It depends on how tech-savvy you are. I pay ~2€ a month to have an own domain hosted by "hetzner" (www.hetzner.com). You can create up to 100 Mailboxes under your own domain and are sure where your data is located. But that is not really viable for every person.
Thanks! For my personal domain I was using Tutanota, but I got tired of their app and really wanted to use my personal domain email along with the other I have in Thunderbird.
Proton does, but now I believe you have to pay. Migadu is probably the one I'd recommend.
We have to move away from the idea that we can get it all for free. TN is really price worthy. Not perfect bit you get full privacy for an important part of your online life such as mail.
Well, you're paying for increased privacy in money and (imo) security.
I begrudgingly stick with gmail every time I consider otherwise, and having one of the world's biggest IT security teams keeping it safe is one of the reasons. It's unfortunately how much they get to harvest my data, but I suppose I'd rather them than a scammer.
I don't see how an encrypted service like TN or PM would be less safe than gmail. Quite contrary. Leaks so often come from insiders.
I've been through quite a few security audits, and had to steel-clad quite a few secure systems. Nothing is better than having a dedicated security team for those things. The bigger the better. There's a reason we teach junior developers not to write any "secure" code, even as simple as a login system, on their own.
I can understand why someone might "not see", but as someone who has seen security done wrong enough times by well-meaning small businesses, I trust the company with the bigger dedicated security team with the better-skilled experts.
What's left is the fact that "everyone will want to hack gmail, but nobody would try to hack TN or PM". Fair enough. But as that taught us growing up: "security through obscurity isn't".
I don't fault people who prefer using these smaller "privacy" companies. But please don't fault people who prefer to stick with the companies who stand tall through constant attacks.
I have accounts with Gmail, Outlook/Live, Yahoo, AOL, Tutanita, GMX, and several personal domains. In total, I've like 20 accounts. I have 2 Gmail's and 3 domain addresses I use daily. The rest are low volume and opened for specific needs.
The one I like most is Mailbox.org. Great domain name for email. Three aliases with the basic account. Offers more privacy than the bigguns. Not a lot of storage, though. Not free, but works out to about $1 a month depending on the current exchange rate (USD vs. EUR).
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