The premise here is thatservices such as gmail or outlook don't respect the privacy of their customers. Can someone point me to an actual case where gmail for business (using gsuite) or outlook haven't respected their privacy engagement ? Or a serious report on that matter ? thanks.
Ask HN: Self Hosted vs. Gmail / Outlook?
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Re: Ask HN: Self Hosted vs. Gmail / Outlook?
#32You may want to consider German-based Tutanota (https://tutanota.com) who uses open-source cryptography, rather than some alternatives such as Swiss-based ProtonMail who use a combination of open-source and proprietary closed-source cryptography.
Failing that, head on over to https://privacytoolsio.github.io/privacytools.io/ and check out alternatives and other related information.
Re: Ask HN: Self Hosted vs. Gmail / Outlook?
#33Use a paid service. I use Fastmail. It baffles me every day, how HN is obsessed with Gmail as if there was no alternative and are willing to trade a minor improvement in comfort over having every email read, analyzed, indexed, profiled and put into the Ad machine. I'm also surprised that so many people use the web client and not a native client with IMAP.
I agree with noja, fastmail is pretty popular on HN.
Nonetheless, I use it as well and I'm very happy with them. The Android client is sometimes a little weird, but mostly it works and you can always use one of the many IMAP clients if you want. And I prefer their webinterface over google's
Re: Ask HN: Self Hosted vs. Gmail / Outlook?
#34I'm using gmail for my daily use and tried maintaining my own server and it was too much effort.
I'm a little bit worried what happens when gmail is blocking my account for whatever reasons, but if, i would create a second own managed mail address only for accounts.
Re: Ask HN: Self Hosted vs. Gmail / Outlook?
#35If you're worried about privacy, I hope all your contacts use GPG. Practically none of my contacts know how to use that. Practically all of my contacts use Gmail and Outlook.com. That means all of my emails will end up in Google and Microsofts hands anyway. I'm sure they will build shadow profiles on me (especially since I'm a former customer, using the same domain alias on my new host as I did with them). That being…
I found that mailcow is a bit too heavy on the requirements. Instead I've started using mailcow (https://mailcow.email/) which runs a mail server in docker.
It's a bit less of a hassle to actually start up and keep maintained.
Re: Ask HN: Self Hosted vs. Gmail / Outlook?
#36After years of self-hosting I finally switched to https://protonmail.com and I'm much happier for it.
Self-hosting is still possible nowadays but email delivery is an uphill battle. You can expect to write several major email providers to remove you from their blacklists even if your address and domain reputation is good.
VPS privacy and security is questionable and dedicated servers are usually expensive. Hosting SMTP from home is virtually impossible without a VPN to a "proper" IP.
Are you willing to spend the time to update all parts of your infrastructure on a regular basis? Are you certain you will keep up to date on recommended ciphers and protocols?
How is your data going to be secured at rest? If it's encrypted, how are you going to provide the keys during unexpected reboots?
If you want push notifications, synchronized calendars, contacts and notes you will need to add another layer of complexity to your setup.
Critics of Protonmail and similar will point out that browser based encryption is a weakness, however that doesn't change the fact that it is a major step in the right direction. The battle for privacy is fought in depth, not absolutes.
Protonmail is hosted in a Swiss datacenter, run by a Swiss company under strict data protection laws. They offer a free tier and a paid one for your own domains.
If you still want to go the self hosted route iRedMail and Mailinabox both work well. Sovereign runs too many services - it should really be split into VMs or containers.
Re: Ask HN: Self Hosted vs. Gmail / Outlook?
#37If you care about privacy _and_ freedom, check out Kolab Now. https://kolabnow.com/
Can someone share their experience with Kolab Now? I'm almost convinced but still have some doubts. What about them versus Fastmail? Fastmail is USA based entity so has their own cons. What about customer service if something go wrong? Can we report bugs somewhere etc.
I'm not planning to hide from Mossad or NSA, but have some above average quality and privacy service, not funded by bulk selling my data.
Re: Ask HN: Self Hosted vs. Gmail / Outlook?
#38If you care about privacy _and_ freedom, check out Kolab Now. https://kolabnow.com/
Can someone share their experience with Kolab Now? I'm almost convinced but still have some doubts. What about them versus Fastmail? Fastmail is USA based entity so has their own cons. What about customer service if something go wrong? Can we report bugs somewhere etc. I'm not planning to hide from Mossad or NSA, but have some above average quality and privacy service, not funded by bulk selling my data.
I've been using Kolab for personal mail for a few years. No complaints, but no raving reviews either. There is downtime for a few hours once or twice a year, but I haven't missed any emails or anything that I know about.
It's amazing how little storage, features, uptime, spam filtering, integration, etc you get for your money when you move away from Gmail! But servers and engineers aren't free, and I'm happy to pay for things I depend on (more people should realize this!).
Re: Ask HN: Self Hosted vs. Gmail / Outlook?
#39If you're concerned about privacy, don't use a free service. Pay for it and the privacy concern usually goes away. If you specifically concerned with US laws go German: https://posteo.de/ is a good one to consider.
How exactly do privacy concerns "go away" when you start paying? Your email is still readable by a third party. On the other hand, I can see trusting a paid provider more for reasons of stability, level of support (in case, say, I lose access to my account), and continued development (the Gmail webclient has been relatively stagnant for a while now).
It may be readable by them but their life (as a business) does not depend on the content of your conversations. That's a big difference.
Re: Ask HN: Self Hosted vs. Gmail / Outlook?
#40I can highly recommend Mail-in-a-Box [1], especially if you're looking for a solution that is secure, easy to install, and doesn't require any fiddling. You can host it on a cheap VPS for $5 a month and it'll happily chug along without any problems.
Deliverability will only be an issue if you land up on an IP address that was previously abused, so it may be worth checking out the IP address reputation on DNSBL [2] before setting up Mail-in-a-Box.
Make sure you configure an SPF record for the server's IP address, and then also set up DKIM and SPF. I have yet to see any deliverability issues using this setup.