What is the most private email service?

Email is one of the most important parts of our lives today. From getting information about our purchases, shopping, important communication with officials to contacting our family and friends, we need an email service. Usually the information sent via email is quite important, while email is not really private. This means that your internet provider, your email provider and the person who has access to the router you are connected to, have some access to your incoming and outgoing emails.

Some might say:

Quote

I don't care! I have nothing to hide!

But actually that is not true, because those same people, if they received a letter in the post and a stranger opened their envelope, they would care and react. The problem is that electronic communications is still not really tangible for some people, and such responses are usually due to a lack of knowledge.

So you might ask:

1 What is the best email service provider?

There are two main features to consider:

1.1 Security

Your email provider should have taken all the necessary and up-to-date measures to keep your emails safe from hackers, leaks, etc.

1.2 Privacy

This means that you and only you can access your emails and no one else. Given the age of email protocols, this is a really difficult goal to achieve, but not impossible. We will explain this later.

Please note that security and privacy are two completely different issues and you should not mix them up.

2 Which is the best email provider?

The answer to this question really does vary from person to person. You should consider what is important to you, what features you expect, how much money you are willing to invest in a reliable, secure and private email service, and so on. It should definitely have really good security measures and respect your privacy at the same time.

Here are a few solutions we recommend, based on our own experience and feedback from many other users in several websites.

2.1 Self-hosted email service

This means that you should register your own domain name (e.g. my-domain.com) and find a reliable hosting service (one that respects your privacy and is secure).

You should be very careful here as many hosting providers also collect your data or are simply not secure and can put your information at risk.

Here is a list of hosting providers with a good reputation:

2.1.1 MySecure.Space

This is a company based in Vienna, Austria, whose main business is cloud services and other security and privacy oriented solutions. They host most of their servers in Germany. Their support is really personalized and they will provide you with personalized privacy and security guides.

You can find their hosting services here:

2.1.2 Strato.de

Starto is one of the pioneers of web hosting in Germany and their services are quite reliable. Their company is based in Berlin and all their servers are also hosted in Germany. They also have good support but their main supported language is German. However, they also offer support in other languages.

You can find their hosting services here:

2.1.3 MetaNet.ch

Metanet is based in Switzerland and is a well respected company in the web hosting and cloud hosting business. Their servers are located in Switzerland and their company is based in Zurich.

You can find their hosting services here:

You might ask why most of our recommendations are in Europe?
The main reason is that European countries generally have stricter laws and all companies in this region have to follow these rules. So basically, by choosing a reputable European provider, you are automatically protected by strict European privacy and data protection laws.

2.2 Reputable email providers

Here we list the most reputable email providers based on our experience and reviews from others:

2.2.1 Tutanota

Tutanota is a secure, open-source email service that focuses on privacy and data security. Its name is derived from the Latin words "Tuta" and "Nota", meaning "secure message". The service is developed and operated by a German company and complies with strict European data protection laws. They have free and paid plans.

You can view their plans here:

2.2.2 OnlyOffice Workspace

OnlyOffice is a well known company based in Europe that offers several great products including an online office. Their OnlyOffice Workspace is open source and includes a reliable and private email service. OnlyOffice also has resellers where you can get their products cheaper than the official prices.

This service is primarily recommended for small to medium sized businesses. It also includes many other useful features that make it easy for businesses to have a central system for email, cloud storage, simple accounting system, CRM, project management, internal wiki, and contact management:

https://www.onlyoffice.com/workspace.aspx

2.2.3 StartMail

StartMail is an email service that emphasizes privacy and security. It was developed by the creators of the private search engine StartPage. StartMail offers features such as PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) encryption, which can be used for sending and receiving encrypted emails, and disposable email addresses, which can be used to maintain privacy when signing up for online services.

StartMail is a paid server and you can see their plans here:

2.2.4 Proton Mail

Proton is a company based in Switzerland that claims to offer a fully encrypted service. Many users have had good experiences with this email provider. However, we should mention that, despite their claims, they provided an unencrypted version of their user data to the court (more information here: https://www.wired.com/story/pr…giving-up-activists-data/).

You can see their levels:

3 Which email providers to avoid?

3.1 From the privacy perstective

The services that collect their users' data in bulk. Such services would access your emails, calendar and contacts (usually these three services come together) and create a profile of you. The purpose of this data collection is to target advertising, sell to other companies and sell to governments. And also to unknown services.

Best examples would be:

Google (Gmail)

Microsoft (Outlook)

Yahoo

Mail.com

Please note that while the above services may be quite safe however, their track record shows that they are not privacy friendly.

3.2 From the security perspective

There is no simple answer to this question. Before choosing a service, you should do extensive research on them and see what other users have experienced. You should check their website and read their information carefully to see where they host their servers, what their support SLA is, and if necessary you can contact them and ask for more details.

While it's natural to be enthusiastic about certain services or companies, it's crucial not to become a blind fanboy. Companies often change their strategies based on economic incentives or political considerations. Prioritizing your security and privacy is essential when selecting providers.

Please remember that the information shared here might change as circumstances evolve.

Disclaimer:
None of the links in this article contain tracking or affiliate code. Our website includes no trackers.
MySecure.Space is our parent company, but they had no influence in including their services in this article. Before writing this article, we defined a criteria for each category and all the recommended services fit our criteria.