ProtonMail
EMAIL WITH AN EMPHASIS ON SECURITY AND PRIVACY.
SIGNING UP WITH an email provider will often involve some privacy compromises. Yahoo Mail asks for your name and mobile number, for instance.
ProtonMail is a Swiss-based email service which focuses on privacy above all else. You can sign up anonymously, there’s no logging of IP addresses, and all your emails are end-to-end encrypted, which means there’s no way ProtonMail (or anyone else) can read their contents. Also, address verification (which allows you to be sure you are securely communicating with the right person) and full support for PGP email encryption is available.
There are some significant limits, however. The free product has a tiny 500MB storage space, only supports sending 150 messages a day, and is distinctly short in terms of organisational tools (no folders, labels, or smart filters). As the end-to-end encryption is specific to ProtonMail, it also ensures that you can’t use the service with other email clients.
Still, it seems a little unfair to complain about a service which is no-strings-attached free, and doesn’t even show ads. In reality, ProtonMail is a specialist tool which is intended for use alongside services like Gmail – not to replace them – and overall it performs its core tasks very well.
If you do need more, ProtonMail’s US$5 a month (or US$48 yearly) Plus account gives you 5GB storage, a 1,000 message-per-day allowance, custom domains (you@yourdomain.com) and support for folders, labels, filters as well as some addition features like contact groups.
A further Business plan brings more storage, email addresses and a second custom domain, as well as adding a catch-all email address and multi-user support.