E-mail service that respects privacy?

[BarfBag]

I switched from Google to DuckDuckGo, and I'm looking to get away from Gmail. Does anybody know of an e-mail service that respects privacy, much like DuckDuckGo does with it's search engine? I've searched and searched and I can't seem to find anything.

[Ms. Daisy]

hushmail?

[MisterGaribaldi]

Fundamentally, there's no such thing as what you're looking for.

Even if a given provider of a service does not and has no plans to exploit you or to provide any kind of access to your email, just wait until they're served with a court order. NOBODY is willing to go to jail for your email privacy. Or, just wait until they're bought up by someone else.

You want "private" email? Use PGP or some similar encryption technology. That's the closest thing to "private" you're going to get in the digital medium. And even then *everything* is crackable if you have enough firepower and enough time.

[lei00]

I use Lavabit.
It's quite confidential :
http://lavabit.com/

[lisati]

Short of encrypting your email, which can be a nuisance when you're communicating with people not clued up on such things, I don't think any provider can guarantee 100% privacy.

For example, on my own private email server, I might have all the best tools and procedures in place to prevent unwanted access, but if I fail to use them properly, or (perish the thought) if I allow physical access to the hardware, there's still a possibility that someone might get lucky, break in, and start doing something that they shouldn't. Believe me, people HAVE tried, and they have been noticed before they could do any harm!

[BarfBag]

I use Lavabit.
It's quite confidential :
http://lavabit.com/

This looks promising!

[kurt18947]

I use Lavabit.
It's quite confidential :
http://lavabit.com/

+1 on Lavabit. The webmail interface is pretty spartan but I use it mostly with Thunderbird. If you also use Thunderbird, all you have to supply are user name and password. Thunderbird will do the configuration automagically. I did find some negative reviews but they sorta seemed like someone spreading FUD. I have found Lavabit's service excellent. If I need web hosting they'll be near the top of my list, I think.

[MisterGaribaldi]

Lavabit is a joke. 128MB max/message? 8192MB max/mailbox? No IMAP? Seriously? This is 2012, not 1999.

And even if those ridiculous limitations weren't present, how does using them instead of Google make any difference? You're still fundamentally insecure, and you're still using a 3rd party to handle email functions for you. If... *if* I were to switch away from Gmail, I would have to switch to me providing my own email capability on my own personal home-based server. And I'm not going to do that for several reasons, none the least of which are that my ISP won't allow it, and I want my stuff backed up off-site.

[Peripheral Visionary]

gmx.com (http://gmx.com) is a free IMAP/POP3 service that lets me use Seamonkey or Thunderbird and works well for personal e-mail. The only thing is it limits the number of people you can send the same message to. But I rarely ever send out "mass mailings" to that many people anywayz.

[eyeofliberty]

Lavabit is good, and they do offer IMAP support. However, Riseup is even better:

https://riseup.net/en

Just add encryption, and you're solid.

[Bachstelze]

And even then *everything* is crackable if you have enough firepower and enough time.

No one is going to use their time and firepower to crack your email if they really want to.

http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/security.png

I'm not going to comment on the rest of what you said, lest I end up like this (http://imgs.xkcd.com/comics/duty_calls.png), but I'll just say it's a bunch of nonsense.

[Irihapeti]

You better be sure that all your friends and contacts respect privacy and don't forward your emails, or all your efforts are a waste of time.

If you want it to be private, don't say it.

[bailout]

The OP hasn't really said what sort of privacy he wants. Does he want an encrypted service because of the content of his emails or does he just want a service that isn't mining his email/contacts/web history etc etc and selling the proceeds.

[Colo2]

How about buying a domain name? barfbag.biz :P host it on your own PC, run a SMTP & IMAP server on there, and use that? Surely no one can intrude on that.

[Dry Lips]

+1 on Lavabit. Best privacy policy I've ever seen for a free service. However, if you want the asymmetric encryption, you'll have to sign up for their premium accounts.

I recommend getting the personal account that gives you 1GB of storage. There is a single line of text ads displayed in the end of incoming messages, but I've never found those annoying in any way.

Sure, Lavabit cannot afford giving out "unlimited storage" like some providers do, so if you want a place to store large files, then sign up for Google, or Yahoo Mail, or even Dropbox...

@bailout:
Lavabit would be a nice solution in both of those cases. They don't harvest your data, and they provide server side encryption as well. (If you pay for it, that is)

A free Lavabit account + Thunderbird/Enigmail is a win/win situation. :)

[Dry Lips]

How about buying a domain name? barfbag.biz :P host it on your own PC, run a SMTP & IMAP server on there, and use that? Surely no one can intrude on that.

You ought to know what you're doing when you set up a mail server. It's nothing like hosting a website from home. If your server gets compromised, you'll find yourself in big trouble.

[Colo2]

Fair enough. I knew it was possible, but I don't know anything about it... Ignore my suggestion :P

[Dry Lips]

Fair enough. I knew it was possible, but I don't know anything about it... Ignore my suggestion :P

I'm not necessarily saying that it is a bad idea, I'm just pointing out that you ought to know how to secure your server properly before attempting this ;)

[kurt18947]

Lavabit is a joke. 128MB max/message? 8192MB max/mailbox? No IMAP? Seriously? This is 2012, not 1999.

And even if those ridiculous limitations weren't present, how does using them instead of Google make any difference? You're still fundamentally insecure, and you're still using a 3rd party to handle email functions for you. If... *if* I were to switch away from Gmail, I would have to switch to me providing my own email capability on my own personal home-based server. And I'm not going to do that for several reasons, none the least of which are that my ISP won't allow it, and I want my stuff backed up off-site.

IMAP does work on Lavabit, I'm using it. For me, attachment size is seldom limiting. YMMV I guess. If I needed to move or share large files via the interwebz, I'd probably look at dropbox, spideroak or something along those lines.

[nll]

I'm using Lavabit + Thunderbird, and I have no complains. I find it a really great service.

[aysiu]

does he just want a service that isn't mining his email/contacts/web history etc etc and selling the proceeds. I don't know any service that does this. Gmail certainly doesn't.

This is what Google does:

Its software automatically scans the contents of messages for keywords. Then it uses those keywords to serve up what it considers to be relevant ads.

This is what Google doesn't do:

There are Google employees who read your emails and laugh at you. Then they make zip files of your personally information that they then send on to advertisers.

It's important from an end user's standpoint to recognize that there's almost no point to being worried about the latter scenario, for the following reasons: Google employees are busy doing other things. They don't have time to snoop into your personal emails. Advertisers don't care about individual personal information. They care about aggregates and demographics. They also don't have time to look at individual profiles of ad viewers. If it was discovered Google was giving individual personal information to advertisers, nobody would use Google's products. Note that none of my reasons listed here have anything to do with altruism. Strictly from a business standpoint, there's no reason for them to be "mining" data to "sell[] the proceeds."

Healthy, informed skepticism is good. Blind paranoia is useless.

[Colo2]

When you see ads appear on the right of your page relative to what you're e-mails, Google's technology has picked up key words, and used them as tags to display relative ads. No one is physically checking what you're typing to throw ads into your face.

- Tom