Are private email providers worth it? (lemmy.zip)

submitted 1 week ago by notarobot@lemmy.zip to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

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I think I know the answer, bit maybe I'm missing something

Since proton only sends and receives encrypted emails to other proton accounts, that means that when you get or send an email to someone else, they have to send / receive unencrypted and there is no way for us to verify what they are doing. Right?

Also if most accounts are google Microsoft, they still get 90% of my emails. By switching to proton I think I've gained nothing, while losing convenience , added another trust point, and having two different companies have my data instead of just one

Proton drive, calendar and VPN I think are fine

Sorry for the poor syntax. I'm at work working on email related things, and this topic kept distracting me. I might correct it later

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[-] int32@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 1 week ago

the thing with proton is you don't really know that they're private and they pretty much always collaborate with the police and their android vpn app collects some data that it doesn't need to. I would suggest you:

don't use email, that's the ideal solution
use a provider like cock.li and send messages encrypted with pgp. this isn't ideal, pgp leaks a lot of data and cock.li gets sinkholed by most email providers.
use proton and encrypt emails with pgp, you have not much privacy but it's less worse than microsoft and not much convenience loss, except that proton doesn't allow email clients(at least if you don't pay), I don't know about ms).

[-] notarobot@lemmy.zip 3 points 1 week ago

I don't know how old are you or where you live, but for everyone I know it's non optional. My government requires an email. And for any site I want to use I require an email. Even Lemmy.

[-] int32@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 6 days ago

that's why I said 'ideal'...

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this post was submitted on 03 Sep 2025

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