What to use instead of gmail?

Never was

@nicerdicer exactly, the only real #privacy gains with web-based providers is if you trust them, or if you personally encrypt all data locally and use PGP

I suggested #tutanota and #proton, because they do all the local encryption stuff for you, so, technically, they are a bit more private than the others, although you still kinda have to trust their web (or use their open-source apps only)

@thoughtcrime I don't think that provides much more privacy per-se, at least when compared to GMail. I would try @Tutanota or @protonprivacy , although the latter have had some PR drama recently

Wants you in their slow web UIs. Requires a middleman application just to use IMAP—which requires payment. Paid plans are pretty expensive if all you need additionally is CalDAV/CardDAV many will offer for $2 or less a month instead of $5.

…& these are gripes before the right-leaning heel turn.

The basic steps are:

1. Register a domain of your choice
2. Select who you are setting up your email with (plenty of different providers, Zoho has a basic free plan that would be suitable for a single domain and only a few users at most; Google, outlook etc. also sell services for custom domains)
3. Configure the DNS records for your domain to whatever your chosen email provider says (MX records to point to the mail server and some records for DMARC & DKIM to prevent your email being spoofed)
4. Test it all works and start using it

I'm not going to write a full tutorial so if it sounds interesting I suggest you do more research. The email hosting is typically focused at businesses as they are most likely to be wanting to host email on a custom domain.

Not all providers deserve your business.

I thought that was a problem too, but then I realized I use email aliases (and basically everyone should too) and Addy.io and other alias services support custom domains. I have a custom domain working great and use Posteo.

They're located in Germany and have to fulfill requests, they publish a yearly transparency report about that: https://mailbox.org/en/post/transparency-report-2024

Glad to see a completely honest review. All I ever see is "Fastmail best mail" without much explanation as to why.

The Fastmail app itself is mostly a wrapper around the web app with integrations for notifications etc. Sans notifications it works perfectly as an installed PWA on Android. Ive been using it like that for months.

Alternatively there are lots of IMAP apps available. I was testing Thunderbird for Android recently and that works pretty well too.

Disclaimer: I work for Fastmail. But any opinions I have on here are my own.

I use the FairEmail client

ahh aurora store is perfectly fine. I use it with an anonymous session. I think there should be sites that let you download the APK directly, but you wouldn't get updates.

It's probably fine to use one of these methods, just don't forget to update. 😁

Existed since 2011

I use the lowest cost vps and domain name I can find. OVH black Friday deals and lcn free UK domains as a starting point and practice moving host and registrar so as not to be dependent on either. Only after you are independent of vendors is it worth taking this approach IMHO. Beware if you "forget" to renew your domain many sharks about will take it, gather your data or ransom the name.

I recommended looking up the problems with self hosting a mail server first. Just go with Tuta imo, its cheaper and easier.

Jerboa doesn't have all the features, including searching for keywords. You can choose other app richer in features from here, or use web UI.

My only complaint is that, unless you pay for more users, all emails towards your custom domains end up a single mailbox (your xxxxx@zoho.com) i.e., you don't get separate mailboxes in the "lite" plan. Not a deal breaker for my use case, though.

I like that Migadu gives you a ton of control over your email experience. You can create unlimited users, have unlimited domains, create unlimited aliases, sending identities, they have custom routing features, etc. The backend/management panel seems like it was made with techies in mind. The actual email users don't have to worry about any of those knobs though.

The Spam Experts inbound filter is quite efficient at preventing spam and allows you to manage which domains have permission to send emails to your domains. As for the client, I usually check emails from my mobile phone, and since I have Android, I use K9-Mail, which for me is the best option available. There's also FairEmail if you're interested in trying it. For desktop computers, I generally use Roundcube; I think it's fine for basic needs. Occasionally, I also use the email integration from Nextcloud, though I can't remember the client's name. Thunderbird has improved significantly in recent years, and I think it's a good alternative. I have also used Mailspring, which is open-source, although there was a part of it that I wasn't completely satisfied with.

for me migrating isn't so easy. ppl will be mad at me, they are mad already why i left gmail they can't reach me

Saaaame.

two guys running email?

Is it? I can't tell from the about me. It says "In 2014, two of us, Michael Bruderer and Dejan Strbac, started...", but nothing else on the page talks about the size of the company. It started as two people, but is it currently two people? Anyone know?

no 2FA support

The webmail client does have 2FA, but when connecting via client there is no 2FA. Although, not sure what this would look like. Would you enter a TOTP every time you want to connect to the IMAP server? Or do you mean more like an OAuth2 flow, like Gmail, and that asks for your TOTP?

I actually haven't gotten around to playing with purelymail. Not sure if they handle this differently. What service are you thinking about?

Imap doesnt support 2fa.

IMAP protocol as well email clients do not support second factor authentication for the mailboxes. Even if they did, IMAP connections are made way too often which would make authentication unusable. Imagine needing to enter your TOTP token every few minutes. We could enable 2FA on the webmail, but IMAP/POP/SMTP accesses remain unprotected which beats the purpose. We are working on solution here which will allow sand-boxing a username/password pair to a webmail use only. We do offer so called App-specific passwords via mailbox identities though. These are commonly touted by email providers as 2FA. They are not.