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Ask Slashdot: Advice For a Yahoo Mail Refugee

Posted by msmash on from the what-would-you-do dept.

New submitter ma1wrbu5tr writes: Very shortly after the announcement of Verizon's acquisition of Yahoo, two things happened that caught my attention. First, I was sent an email that basically said "these are our new Terms of Service and if you don't agree to them, you have until June 8th to close your account". Subsequently, I noticed that when working in my mailbox via the browser, I kept seeing messages in the status bar saying "uploading..." and "upload complete". I understand that Y! has started advertising heavily in the webmail app but I find these "uploads" disturbing. I've since broken out a pop client and have downloaded 15 years worth of mail and am going through to ensure there are no other online accounts tied to that address. My question to slashdotters is this: "What paid or free secure email service do you recommend as a replacement and why?" I'm on the hunt for an email service that supports encryption, has a good Privacy Policy, and doesn't have a history of breaches or allowing snooping.

5 of 322 comments (clear)

  1. I use two by mhollis · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I use Apple for personal email. I have had a mac.com email address since Apple came out with it. Their current server name is "me.com" and Apple does not advertise in this service, as it is a paid-for service. It allows pop3 as well as IMAP.

    For professional email, I use gmail. Google does a great job of excising spam. It is advertiser-supported email, but I never use a web browser for my gmail account. Instead, I use the pop3 function. It propagates to my cell phone, my desktop and my tablet. When I delete something on my cell phone, it deletes on my tablet, but not on my desktop. For a free service, I do not think you can do any better than gmail.

    --
    Gods don't kill people, people with gods kill people.
  2. Gmail + Thunderbird by Snotnose · · Score: 2, Interesting

    I've got 2 gmail accounts (no, snotnose@gmal.com is not one of them). I connect to them via Thunderbird, which downloads the messages to my local hard drive. It's worked like a champ for some 8 years or so.

    1. Re:Gmail + Thunderbird by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Interesting

      Be careful, as Thunderbird DOWNLOADS all folders, emails, and attachments by default. Including your SPAM folder. One of our users had thunderbird and our AV system went nuts because it was downloading the trojan attachments to the spam emails.

      I did a little digging but there was not clear answer on stopping it from downloading attachments by default.

  3. Proton Mail by ControlsGeek · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Proton Mail is hosted in Switzerland has end to end encryption with Android and IOS app support and has withstood denial of service attacks from suspected state sponsored hacking.
      Just the fact that a state actor tried to take them down is a reason to consider them.

  4. Don't just get a mail provider. Get an address. by grnbrg · · Score: 5, Interesting

    You are already going through the pain of changing your address. Make sure you don't have to do it again some time in the future. Mail providers change policies or shut down, sometimes without warning.

    Go ahead, and pick a mail provider that you like. But also go out and buy a personal domain. You'll probably be able to find one you like for $10 per year, and you can find DNS providers that will do mail re-direction for free. Have a wildcard redirect set to send any email sent to the domain forwarded to the new mail address. Don't like the way the provider is now doing things? Get a new provider and email address, and change the redirect.