Please recommend a private and secure email client

jpaul · 25 Jun 2018 at 10:05

Kol said:
I don't get your confusion; you've not answered what is a very simple question. Where is the reasoning behind the conclusion to 'move away from gmail' ? I don't see anything that helps any of us in this thread. We have one user's opinion so far and an irrelevant quote... ?

'move away from gmail' was a last month thread title in this s/w forum, which had a similar requirement

dowie · 25 Jun 2018 at 11:52

It does seem odd, I'd trust google with security more than some small hosting company say.

The paranoia with regards to google seems to revolve around the fact they will use your data to target you with more useful adverts.... the horror.

Undesirable · 25 Jun 2018 at 16:01

No ads are useful to me, so there's no reason for my data to be collected for that purpose. I've switched to ProtonMail and recommended it to all my friends and family. Goodbye telemetry ********; now I await an alternative OS to Windows that can play all the games that it can.

Vince · 25 Jun 2018 at 16:11

Cromulent said:
Outlook 2016 (not sure about earlier versions) lets you send encrypted emails which should satisfy your privacy worries. The only problem is you need to have either an Exchange Online account or an Office 365 account.

You can always manually encrypt your emails if you use a decent email client using GnuPG and that will work with any email provider. The only problem is you need to exchange public keys with everyone you want to send encrypted email to otherwise they won't be able to decrypt them. While encrypting emails is the ultimate form of email privacy it is also the hardest to implement because everyone needs to make public / private key pair and you need to share around public keys. Most people end up using key servers for that.

Edit: You can use Gmail and encrypt all of your emails. It just matters what email client you use not the email provider. If the emails are encrypted by your client, Google won't be able to read them as they will be encrypted before they even reach Googles servers.

Not strictly true, over and above TLS you can set up s/mime without 365/outlook online using any version of exchange post 2003 and also any outlook client from 2003 upwards. All you need to do is set up a local Certification Authority alongside directory services to deal with enrolment/revoking certificates, there are also 3rd party S/Mime certification services available if your not up to getting down and dirty, although this config is a pain in the arse to configure you can run it on premise and it isn't exactly rocket science - I know this because, well... I set it up and run/maintain s/mime here for secure communications where TLS is not enough, this is actually the case for a lot of our tech focused clients.

Having a certification authority and the ability to roll out certification over a GPO with auto enrolment does take out any overheads later on after the initial config, it also costs nothing other than an ssl cert, so what £130 or so for 5 years. So yea, to answer the question, there isn't much more secure than a properly configured, on premises Exchange box with TLS & S/MIME, Perhaps even something like message labs in front for your filtering and continuity.

TacticalFish · 25 Jun 2018 at 17:03

dowie said:
It does seem odd, I'd trust google with security more than some small hosting company say.

The paranoia with regards to google seems to revolve around the fact they will use your data to target you with more useful adverts.... the horror.

And that's only with the free personal version, G Apps for Work doesn't.

jpaul · 25 Jun 2018 at 18:08

The paranoia with regards to google seems to revolve around the fact they will use your data to target you with more useful adverts.... the horror.

do google explicitly say they would not harvest your customers email address and then target them with useful adverts too, by association ? (like facebook polemic)

Kol · 25 Jun 2018 at 18:12

jpaul said:
do google explicitly say they would not harvest your customers email address and then target them with useful adverts too, by association ? (like facebook polemic)

That's with the free version, the OP is asking about the paid Google apps for work version as he has his own domain, so it's irrelevant to this thread.

The Tourist · 26 Jun 2018 at 15:45

Thanks everyone for your replies. Just to clarify I'm looking specifically for an email client/reader as I've already paid for email hosting.

I found the 'Move away from Gmail' thread which was an informative read. Looks like the following options seem the most popular:

Protonmail
Fastmail
Bluemail
G suite
Posteo

However that thread is over a year and a half old now so I'd like to know if people still find the options listed as good for them.

Deleted member 77746 · 26 Jun 2018 at 19:37

The Tourist said:
However that thread is over a year and a half old now so I'd like to know if people still find the options listed as good for them.

All of the clients are good. Don't worry about people using your data. Just stick with one and learn it.

The Tourist · 26 Jun 2018 at 21:31

mrbell1984 said:
Don't worry about people using your data. Just stick with one and learn it.

okay....

Glanza · 27 Jun 2018 at 09:21

I use Protonmail, moved my domain over to them and imported previous emails, been working fine since I switched (today is the exception as they are currently suffering from a DDOS attack)

The Tourist · 27 Jun 2018 at 19:59

Glanza said:
I use Protonmail, moved my domain over to them and imported previous emails, been working fine since I switched (today is the exception as they are currently suffering from a DDOS attack)

oh dear... hope your data stays safe. By the way, do you use protonVPN as well? If so, how are you finding it?

Glanza · 28 Jun 2018 at 08:44

The Tourist said:
oh dear... hope your data stays safe. By the way, do you use protonVPN as well? If so, how are you finding it?

Data is still safe even if there is a breach they can't get anything that would tie to someone, DDOS in the past that's been done against Protonmail is due to hackers trying to extort money from them.

I don't currently use the VPN software.

afraser2k · 30 Jun 2018 at 11:19

The Tourist said:
Thanks everyone for your replies. Just to clarify I'm looking specifically for an email client/reader as I've already paid for email hosting.

I found the 'Move away from Gmail' thread which was an informative read. Looks like the following options seem the most popular:

Protonmail
Fastmail
Bluemail
G suite
Posteo

However that thread is over a year and a half old now so I'd like to know if people still find the options listed as good for them.

Thunderbird or ClawsMail for the client. However, you might want to look at contacts and calendar provision for various hosts you've mentioned.

Personally I'm using Runbox through Outlook. For the paranoid there's https://www.privacytools.io/ who have a collection of privacy tools and recommended hosts.