Best Alternative to Gmail

[ResponseAbility]

Absolutely right.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Good advice, Bubba.

About 20 years ago, I registered our family surname .com TLD for several years, but never really used it so I let it go. Some guy in Germany immediately snapped it and has had it ever since. He renews promptly on his renewal date, too.

Other TLDs are available such as [POFsurname].family,[POFsurname].info, [POFsurname].life, and [POFsurname].online, but none are as simple and memorable as .com.

I wish I had not let it go. It would have made it a lot easier to manage all of our family email addresses. I could have assigned our kids their email address at a young age and had them start using it. Now all three have their own gmail formats which are hard to remember. My wife and I use a very antiquated Baby Bell (RBOC) domain from our very first ISP almost three decades ago. They got acquired by Bell South then AT&T and then we had the AT&T / Yahoo partnership finally ending up with Yahoo landing at Verizon. I’m surprised our original RBOC domain still works after all these year.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

1791.com is a dead link. If I change emails, I want a new entity with some staying power.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

I’ve been looking at ProtonMail as well. Do you and the other people you write to need a special mail client or app to handle the encryption? Or is the encryption completely transparent to both parties regardless of who you write to?

[ProtectOurFreedom]

“aol.com”

PLUS, you get free coasters in the mail every week.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Depending on your pain tolerance, you can always set up your own private email server. See How to Set Up your Own Personal Email Server by Robert McIntyre. You don't need to run your own physical server, either; you can buy a Virtual Private Server. I've had friends who aren't particularly technical do this.

If you want to offload the pain to somebody else, I understand HRC is an excellent technical resource. For a small contribution to her favorite charity, she might even do it for you pro bono.

[Jmouse007]

Fastmail.com Their company is located in Australia. If ANY alphabet government agency, or state or local law enforcement agency wants to looknow at your Fastmail account information, said law enforcement agency must submit a written warrant to an Australian court And an Australian judge determines if the warrant request is LEGALLY VALID. If not, said "law enforcement agency's" request is DENIED and they are shown the door.

Fastmail is a paid service, it is secure and worth every penny if you want to protect and preserve your privacy. We have been using it for over two decades for this very reason.

[Icuhaji]

Another vote for.....
Protonmail

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Actually, setting up your own server is a really stupid idea. Stick with ProtonMail.

See Why you shouldn’t try to host your own email by Jeff Reifman.

Forget my original suggestion. It was in jest.

[Lockbox]

It was transparent for my usage with others.

[Jmouse007]

If it is located in the USA, the Feds, alphabet, and “law enforcement agencies” can and will clandestinely access it. There is no privacy and there are no secure Internet domains here in the USA. That is why we have used Fastmail, located in Australia for over two decades.

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Interesting that you recommended FastMail. In Post #69, Jeff Reifman also recommends it in his article "Why you shouldn’t try to host your own email."

After a lot of research and trial and error, I chose not to host my own email server. Instead, I chose an incremental step of separating my personal and work email. I migrated my personal emails to Australian-based FastMail. The company claims to be free of NSA surveillance. I’ve also appreciated the mental separation between work and personal communications that two email accounts provides.

If you want increased peace of mind, another option is Norwegian Runbox, which promotes itself as secure offshore email for companies, organizations and individuals. It encrypts your email and supports built-in PGP encryption options.

So we have ProtonMail, FastMail, and Runbox as good alternatives.

[nevadapatriot]

>https://protonmail.com/
>
>free email, and is encrypted.

I would agree, Protonmail even if you pay for the extra features. Understand if you ditch Gmail completely, or just stop using it but remove the account from your Android phone if that’s what you are running you will no longer get updates for your apps as the Playstore requires a Google account. You also lose your contacts minus one or two that might be stored on your cellphone. There is a little more to just cutting the gmail cord if using Android. You can set Gmail to forward all emails to your Protonmail account you can create for free and get a taste for how it works.

[doorgunner69]

I only use Gmail for fake IDs to swarm Disqus.

[JDoutrider]

4ltr

[gogeo]

Reagan.com

[firebrand]

Thanks. I have a PC. No smartphone. Thinking of just getting a different account and gradually switching over to it. I have so many contacts on Gmail, though. Don’t want to bother them about this. Plus I have found that when you switch accounts, many people keep using the old one.

[Pajamajan]

Bookmark

[ProtectOurFreedom]

Common problem. See Automatically forward Gmail messages to another account

[trebb]

I use Thunderbird as my Gmail handler - once set up, it automatically logs in and can even be left open (like Outlook in offices).