With the increasing amount of cyber attacks infecting computers through email clients, it is more important than ever nowadays to have proper software that can protect your virtual messages. Yet as with pretty much everything else these days, nothing is truly free and secure email clients are certainly not out of the equation in this regard. Having said that, the reason why you don’t pay a dime for any of the big three email clients – Gmail, Yahoo Mail and Hotmail – is because you end up paying in another way: with your private data. Whatever you do on your personal email should remain private, but with each of these three your sent, received and even deleted messages – along with many other details – are packed and sold to the highest bidder instead. This is typically for targeted advertisements and in truth it has been quite a common practice for a long time, mostly because few people seem to care too much about the issue. But for those who do, there are some good alternatives available on the market, although the majority of them require payment. However, these examples are not too expensive, and they usually provide a free trial to test things out first.
Best Secure Emails of 2024
StartMail
First things first: here’s StartMail, brought to you by the same folk that developed StartPage, one of the entries on our list of the best private and anonymous search engines. The motto of this email client is similar to the company’s search engine, too, providing a remarkable email service with a particular emphasis on security. To begin with, StartMail’s service is protected by Dutch privacy laws, and the Netherlands has some of the strongest online privacy rules. More than that, even, the company promises that it won’t read your email, even adding PGP (Pretty Good Privacy) encryption – a feature that allows you to encrypt your email and send it to your friend that is using a regular email client, requiring them to first answer a security question in order to read your email. StartMail costs $59.95 per year ($4.99 per month) including 10GB email storage and additional features, but there is also a free trial that is valid for seven days.
Posteo
Next up is Posteo, which is more than a simple email client since it also delivers self-financed and ad-free calendar and address book features. Founded in 2009, Posteo is also based in Europe, developed by a German company based in Berlin. However, one of the biggest curiosities is that the company is focused entirely on being green and sustainable, and even works with Greenpeace Energy, which is quite unusual these days. But focusing on the email client itself, with Posteo you have access to a 2GB storage mailbox that can be increased up to 20GB, includes spam and virus filters, is compatible with smartphones, tablets and PCs using IMAP and, most of all, has a two-factor authentication and TLS encryption that you can turn on with a single click to fully protect all your emails. Posteo also works 100% with open-source software and does not use tracking tools to spy on you. And the best of all this is the pricing, which is only €1 (approximately $1.1) per month and although there’s no free trial you can ask for your money back within 14 days after creating your account.
Hushmail
Hushmail is one of the first end-to-end encrypted email services ever created, having first seen daylight as far back as 1999. The primary focus of this Canadian company is to deliver a simple email client suitable for both personal and business users with the added benefit of extensive protection thanks to the use of the automatic OpenPGP encryption that is always turned on. In addition to this, Hushmail also ensures that all communications between you and the company’s servers are under a SSL/TLS secure connection. Likewise, you can send encrypted emails to whoever you like including those who use common clients, although in these cases you’ll have to enter a question for your contact to answer so that they are able to read and reply to your message. Hushmail is available for every device including for iPhone via a native app and has support for desktop and smartphone email applications, too, so you can take your encrypted communications anywhere with you. A Hushmail mailbox has a 10GB capacity and is priced at $49.98 per year for a Premium account, but note that there’s also a 14-day free trial.
Tutanota
After a small detour we return to Germany, only this time to Hannover where we’ll find Tutanota, a secure email client that is so much more than a funny name. Actually, the name of the company is derived from the Latin words “tuta” and “nota” which mean “secure message”. Curiosities apart, Tutanota is a pretty decent service since all emails are protected at all times, as its end-to-end encryption is automatic and doesn’t require any further action from you. The company aims for delivering a simple service with no unnecessary features and, that being the case, there are no fingers to point at our German friends. In addition you can access your mailbox from any device, even Android and iOS smartphones and tablets via native mobile apps. A Premium account costs only €1 per month when billed yearly or €1.20 ($1.31) if paid monthly and provides customization features, a 1GB mailbox, five aliases and much more. It’s also possible to expand your mailbox up to 1TB as well as increase the number of aliases to 100 depending on how much you’re willing to spend. However, if you only want a Tutanota account for private use, then you might want to use the free account for an unlimited amount of time, though the range of options here is a bit smaller obviously.
ProtonMail
Last but not least is ProtonMail, yet another ‘old friend’ of ours after we already dedicated part of an article to it and other privacy-oriented tools. ProtonMail is headquartered in Switzerland, one of the safest countries regarding… well, pretty much everything. The company runs the code open source and delivers a simple, minimalist and easy to use service in which all your emails are secured automatically with end-to-end encryption. In fact, ProtonMail assures that not even the company itself can decrypt and read them. In addition, you are not required to provide any personal information when creating an account and, in the same measure, the company keeps no logs of your visits. Much like other competitors, ProtonMail makes sure you can use their services for free and forever, albeit limiting them quite a bit in each of the platforms available (computers and mobile). However, when opting for a paid account you will have access to a 5GB storage capacity, ability to create your own domain, up to five email aliases and much more. But the best news is that all this comes for the price of $4.00 per month, which is billed at $48.00 annually.
Best VPN Services of 2024
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Editor's Choice 2024
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