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Ik.me: a free email address for life developed and hosted in Switzerland

infomaniak.com

151–157 of 157 posts

Re: Ik.me: a free email address for life developed and hosted in Switzerland

#151

Folks - pay $5/month for Fastmail, Migadu, ProtonMail, or self host + your own domain name. Companies like this come and go, it’s a good chance you’ll still own the domain name. There is no such thing as free. They’ll nag you for hosting on their site. UI will degrade over time. Something will give, if not now, at some point in the future. Lifetime is a bold claim. I’m being cynical but this smells like an attempt to…

also inbox.eu will not go away any time soon. we are 22 year old e-mail provider :)

we have enabled web authentication recently for mailboxes so You can now login without password

Re: Ik.me: a free email address for life developed and hosted in Switzerland

#152
post #16

Mmm, "privacy-friendly". It asks for a phone number (it's mandatory during sign up), which can only be obtained with an official ID...

as an e-mail hosting provider myself asking for phone validation is one of the most effective tools against spammers which use company I work for infrastrucure to spread their spam

Re: Ik.me: a free email address for life developed and hosted in Switzerland

#153
post #124
post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> You have been mislead by Posteo intentionally it seems. I don't like such tone. TL;DR I didn't verify how Posteo's TOTP works. FWIW, I've never used Posteo; I have some German friends who are happy with it. I'm staying local, using Soverin as my primary e-mail provider. The reason for using a token for authorization is that the user can revoke the token (e.g. when device is lost), instead of having to change their…

> I don't like such tone. Corrected, not intention to make a "tone", just pointing out that information is intentionally omitted. > Its perfectly possible to get IMAP to work with TOTP Yes, but that's not available in generally available email clients. There are OTP extensions to IMAP. > I don't trust webmail at all because I don't audit the JavaScript This. We are working on one that uses no JS or just conditinaly f…

> Corrected, not intention to make a "tone", just pointing out that information is intentionally omitted.

Cheers.

It seems we agree on a lot of things (though I believe 6 char is a bit on the low end for a password).

> Yes, but that's not available in generally available email clients. There are OTP extensions to IMAP.

With regards to TOTP, if IMAP server can auth via PAM, then you can use a TOTP extension in PAM (OATH IIRC). It does mean the user cannot auto refresh their e-mail as they'd need to enter the TOTP after a timeout again. If you combine that with the fact that people often use TOTP client such as Google Authenticator on their smartphone, then it doesn't make their smartphone with e-mail client more secure. It would, however, allow a user to use a YubiKey as authentication method.

Re: Ik.me: a free email address for life developed and hosted in Switzerland

#154

Is there a https://killedbygoogle.com/ equivalent for startups that promised 'forever'/'lifetime' service and then shut down a few years later?

I'm not aware of one, but here is one for startups that get bought out, promise nothing is going to change, then it does: https://ourincrediblejourney.tumblr.com/

Re: Ik.me: a free email address for life developed and hosted in Switzerland

#155
post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would advise everyone to stay away from services that also provide and allow use of an email address on their (provider) domains i.e. user-name@service-provider.tld (e.g. name@mailbox.org) but don't have any free tier (even the bare minimum). So the moment you stop paying you are cut off and if you had been using email on their domain you might be less inclined to migrate away even if better competitors are around…

AFAIK you can use a custom domain with mailbox.org.

Exactly paying for your domain name is the safest way how to "own" email. I wouldn't expect people to use email without owning domain. What happens when your service of choice ends or changes rules?

Re: Ik.me: a free email address for life developed and hosted in Switzerland

#156
post #128
post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Also german ones mailbox.org, posteo, tutanota and norwegian runbox. Mailbox has been around since early 90s ive been happy user for a longtime. You make good point that Swiss (German also) laws should protect your privacy more than US laws. That includes fastmail and icloud.

I advice against tutanota. I was surpised to learn that they try to scam customers into paying for longer than was intended. They refuse to accept cancellations of their paid premium services for when the paid for duration ends. They insist you to login the day the duration ends to switch to the free mode. If you miss the date (by not much), they say they'll cancel and reimburse you. The intent of this scam is clear,…

Sorry i had no experience with tutanota. I just mentioned some providers. I have only experience with mailbox and runbox which both were no issues.

Re: Ik.me: a free email address for life developed and hosted in Switzerland

#157
post #114

Does anyone know of a free disposable SMS site which has Swiss phone number? I would really like one of these email addresses but don't have a Swiss number and they are forcing this privacy-hostile restriction on us.

Swiss phone numbers require ID/residency, including VoIP. Several VoIP sites state "The customer can either apply for a new number with the desired prefix or transfer an existing telephone number. Swiss telephone numbers are reserved exclusively for users with verifiable domicile in Switzerland."

It is extremely hostile, yes.

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