The use of email is on the increase, and you often hear of email providers losing user data. With this in mind, many users often look for Google alternatives if they are a user of the world’s most popular email provider. Although, once you delete Gmail account, you need something to replace it.
Finding a new secure email provider isn’t that hard when you know what to look for. Therefore, here we have a list of the best and most reliable private email providers you can find.
What is the Most Secure Email?
The most secure email service will be one that uses military-grade end-to-end encryption. The company will have secure servers in a country that highly regards privacy regulations.
You can even find some secure emails providers who use dongles as an extra layer of protection, although it may not be an easy task to obtain one depending on where you reside.
Here are some examples of secure email Providers:
Hushmail
Hushmail has its headquarters in Canada and is a web-based email service, which is encrypted email and proprietary, offering PGP-encrypted emails to deliver emails using OpenPGP standards.
Hushmail caters for business or personal use. While it recently began offering an app for iOS, there is still no compatibility with macOS.
Apps support two-step verification, Touch ID, and users can have multiple email accounts with aliases. They are thus among the most secure email client apps on iOS.
Users who are not a Hushmail subscriber will receive an email link taking them to a secure location. Here, they need to enter a passphrase to obtain full access.
Hushmail costs $49.98 for personal use, although there is a 14-day free trial. With this, you get 10Gb online storage, zero ads and dedicated customer support.
CounterMail
CounterMail costs $59 per year, yet you get access to the most secure online email services you can find. Server headquarters are based in Sweden which is excellent for privacy (European GDPR laws), although inside the 14-eyes jurisdiction.
Servers are diskless, so in and out, and any snooping third parties can’t read messages. Besides, they are all about transparency, and they offer 100% transparency. Encryption is OpenPGP with 4096 bits encryption.
They are the first web, email service provider to offer the dongle feature, which does provide an extra layer of security. However, like any service, which uses dongles, if these are damaged or lost, you can’t log into your encrypted email.
Signal
While not strictly an email system, if you wish to send encrypted messages, then you can opt for Signal. This instant messaging app is open-source so that an auditor can check for back doors, and it runs as it is supposed to.
Signal is also free and ought to be in the following section, though as it offers excellent security, it sits nicely with the above commercial products. (Read What Does Encrypted Messages Mean)
What are the Most Secure Free Email Providers?
ProtonMail
Here you find a Switzerland based email provider, so it has a very secure home with the privacy laws in the country. It is straightforward to use, and as easy to use and sign up to as any other email provider is. You do only get 500MB of online storage.
You have end-to-end encryption, and the recipient can only see it. You can also send unencrypted messages; however, you have a feature to leave a link where the recipient can decrypt an email by entering a password.
ProtonMail is a free secure email provider, yet for more features, it costs $48 per year for personal, yet higher plans are $75, or $288 for large businesses.
Tutanota
Other worthy additions to the list of secure free email providers are Tutanota, which offers 1 GB storage space and you can send your emails securely without PGP. Instead, it uses AES encryption and Perfect Forward Secrecy. It will also strip IP addresses from email address headers, and the service can encrypt your metadata.
Posteo is very similar to this services of email, though German and uses two-factor authentication as security. (Find the Best VPN for Germany)
Mailfence
Mailfence offers 1GB storage but splits this 500MB for email storage and 500MB for documentation. The headquarters are in Belgium, and it uses end-to-end encryption, and you can send messages with a secret password rather than PGP keys. Besides this, you get a calendar, document storage and a contacts list.
What is the Most Hacked Email Provider?
You can find different ways that email providers are hacked, and to the end-user, it makes a difference. Most of the popular services are prone to spam emails finding their way to users.
However, Gmail users can be unaware their accounts are hacked. If hackers get hold of passwords, they can receive copies of emails without the owner of the email account knowing.
Also, an Italian email provider has just had the data of 600,000 Email.it users sold on the dark web.
Is Gmail Secure?
Gmail is secure to a certain degree; however, the service doesn’t offer end-to-end encryption.
Besides this, Google scans every email that passes through their email servers to be able to advertise to users better.
For the majority of users who wish to message others with information, which isn’t too sensitive, then it will suffice.
How to Make an Email Secure
Even though these providers of emails are highly secure, if you want to learn how to send untraceable email, you need to take a different approach. You can find some burner email providers, or you can take the sensible approach and use a secure VPN provider.
The best VPN for email will build on the security and encryption and have a vast number of servers that you can divert your message.
Besides, they will have headquarters outside any 14-eyes jurisdiction and retain zero-logs.
Any of the above options are secure, yet combine these with location spoofing capabilities of a VPN, and your secure email just became anonymous and untraceable.
