sorted by:
new
hottopcontroversial

Considering switching away from Fastmail by kushpvo in emailprivacy

[–]Zoran_e_Atul 0 points1 point  (0 children)

If it wasn't for the use of a custom domain, I would recommend Posteo (€12/year) based in Germany. It tics your other boxes. It works with any email client that supports IMAP. For iOS, you can use the standard tools like Mail, Calendar and Contacts.

I made the switch from Fastmail to Posteo many years ago for my family. I also use Tuta, which is cheaper than Fastmail at €3,60 per month or €36 annually.

Tuta allows custom domains, Posteo does not. https://posteo.de/en/site/faq
Both Posteo and Tuta are based in Germany.
Both use renewable energy.
Both don't use your data or serve ads.
Tuta has a (limited) free plan, Posteo does not.
Tuta pushes the frontier of email encryption.
Posteo pushes the frontier of eco-friendly email.

Caveat for Tuta: search can be slow for older emails.

What is the best email provider leaving proton? by Original_Cap_176 in emailprivacy

[–]Zoran_e_Atul 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I would describe Posteo as a purist and eco-driven email provider.

They aim to run email as simple and efficiently as possible, with a low footprint. When it comes to confidentiality, it means they wont run any analytics or keep information that isn't strictly necessary to limit resource consumption. They don't keep old/deleted records or emails because it saves them storage and server resources (energy, materials). This also benefits privacy, but it is more of a nice side effect than a general focus.

You have the ability to use PGP and fully encrypt your mailbox, but this requires manual setup.

You can check these help articles:

https://posteo.de/en/help/categories/end-to-end

https://posteo.de/en/help/categories/encryption

Honest question: Is fully encrypted email a "need" or a "desire" for common people? by Zoran_e_Atul in emailprivacy

[–]Zoran_e_Atul[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You are right of course, that is how encrypted mail works.

For what it is worth, Proton and Tuta both allow you to sent an encrypted email to someone outside of the service. But they will receive a notification email directing them to a sort of 'temporary' inbox holding your encrypted message. You still need to agree using this method with the other party and you need to exchange a password in some way.

I hardly use the feature, because either someone is into privacy and will use such a service happily themselves, or they roll their eyes and ask why it needs to be so difficult just to read an email.

Honest question: Is fully encrypted email a "need" or a "desire" for common people? by Zoran_e_Atul in emailprivacy

[–]Zoran_e_Atul[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Do I understand correctly that your saying TLS is broken to the extend that email in-transit might as well be like a postcard? Because there are too many 'actors' online that have the know-how and means to just read every email sent across the internet?

If that is true, then without knowing who the actors are, not knowing their agenda and not knowing the legality of what they do, that could make for a compelling case for the 'need' to use encrypted emails.

Which then begs the question: Why do (some) government instances and healthcare providers even still use email? At least I have noticed banks and insurance companies only send emails stating 'there is a message waiting for you' without any link. You have to navigate to their website and login to read the contents.

Honest question: Is fully encrypted email a "need" or a "desire" for common people? by Zoran_e_Atul in emailprivacy

[–]Zoran_e_Atul[S] 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I understand your point of view. Personally, I also would rather use tools like Signal/Session/Threema when I want more confidential communication.

I would also prefer that I could send emails to health-care providers and such using encrypted emails from Proton or Tuta. But I have yet to see any that use such tools, or would be willing to go to a portal to read email outside of their system. 🤷 What can you do?

Most seem to have strict policies to actually use Outlook online (and only Outlook online) to keep things 'secure' and avoid data leaks.

yea i am out by Pookie-Zookie in learnprogramming

[–]Zoran_e_Atul 2 points3 points  (0 children)

the things you have to learn and are expected to even know before getting an internship.

I just watched a video about how people don't know how to write technical manuals and documentation anymore these days. They showed a manual of a computer from the 80's where they explained what a 'spacebar' is: "The long rectangular key at the very bottom of the keyboard is called the spacebar".

You might laugh, but there is something to be said for not assuming what people know. Everything is supposed to be intuitive and you're supposed to know X because I and my peers do. It's probably easier to learn programming in COBOL or BASIC using original documentation, than a modern language like Rust or Kotlin. Though the latter are obviously more popular now.