 replies)
[โ€“] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago (4 children)

I'm using Posteo and have absolutely no problem with it. The base price is 1โ‚ฌ/month and for my purposes I haven't needed to buy any extra stuff (like extra space or aliases). It also allows access via mail clients by IMAP and POP, which is something I've seen many popular gmail alternatives not providing, despite being IMO a pretty important feature.

You mentioned storage space is important for you. The default size is 2.0 GB, but you can acquire more by paying +0,25โ‚ฌ/month for every extra gigabyte up to a maximum total of 20 GB.

It should be noted however that it is a German company and therefore has to comply with German laws.

The one thing I'm not really convinced by is their approach to spam. The web interface doesn't provide any way to define rules to filter out spam except for filter exceptions, but the service already filters out spam for you and it will never reach your inbox. I would normally think that's a bad idea, but I've never received any spam nor have I noticed any mail going missing (except for my lemmy.ml registration mail which I remember I had problems with but I don't remember if it was Posteo's fault and if yes if it was their spam filter in which case it could be allowed to reach your inbox by adding it as an exception).

[โ€“] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

But you cannot have your own domain on posteo as far as i know.

load more comments (3 replies)
[โ€“] [email protected] 5 points 10 months ago

Very happy with runbox.com. Hosted in Sweden, reasonable price, and - unlike proton - you can use your own frigging mail client

load more comments
view more: next โ€บ