I wonder how much I would lose if my Gmail was deleted... Everything I have is behind that address.
What would be my best bet to move to if I'm too much of a bad to host my own email?
What would be my best bet to move to if I'm too much of a bad to host my own email?
* Fastmail.com -- good reputation and track record at reasonable prices
* mailbox.org -- long track record, privacy-oriented, German-based. Some people describe the mail UI as aging (it's OX suite), but I like it just fine.
* Protonmail.com -- UX & privacy focused email with fancy in-browser encryption. Protonmail-to-protonmail emails are E2E (OpenPGPjs). No IMAP, and in-browser (read: scary) encryption, albeit open-source. Based in Switzerland, although that means a lot less than they make it out to, re: privacy.
* tutanota.com -- V. similar to Protonmail. Based in Germany and a cheaper than protonmail. Uses a custom-implemented encryption protocol vaguely and unreassuringly described as a "..standardized, hybrid method.." comprised of RSA and AES [0].
[0] https://tutanota.uservoice.com/knowledgebase/articles/470732...
EDIT: Made some corrections re: protonmail & tutanota encryption, pointed out by bartbutler.
The in-browser, over-the-wire javascript crypto implementation still makes me nervous. I'd love to hear some compelling evidence to the contrary, but as I understand most of what has been stated before about in-browser crypto hasn't changed much [0].
I like ProtonMail a lot, but full disclosure: I work there, so I'm biased.
Use Google email but from a custom domain -- it doesn't back-up your email, but you can update the DNS to a new provider if you get locked out of Google's services. This means you can still recover accounts, use the same email, etc after a brief disruption, instead of totally hosed.
It's not a total solution, but it does mitigate some problems, which makes Google's policies easier to swallow. (If you do separate email back-ups, then you'll only lose the emails since the last back-up.)
I'm in the process of switching to that set-up (partly because of these antics; partly because of other concerns).
1) I use an address on my own domain (hosted on Google Apps) as my primary email address. If Google pulls the plug on me I can point my MX records elsewhere, and won't have to worry about changing my email at countless places.
2) I use offlineimap to back up the contents of my GMail account at home. If I had to, I could load that backup into a new provider's service (or my own). I still have email from the 90s and would be sad if I lost all that.
That's just email, though. If my entire Google account got axed, I'd lose a bunch of docs and spreadsheets, not to mention all my contacts. And, while I do have everything on Google Photos in places other than Google, it would be a pain to gather it all together again.
But you can back up virtually all data hosted with Google through Takeout.
Don't you lose access to Takeout if your account gets closed suddenly?
P.S.: I do have a Riseup email account that I barely use for some specific areas of activism.
The hardest part is switching all your accounts to use your new domain.