Are there any good free alternatives to Gmail or do all the good ones cost money?
I assume so since Gmail makes all its money selling YOU…
this post was submitted on 07 Feb 2025
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I've been moving over to Fastmail. Easy to use, tons of features, great price. 👍
Also quick tip regardless of which provider you end up on: Register a domain name for yourself and use it for your email address. This way if you want to change email providers again in the future or even host it yourself, you can take your domain name and addresses with you.
I'm using Infomaniak Mail and am fairly happy so far. They are based in Switzerland and I get custom domain + 5 user accounts for 1.50 EUR/month. I've tried other providers but coming from Gmail I like that their webmail displays email conversation like Google does whereas most other providers just run rainloop or roundcube where threading support isn't quite the same.
Their android app is open source too and can be installed from fdroid. It can be a bit sluggish sometimes though, but K9mail/Thunderbird works fine too.
This dude compare quite a lot of email providers in term of privacy. I do not necessarily agree with all its critics but it is a useful resource:
https://digdeeper.neocities.org/articles/email
I would recommend to buy your own domain in case you need to change again. That way, you're not trapped by your email provider and you can change in case you're not satisfied anymore
By any means, do you have a Riseup invitation code?
Murena mail, Nextcloud mail, Tuta, Proton, aything is better as GMail, only Hotmail is worse.
aything is better as GMail, only Hotmail is worse
So yahoo mail?
Someone still use that?
It exists
So it's not hot anymore
Never was
What are people’s thoughts on using Apple email? I was thinking of switching from Gmail.
Do you mean iCloud Mail? I assume it is as secure as all the other iCloud services themselves. Personally, I don't use iCloud (except for the "Find my" feature). But you can set up any third party Email service with the Apple's Mail app. I use Mailbox.org as email provider and have it set up with the Mail app on my iPhone. It works flawlessly. Third party email providers often come with additional costs (the lowest tier with Mailbox.org was 12 € each year when I switched from a freemail provider a couple of years ago). I don't know if iCloud Mail is free of charge, other than additional storage space.
Yes an iCloud email. I have an iCloud subscription already and I also use the Hidr my Email feature a lot. But everything right now is forwarded to Gmail.
So I’d like to just switch completely over to iCloud, maybe even have a hide my email for every account I have. I feel like Apple is one of the safer ones to go with because as far as I know (maybe I’m wrong) they aren’t in the business of selling user data.
I want private and safe, but also simple and easy. I wonder if Apple is a good balance here.
Apples eco system does have pretty good safety features. As far as I have heard, Apple is indeed not up to sell user data outside their eco system. However, they collect data from their users and use it for their own purposes. It is always a good advice to go through each setting (of phone as well as laptop) and evaluate if it is needed for functionality (e.g. location services or access for the camera or contacts). Not only will this measurement reduce the amount of (usually) unneccessary data that is being transmitted otherwise, but it will also improve battery life as well.
@nicerdicer exactly, the only real #privacy gains with web-based providers is if you trust them, or if you personally encrypt all data locally and use PGP
I suggested #tutanota and #proton, because they do all the local encryption stuff for you, so, technically, they are a bit more private than the others, although you still kinda have to trust their web (or use their open-source apps only)
Do you mean an @icloud.com address?
Yes an iCloud email. I have an iCloud subscription already and I also use the Hidr my Email feature a lot. But everything right now is forwarded to Gmail.
So I’d like to just switch completely over to iCloud, maybe even have a hide my email for every account I have. I feel like Apple is one of the safer ones to go with because as far as I know (maybe I’m wrong) they aren’t in the business of selling user data.
I want private and safe, but also simple and easy. I wonder if Apple is a good balance here.
How techie are you? If the answer is not very much, then forget about this; but, if medium, then I would try to set up a custom domain so that all your emails are easy to migrate.
For example: you buy fosterj.me, and now, all your emails are like: [email protected], [email protected], or even, lets say, [email protected]
This way, you would only have a single migration to do (Gmail -> fosterj.com), and, from then on, you are independent to choose which provider to associate with.
For this providers, you have the following options (which, if not tech savvy, you can use without the custom domain, simply by registering, lets say, [email protected] or [email protected]):
-
Apple: Ok, they don't sell your data, but they CAN do it and they hace access to all your mails
-
Protonmail or Tutanota: They DO NOT have access to your emails, only YOU can read them using their SEPARATE apps (so, no more apple mail app, but, in exchange, you are private from your provider)
I would personally recommend ProtonMail + Custom Domain, or simply ProtonMail, but it depends on what you can and w@nt to do :p
I hope I was clear, feel free to ask me for more clarifications!
Tagging @[email protected] for more context
I appreciate the info! I’ll be thinking about this.
Feel free to answer on this thread if you need more help!
@thoughtcrime I don't think that provides much more privacy per-se, at least when compared to GMail. I would try @Tutanota or @protonprivacy , although the latter have had some PR drama recently
Mailbox.org
I personally use Disroot along with Thunderbird 😁
This, just plain old mail.
I've been using mailbox.org, and it's pretty great. It's cheap, it's private, and it works well.
I like the idea of e2ee email, but the way they all work it's pretty much a completely useless feature for most people, myself included, and I also like using Thunderbird. It's just not worth the trade off for something I'd basically never get any use out of anyway.
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