With Microsoft pushing New Outlook on everyone, I thought it was a good time to “shop around” for a new email client.
Mozilla Thunderbird still exists and is a thing. I’m not sure I like it. And then I remembered that there’s Postbox, and that’s quite nice.
But what do you use for either Mac or Windows or Linux?
Do you have any recommendations for Windows specifically?
Protonmail is probably what some others may suggest as well, works good, idk if its what your looking for though
Protonmail is marketing itself as privacy centric but truly, it is not. Just like Tutanota really.
All emails, at the stage when they are either sent or received, without being PGP encrypted, can be read by the Protonmail employees. Only once they are stored in your mailbox, they get encrypted.
Which is to say, one could use any IMAP email provider and achieve about the same by encrypting emails with PGP. Added bonus? If the Protonmail interface gets hacked, hackers could easily get the key to decrypt your emails. Using Thunderbird, the key to decrypt is not the same as the one to access the mailbox.
I personally use Thunderbird, and recommend it strongly.
I like Proton. There’s less privacy when your recipient is non-Proton such as Gmail or Yahoo, so in those situations just be careful what you write. But when sending to another Proton user, it uses public key cryptography, so an email can only be decrypted and read by someone holding the private key that matches the recipients public key.
Mutt, for the client.
Protonmail for the provider.
I use:
ProtonMail
Skiff
Gmail
I would like Protonmail users to take a moment to think at how it has a security design that provides a false sense of privacy. A bit like Telegram.
Telegram is considered by many (many!) as a secure instant messaging platform, just like Protonmail. The problem is that, in both cases, the privacy offered is generally rarely actually used. How many of your Telegram conversations have encryption enabled? What percentage of your emails is between protonmail users (where privacy is actual enabled)?
In both cases, it gives a very false sense of privacy to users. For that reason, I would not use either tool whenever it can be avoided. Not to put my communication at risk, but also not to be part of making the network effect around those product, stronger.
Email is not private by default, and any privacy that is built on top, is generally weak to very weak.
My recommendation is to have emails hosted by a reputable organization, within a country with strong privacy rights. Mailbox.org or Hetzner.com are good, but there are others just as good.
Need privacy? Don’t use email. Matrix, to me, is the best protocol when weighting actual privacy, usability, etc. Signal is the easiest (con: phone number required). Session is the most decentralized (con: not personally sure how reliable or secure). If you must use email where privacy is required, use PGP where you control the keys.
Anyway, just my two zats. Just like sunscreen, best encryption is the one you actually use.