Reasons You Need to Search for Gmail Alternative
Posted on 22nd March 2021Google, famous for data collecting, was discovered in 2017 scanning clients’ emails for personal info and utilizing it to show targeted advertisements. The technological titan was blamed for unlawful wiretapping and ended looking into clients’ emails after a group action lawsuit. Nevertheless, nowadays, Google bots, as before, scan emails to discover spam and viruses, let email searches and utilize the auto-reply function. It looked like the fracas had been calmed down until The Wall Street Journal found that Google had been providing third-party applications access to clients’ emails.
When a person logged into an application utilizing their Google account, the application can request approval to access this person’s emails. The majority of users blindly affirmed this request. You are not the only person who utilized an application to follow low price flights or to organize your vacations. Google said that they examine every application’s request to access confidential data and always prevent those that seem suspicious. Nevertheless, it looks that they do not mind third-party developers viewing their clients’ emails in case they indicate it in their privacy policy.
These applications made one more step to a breach of confidentiality. Their bots not simply scanned personal emails, but real people additionally read and viewed them. For instance, Return Path, one of the applications that possessed access to Gmail data, viewed above 8,000 personal emails. Return Path stated it was needed to guarantee the high quality of their performance.
If the idea that applications are viewing your emails frightens you, select another email provider. Email provider that will appreciate your privacy. We analyzed 8 alternatives to Gmail that present encryption and no targeted advertisements.
Main Things to Consider During Choosing Email Provider
Below are several points you need to take into consideration when selecting an email provider that satisfies your requirements and demands.
Privacy policies. Every email provider specified later is located in Europe and has to correspond to GDPR rules. Each of them has strict privacy policies also; still, none will ignore providing your data if demanded by a court statement. Nevertheless, email providers possess policies that defend your data strong sufficiently that they wouldn’t possess much to provide. This is particularly actual of providers with zero-knowledge policies.
Encryption norm. PGP is an industry-famous encryption norm that encrypts the info on the customer side. It possesses various restrictions, that’s why many email providers propose OpenPGP encryption, which is an open-source PGP norm. OpenPGP suggests that your information is encrypted in the cloud or the web browser, and you can deliver encrypted letters between various people utilizing the same encryption norm.
POP, IMAP, and/or SMTP protocols. Such protocols allow you to admit to encrypted emails from mobile applications or third-party software, such as Mozilla Thunderbird.
Custom domains. This function is excellent for not large teams and companies who desire to possess custom domain email addresses.
An open-source indicates that the email provider’s code is public, and every user can explore it for vulnerabilities. This usually performs for a more reliable and trustworthy service as those issues are discovered and declared or mended.
Anon payment. There are applications that can enable you to utilize cryptocurrency or also deliver cash. Other applications can set apart your digital payment data from your email account.
Anon registration. This function is excellent if you desire to be absolutely anonymous and to store your identity secret.
Therefore, which email provider will be the most reliable? View below to consider every Gmail alternatives in detail.
ProtonMail
ProtonMail was established in 2013, and nowadays, it is one of the famous Gmail alternatives. As it has its servers in Switzerland, client information and data are protected under severe Swiss privacy rules.
Apart from a favourable location for privacy, the service itself proposes end-to-end encryption to make you confident that no other person views your emails. It likewise operates on several platforms. Therefore you can also transfer secure emails to people who utilize distinct providers.
What’s necessary to remember is that every new client receives 500 MB of storage without making some payments, and if extra storage space is required, they can choose one of the three Premium programs. Thus, you can extend your storage up to 20 GB and utilize custom domains.
Furthermore, the ProtonMail inbox is convenient, functional, and easy to use. Consequently, it’s irreplaceable in terms of the convenience of use. It likewise possesses the means to import the most significant information from your Gmail account. Therefore, is ProtonMail more reliable than Gmail? Without hesitation.
StartMail
StarMail was established by the Dutch private search engine Startpage team, that’s why you can be confident that your privacy is their final purpose. They just collect the data they require to present their service, for example, your device model, IP address, country, and links you clicked. The received data is just saved during the time of your browsing session.
Just your IP address is stored for security purposes; still, even later, it’s encrypted, anonymized, and removed in 3 days. The utilization of tracking cookies is severely prohibited.
SmartMail proposes PGP encryption, and your emails are saved at their Dutch servers. What does this email provider do? Another is that they encrypt your data on the server-side rather than in the browser? They think that performing so is more reliable than encryption in the browser, and you can learn why they consider this way in their official document. It additionally maintains the IMAP and SMTP protocols, and you can additionally build a temporal “email on the fly”.
You can make payment for your subscription by card or cryptocurrency. If you select the first option, your payment information will be assigned a single number and set apart from your account’s details.
Tutanota
Tutanota is a German email provider that unites nearly all of the privacy functions discussed before. This makes Tutanota possibly the best option for private emails.
With the help of Tutanota, your whole mailbox is encrypted, involving your contact listing. This data is next saved in data centres in Germany. Sadly, it doesn’t let you import and encrypt your former emails still proposes different functions; for example, default end-to-end encryption between Tutanota clients and encrypted emails to non-Tutanota clients. Such latter emails operate utilizing passwords preliminarily shared.
Opposite to different email providers, Tutanota doesn’t utilize OpenPGP encryption and doesn’t maintain SMTP POP or IMAP. This indicates that it’s impossible to make it compatible with different email service providers and cannot be utilized with third-party applications. Instead of this, Tutanota utilized their personal encryption, which maintains forward secrecy, denoting that a taken encryption key will open just that message and others will be protected.
Tutanota follows GDPR and seems to appreciate your privacy. It doesn’t follow you or provide you with targeted advertisements. It additionally removes your IP address from your emails so spies can not detect your location. It’s open-source and also provides two-factor authentication.
When clients receive their Tutanota email, they receive 1 GB of storage. Still, because of email compression, free storage expands to 10 GB.
Posteo
This is a German email service too, and it is recognized for proposing paid email accounts for common people and companies. It’s great to understand that the company, which was established above ten years ago, is completely self-financed. This indicates that they possess no duties to provide any data to associates or investors; however, it also indicates that it’s a paid email service.
Posteo uses OpenPGP encryption and various additional levels of encryption to guarantee security on a high level. Posteo also maintains the IMAP protocol, indicating that you’ll have the possibility to get admittance of your email on every device.
The software is open-source. Therefore every user can familiarize its code. You can additionally utilize Posteo absolutely anonymously, including registration and during making payments. Still, if you make payments with Paypal, cards, or a different digital way, they will set apart this information from your account. Body text, subject headers, attachments, metadata, contacts, and also your calendar meetings are all encrypted and saved on servers in Germany. They utilize zero-knowledge encryption, indicating that they can’t decrypt your emails if they desired to. The Posteo additionally removes your IP address and doesn’t store any records and logs.
The single disadvantage to Posteo can be that it doesn’t propose custom domains, and it doesn’t possess a spam folder. Strange emails will be or denied or delivered right to your inbox. If you select Posteo, it will be a great idea to improve your spam-spotting abilities.
If you select Posteo, you will receive 2 GB of email storage place. If you want more, you can buy extra gigabytes up to a maximum of 20 GB.
Mailfence
This private email provider from Belgium looks like an excellent option. It thinks about your privacy, proposes OpenPGP encryption, and possesses functions such as calendar and contacts. It likewise enables you to transfer your domain.
Mailfence differs from others because it lets clients forward encrypted messages to users that don’t maintain OpenPGP. It utilizes symmetric encryption to receive an encryption/decryption key from the password you established for your encrypted message. You can also establish an expiration date before forwarding it. The recipient will receive a URL leading to your message, which can just be reached with a password. The way the receiver gains the password depends on you.
Runbox
Runbox is easy to use and presents you with the majority of the functions that a private email provider has. The email provider is situated in Norway. Therefore it possesses strict guaranteed privacy policies supported by the constitution. Runbox is likewise a socially accountable company that utilizes renewable hydropower energy.
You are able to utilize Runbox or a third-party domain to build your email address, which will likewise operate on a mobile application. Utilizing the import of your emails is likewise simple.
The email provider states they don’t watch your activity or provide any info to third parties. They likewise enable clients to review its code as it operates an open-source principle. You are able to make payment for your subscription in non cash payment or cryptocurrency.
CounterMail
The CounterMail interface can seem a little old and not easy to use. However, it possesses more than 10 years of experience and one of the most powerful and reliable encryptions possible. Same with its opponents, it utilizes OpenPGP. Still, just CounterMail proposes 4,096-bit encryption keys together with their policy without logs. Your data is saved on servers in Sweden, which, same different European countries, possesses severe privacy rules.
This email provider proposes a built-in password manager and additional levels of security such as their servers possess whole disk encryption and your connection to the servers transfers through a tunnel to limit IP leakages and spies attacks. Nevertheless, every of these security functions indicates that CounterMail is one of the costliest email providers, among others. It likewise maintains custom domains and cryptocurrency payments.
Zoho Mail
Founded with a concentration on companies, Zoho Mail proposes its services to individuals too. You maybe know about their password manager, although they likewise propose a reliable email service.
Your mailbox gets provided with end-to-end encryption support for S/MIME. However, it utilizes SSL or TLS too. You can attach two-factor authentication via Touch ID, TOTP’s, or different devices to improve your mailbox security. Nevertheless, if comfort is really necessary for you, they possess applications for the majority of platforms with integrations of notes and calendars.
If you are suffering some problem connected with your Zoho Mail account, you can ask for help in day and night customer maintenance. Selecting this email service, you can get the benefit of using their high-class security and privacy functions and a reliable 99.9% uptime.
When selecting this Gmail alternative, be ready to receive up to 1 TB storage, which is higher than the different Gmail alternatives ready to propose.
Conclusion
Gmail possesses various privacy issues that put its clients in uncertainty. If you determine to select one of the above alternatives to Gmail, review the instructions on how to forever delete your Google account. Or you selected to provide Google with an extra chance? Then, verify if your Gmail wasn’t broken open and remember to utilize extra privacy and security means, such as a VPN, encryption software, and a secure password manager.
Generally, the privacy issues of Gmail are a great cause to search for alternatives. You simply need to determine how advanced you desire your new mailbox to be, and you’d prefer a minimum amount of services or an email provider that proposes many customization possibilities.
