I went with Posteo and have been happy with it. The only meaningful advantage of Tutanova and Proton that I'm aware of is the encryption, but that only works if the person you're communicating with also uses their service, so I figure what's the point? I've also heard of various problems people have had with with both of them. And, at least at the time I checked, you had to use a browser or electron interface to access them though their own UI. With Posteo I added the account to Thunderbird and I access it through SMTP via TB's mechanisms (e.g. auto-checking every X minutes and popping up a system notification when there's a new email) just like with my other email account.

I stand by the idea that Proton is a great option for most people. Having a convenient option like that is exactly what the average person needs in order to stick with their privacy journey, and I believe that those that don't understand or pay attention to privacy tech are those that need it most.

Having said that I much prefer Tuta. The main reason being that they allow for complete anonymity, and proton doesn't. Tuta allows you to sign up while using Tor, so you don't have to trust that they don't log your IP. They also allow payment through Monero or even by mailing them cash. Users have asked Proton for those features for years but they refuse. That doesn't immediately make them a honeypot, but it does mean that they're just not for me.

Trustless and anonymous systems give me more faith than "we're a good company, you can trust us... at least for now". Like I said Proton is great for people that aren't in the weeds of this stuff and just want easy tech that works, but Tuta seems like the better option for more dedicated privacy enjoyers

I went with Tutanota and though I am fine with the service as such, one thing that bugs me is.. Behold... The encryption!

It is pretty safe I guess but limited to other users (of whom I know none) and since they wont let me use pgp as a fallback I am down to preshared passwords. Thats annoying!

Tuta doesn't ask for phone number

Re: Proton

Proton CEO Andy Yen praised the Republican Party in a post on X, declaring that “10 years ago, Republicans were the party of big business and Dems stood for the little guys, but today the tables have completely turned.”

https://x.com/andyyen/status/1864436449942110660

https://theintercept.com/2025/01/28/proton-mail-andy-yen-trump-republicans/

EDIT: However, he donates to Liberal causes, who knows maybe he was signalling to the Trump admin like 95% of businesses