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Agree. I'll pay for an email service provided by Mozilla. Right now my only options are Gmail or running my own. I just don't trust other email providers. And

by yumraj 7y ago

Agree. I'll pay for an email service provided by Mozilla. Right now my only options are Gmail or running my own. I just don't trust other email providers. And, yes, I've looked at Fastmail, Zoho, Protonmail and others.

glitchc 7y ago
You trust Google more than ex. ProtonMail and Rackspace? Curious about the thought process that made you arrive to this conclusion.
- yumraj 7y ago
  It's like picking the known evil vs the unknown. And, I know it's probably not a good answer logically but more gut driven. Emails have a lot of information about my life. I know what Google is doing with my emails, and as far as I can see Google is not going to die or be purchased by another entity. With companies like Protonmail and others I just don't know. Even if I trust their current T&C, what happens if they are bought. Also, while it is equally likely for Google to have rogue employees, I believe they will have more stringent safeguards then smaller companies. Again, as I said, probably not a very good answer, but more gut driven. And, I say this as someone who is very conscious of privacy.
  - lugubris 7y ago
    > what happens if they are bought Not going to happen overnight and even then technically they cannot access your emails because only you hold the password to private keys (if you trust they encrypt your emails with your public key before storing). I prefer keeping my emails local so pop does the job. Google can access your emails but something like protonmail can't (if you trust them to encrypt your emails).
    - thiccly 7y ago
      Sounds good... in theory. Truth is we don't know this, their mail client is proprietary and even if it was open source we still wouldn't know what their servers are logging. I am in a similar situation and I trust Google more than ProtonMail with all that Tesonet data weirdness pointing back to one guy. These shell companies can go and disappear overnight, something to consider.
      - wildduck 7y ago
        Protonmail's email encrypted in the browser! Their client is open source: https://github.com/ProtonMail/WebClient https://github.com/ProtonMail/WebClient It is main reason to use ProtonMail over Gmail.
      - lugubris 7y ago
        Actually their web mail client is open source and you can see if it is encrypting all your data before sending, yes in theory they can send you malicious js (again you can verify it). They don't get your password so no issue of them logging anything, they just verify that it is userA and send userA's required information (encrypted mailbox + encrypted private RSA key) which your browser decrypts using your password (never send to protonmail) [0]. Again in protonmails case you don't have to trust them, you can just verify the js they send you everytime and be sure that e2ee emails to other protonmail users are always e2e, about email to other non PM servers - you have to trust them to just send it and not store anywhere. Also for emails coming in from other servers - you have to trust them to encrypt it with your public key and not store elsewhere. Note that I don't use protonmail. [0] -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Remote_Password_protocol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Remote_Password_protoco...
- sjwright 7y ago
  Trust is multiple things. I "trust" that Google will manage my private Gmail account consistent with my expectations—which are effectiveness and long-term durability. I have no expectation of algorithmic privacy and thus there's no trust to break there.
jblwps 7y ago
FWIW, I've had a great experience so far with Posteo(.de).
- zelphirkalt 7y ago
  I was going to recommend the same. Happy user here. Much better than my experience with Gmail actually and I have moved most of my accounts to Posteo. Posteo is also running on green energy and free software, afaik, so that is a plus.
  - jblwps 7y ago
    Yeah! I found it when looking for free software-based mail providers, in fact.
    - zelphirkalt 7y ago
      Same :D I like also that it is no problem to use in countries which block VPN, like China. I had no problems accessing Posteo, but no way of accessing Gmail. It also does not nag me every single time I change the VPN server I use, because I seem to be in a different location. I know this is supposed to be a security feature of Gmail, but man is it annoying not to be able to access your mail, because of that. In Posteo you can also activate 2FA afaik, if you like such thing. It just works, and I am glad to be able to give support to free software, while at the same time I also gain from it, by having an e-mail service, which is ethically way more acceptable than Gmail and is working very well.
eikenberry 7y ago
3rd option. Running your own for incoming, using a service for outgoing. You get all the trust benefits of running your own server without having to worry about IP blacklists or any other crap. The nicer ones even generate your SPF, DMARC entries you add to your DNS.

by yumraj 7y ago

glitchc 7y ago

You trust Google more than ex. ProtonMail and Rackspace? Curious about the thought process that made you arrive to this conclusion.

yumraj 7y ago
It's like picking the known evil vs the unknown. And, I know it's probably not a good answer logically but more gut driven. Emails have a lot of information about my life. I know what Google is doing with my emails, and as far as I can see Google is not going to die or be purchased by another entity. With companies like Protonmail and others I just don't know. Even if I trust their current T&C, what happens if they are bought. Also, while it is equally likely for Google to have rogue employees, I believe they will have more stringent safeguards then smaller companies. Again, as I said, probably not a very good answer, but more gut driven. And, I say this as someone who is very conscious of privacy.
- lugubris 7y ago
  > what happens if they are bought Not going to happen overnight and even then technically they cannot access your emails because only you hold the password to private keys (if you trust they encrypt your emails with your public key before storing). I prefer keeping my emails local so pop does the job. Google can access your emails but something like protonmail can't (if you trust them to encrypt your emails).
  - thiccly 7y ago
    Sounds good... in theory. Truth is we don't know this, their mail client is proprietary and even if it was open source we still wouldn't know what their servers are logging. I am in a similar situation and I trust Google more than ProtonMail with all that Tesonet data weirdness pointing back to one guy. These shell companies can go and disappear overnight, something to consider.
    - wildduck 7y ago
      Protonmail's email encrypted in the browser! Their client is open source: https://github.com/ProtonMail/WebClient https://github.com/ProtonMail/WebClient It is main reason to use ProtonMail over Gmail.
    - lugubris 7y ago
      Actually their web mail client is open source and you can see if it is encrypting all your data before sending, yes in theory they can send you malicious js (again you can verify it). They don't get your password so no issue of them logging anything, they just verify that it is userA and send userA's required information (encrypted mailbox + encrypted private RSA key) which your browser decrypts using your password (never send to protonmail) [0]. Again in protonmails case you don't have to trust them, you can just verify the js they send you everytime and be sure that e2ee emails to other protonmail users are always e2e, about email to other non PM servers - you have to trust them to just send it and not store anywhere. Also for emails coming in from other servers - you have to trust them to encrypt it with your public key and not store elsewhere. Note that I don't use protonmail. [0] -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Remote_Password_protocol https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Remote_Password_protoco...
sjwright 7y ago
Trust is multiple things. I "trust" that Google will manage my private Gmail account consistent with my expectations—which are effectiveness and long-term durability. I have no expectation of algorithmic privacy and thus there's no trust to break there.

jblwps 7y ago

FWIW, I've had a great experience so far with Posteo(.de).

zelphirkalt 7y ago
I was going to recommend the same. Happy user here. Much better than my experience with Gmail actually and I have moved most of my accounts to Posteo. Posteo is also running on green energy and free software, afaik, so that is a plus.
- jblwps 7y ago
  Yeah! I found it when looking for free software-based mail providers, in fact.
  - zelphirkalt 7y ago
    Same :D I like also that it is no problem to use in countries which block VPN, like China. I had no problems accessing Posteo, but no way of accessing Gmail. It also does not nag me every single time I change the VPN server I use, because I seem to be in a different location. I know this is supposed to be a security feature of Gmail, but man is it annoying not to be able to access your mail, because of that. In Posteo you can also activate 2FA afaik, if you like such thing. It just works, and I am glad to be able to give support to free software, while at the same time I also gain from it, by having an e-mail service, which is ethically way more acceptable than Gmail and is working very well.

eikenberry 7y ago

3rd option. Running your own for incoming, using a service for outgoing. You get all the trust benefits of running your own server without having to worry about IP blacklists or any other crap. The nicer ones even generate your SPF, DMARC entries you add to your DNS.