Agreed. And: https://tutanota.com/

Gmail used to be good alright, but then it started to ask for my phone number all the time. I've switched to Tutanota recently, much better IMO, particularly the new client: https://mail.tutanota.com/

The design with multiple domains is pretty annoying.

So I register [email protected] but forget to register [email protected] and anybody can squat it and impersonate me from the same service?

Not to mention they blocked my IP after registering 3 of the 5 available domains.

Same problem with the old GMX. "was that [email protected] or [email protected]" - I get it, people should be able to differentiate, but they're really not.

I'm using my own domain anyway. When your last name is your domain, it gets impossible to impersonate you with any free service. And as it's only 1 Euro, it's also cheap and easy.

I would use tutanota if they could change a simpler domain.

When I wake up on the second morning after I've registered an email account, it was impossible for me to remember whether the domain was tunanota, notatuna, nonanuta or tutanote...

> No match for domain "NOTATUNA.COM".

I'm so tempted now.. YMMD :)

temptation too high...

I just tested tutanota. The interface is clean and nice but the encryption to external contacts is the same as in Gmail (link back to tutanota and shared passwords).

Why can't these services use something like OpenPGP's Web Key Discovery [0] fetching key from https://domain.com/.well-known/openpgp/hu/hash-for-localpart and avoid links altogether?

[0]: https://www.gnupg.org/blog/20160830-web-key-service.html

Avoiding links is the ultimate goal, hopefully Tutanota will integrate your suggestion or something similar. I've moved my entire family to Tutanota, which also works quite well. But you'll never convince everybody...

As far as I know self-destruct emails in Gmail are not end-to-end encrypted.

Good to hear, I'm also interested in that (hushmail, mailbox.org also use link backs).

Is there an issue tracker or a mailing list where one can subscribe and see when this would be available?

Is it open-source like protonmail?

Yep: https://github.com/tutao/tutanota/

Devs say they want to publish the app on F-Droid. https://tutanota.com/blog/posts/secure-mail-open-source

Did I get this right: the client is open source while the service that works in the backend and does 80% of the job is closed source?

So the source isn't of much use except for verifying that the encryption is robust?

How is that for protonmail?

In Protonmail client is open source, server and apps are not.

Does it intelligently separate "promotions", "updates", and "forums" emails so you can focus on emails that are actually conversations? I used fastmail for a while and it didn't do this, and it was _so_ much harder to keep up on my inbox that I switched back to gmail :/

Interesting. This is the single feature I hate most about gmail. It keept misclassifying important emails and I missed deadlines for taxes, payments, etc. I ended up having to read "All-mail" to avoid missing stuff.

I recently moved my stuff to / paid a year of Fastmail. I gather Protonmail puts security features a bit more front-and-center.

How about the UX? Can anyone comment on how they like the over all experience of Protonmail as compared to Fastmail? I realize I could sign up a Protonmail account and compare, but I’m not sure I’d get a good picture of the service through casual use.

I like Fastmail quite a lot so far, but I’m open to reevaluating in a year’s time.

Lack of POP/IMAP is a big, major con. You're forced to use their web or native interfaces. They don't make this super obvious outside of an FAQ on their site. I signed up and then found out. I wonder how much churn that causes them.

You actually can use IMAP/SMTP with ProtonMail using their new bridge application (only on Windows and macOS right now, Linux "coming soon")

https://protonmail.com/bridge

Oh my, yes, that’s a huge downside / nonstarter for me. Thank you.

I was about to switch in a couple of weeks, until I read your comment.

How would encrypted emails work in a client like Thunderbird? Would it normally be handled correctly if POP/IMAP was available?

This is the grand problem with email. At least two standards exist: PGP & SMIME

But... those aren’t particularly friendly and thus aren’t widely used. The main usability issue is a fundamental one, namely that management of crypto keys is hard.

Hearing that Protonmail requires their own client suggests to me that they’ve given up on the standards due to usability issues, and have instead adopted a managed key model like Apple’s iMessage.

iMessage is end-to-end encrypted, but Apple manages keys on your behalf. It’s not a bad compromise between privacy and usability depending on your threat model.

But, at this point I’m deeply suspicious of anything that isn’t standards based or that locks me into a particular vendor’s software. I’m therefore skeptical that we’ll satisfactorily solve email privacy for a majority of people in my lifetime.

EDIT: Thunderbird would work with Fastmail for encryption using PGP or SMIME (at least I think Thunderbird supports SMIME). Protonmail wouldn’t work, I’d guess.

> Thunderbird would work with Fastmail for encryption using PGP or SMIME (at least I think Thunderbird supports SMIME).

Thunderbird supports SMIME natively, just like most of email clients. But of course there are some usability issues, like you need to enable encryption each time per email, or require it for all emails, there is no middle ground like "encrypt if I have keys, do not encrypt otherwise".

The other issue is inability to search your mail's message bodies in the web/mobile app. This is due to the encryption...

Do you have a link to where you read that?

I like fastmail, you actually get enough space & email aliases for a reasonable price. In todays age of $5/month 1TB of storage, charging an extra 21 euro a month for 15GB more storage and more no cost email aliases is a bit silly.

I also like the [anything]@alias.domainname.com feature. Lets you separate out user accounts into unique email addresses, and you skip the username+[unique]@gmail.com filter that a lot of places have now.

And the fact you can host a simple static website on your domain is useful.

Hardly a choice for me, as it has exactly zero IPv6 support. Not to mention, that they haven't even bothered to enable HTTP/2.

Am I right that services like tutanota & protonmail don't support email migration? That's an extreme regression from standard email. Doesn't it make them largely useless except for burner account use?

Needs something like ProtonMail Bridge for Android, maybe integrated with ProtonVPN.