Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?

#1

Post by egonschiele » Mon, Sep 24, 2018, 2:16 AM UTC

With the recent thread on privacy in Chrome, I'm thinking of switching off Gmail. What email service is best for privacy? Or if you self-host, what email client do you like best?

Re: Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?

#2

Post by wchris » Mon, Sep 24, 2018, 2:23 AM UTC

Check protonmail.com and tutanota.de as alternatives

Re: Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?

#3

Post by kashosoft » Mon, Sep 24, 2018, 2:30 AM UTC

Check protonmail.com

Re: Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?

#4

Post by RandomGuyDTB » Mon, Sep 24, 2018, 2:37 AM UTC

ProtonMail. Definitely ProtonMail. You can live off it for free as long as you delete old stuff but paying better for I think $5 a month (maybe more or less). Free is perfectly adequate for me personally though, I made the switch a couple months ago and haven't looked back. Might wanna set up auto forwarding though: https://support.google.com/mail/answer/10957?hl=en

Re: Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?

#5

Post by greenyoda » Mon, Sep 24, 2018, 2:42 AM UTC

I've been very happy with Fastmail.

Re: Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?

#6

Post by lamlam » Mon, Sep 24, 2018, 3:55 AM UTC

I like fastmail personally because aside from being a fast experience, I like their well written guides and articles. It helps me set stuff up without feeling like I'm just following instructions and helps me understand what I'm doing and why I'm doing it.

Re: Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?

#7

Post by technion » Mon, Sep 24, 2018, 4:00 AM UTC

I purchase Office through Office 365, so Exchange Online is just about free at that point.

It runs a lot of the enterprise and I think it's been quite underrated in a lot of the Gmail discussions here.

Re: Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?

#8

Post by kerng » Mon, Sep 24, 2018, 4:01 AM UTC

I still have a hotmail account from like 20 years ago and like it. Good thing is you can convert it to an @outlook.com alias if wanted, as that might look cooler. But I don't mind the hotmail name. Who knows, maybe one day it might be cool again. I pretty much skipped gmail entirely because of the personalized ad business. I also have a protonmail account which is good, but am not using it as much.

Re: Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?

#9

Post by peatmoss » Mon, Sep 24, 2018, 4:06 AM UTC

Most important thing is to buy a domain so you can port your email address from provider to provider. I’ve had the same email address and several hosts over the years.

I’m currently on Fastmail and find the service good.

Re: Ask HN: Best alternative to Gmail?

#10

Post by _lbaq » Mon, Sep 24, 2018, 4:15 AM UTC

Fastmail have worked great for me and my family, mail, calendar and contacts just like gmail.