Privacy in your hands
If you would like to make your privacy better, then you should think about new email provider. Today, people don’t have too much privacy in Internet. It does not matter if it’s large corporations or nosy government, they can all have access to your emails. You don’t need to be criminal or hacker, to someone spy on you. Spying on the network and analyzing people’s behavior converts into huge earnings, for example, advertisers or any service providers.
Fortunately, there are more and more service providers offering secure email communication on the market.
Below I present the growing email providers, which will bring greater security, encryption, and without spying. They will also prevent access to your e-mail by a governmental institution and an advertiser.
Before you create a mailbox on any of the following portals, read about it, look for opinions, check if the functions offered meet your expectations. Be aware of your choice.
All of them have high level of privacy and good reputation. Even if governments did want to snoop for whatever reason, and the companies did have to hand over information, it would be impossible to break through their encryption systems.
Secure email providers
Riseup - since 1999 - free account (invitation needed) + VPN provider
Protonmail - since 2013 - free and paid accounts + VPN provider
Tutanota - since 2011 - free and paid accounts
Disroot - since 2016 - free account + cloud provider
TorGuard - since 2012 - small free account (with VPN) and other plans are paid + Proxy provider
Hushmail - since 1999 - paid accounts only, personal and business
Runbox - since 1999 - paid accounts only
Mailfence - since 1999 - free and paid accounts
Posteo - since 2009 - paid accounts only
Countermail - since 2008 - paid accounts only
ChiaraMail - since 2014 - free and paid accounts (not updated since 2016)
Mailbox - since 1989 - paid accounts only
Msgsafe - since 2016 - free and paid accounts
Openmailbox - since 2013 - free and paid accounts
Safe-mail - since 1999 - free and paid accounts
Scryptmail - since 2015 - paid accounts only
Shazzlemail - since 2011 - free and paid accounts
Unseen - since 2012 - free account
Virtru - since 2014 - paid accounts only
Fastmail - since 1999 - paid account only
Personally I used the first three. Currently Tutanota.
If you know any other secure mailboxes, let me know in the comments. I would like to add them to the list. I will also try to keep the list up-to-date, or at least once in a while refreshed.
Additional Steps to Keep Email Secure and Private
- If you do not want to change your current email provider, you can take care of your privacy by encrypting important messages using PGP.
- Be careful where you log in to your mail. Computers that are publicly available can often be infected with viruses or keyloggers.
- Do not leave your mobile devices and computers unguarded. Also, make sure your devices are protected with strong passwords.
- Look out for social engineering. Pishing is very popular on email, social network or instant messeges. Do not click on any suspicious links, first make sure that the message comes from a trusted sender.
- Keep your passwords in safe place like encrypted storage or password manager, not in sticky notes or notepad on you desk.
- Do not use public networks without a secure connection or VPN.
- Use two-factors authentification