A while ago, when one of the Proton CEOs made some questionable statements, I terminated my Proton subscription. I liked Proton, having all the services I need in one place was nice and I wasn’t sure whether I’d actually leave and had a year already paid left.
I thought about at least leaving my mail there, but 4-5€ / month just for mail isn’t worth it in my opinion. And I’m very pissed that mail-forwarding and IMAP are premium features, something I probably should’ve found out way earlier. They want to lock me in, which is a dealbreaker for me.
So with that in mind, does someone know a fitting alternative? I’d of course still prefer a privacy-focused service and would be fine paying <= 2€.
€: Bonuspoints if there are no “special discounts” (discounts for commiting to a longer subscription are fine, what i mean is special deals for new customers or black friday deals, stuff like that)
€€: Going to give mailbox a shot, thanks everyone!
As one other already mentioned, i would think about getting your own domain and using it with e.g. mailbox.org. That way you become less dependent on the provider, if you wanted to switch in the future.
+1 for mailbox.org, been using them for nearly a year and am quite happy with their service. Do note that their web UI is mediocre so you’ll probably want to use a mail client.
And definitely use a custom domain, they’re super cheap and allow for so much more flexibility (such as dedicated emails for different services).
Do you recommend a specific TLD to use for emails? I have an xyz domain I’m not using but I fear it will get marked as spam. I’d want a domain that is cheap still.
If you want to avoid being marked as spam I’d just go with .com, it’s as mainstream as you’ll get and only $10/year or so from a good registrar.