Email is now one of the old technologies on, and of, the internet, and sadly, one of the worst when it comes to privacy. PGP has been around for a long time and can help with this, however, email is fundamentally unsafe and mostly texts are available in plain sight.
We have listed a number of great email solutions on privacy.do thus:
However, today, we want to have a look at proton.me and tutanota.
I had the pleasure of being an early adopter of protonmail (as was) and decentralize.today has been using it since its early days. Proton has grown from email to an entire privacy and office toolkit including a calendar, drive and VPN, fully encrypted, proton.mail is a superb setup, absolutely in line with its visionary plan.
I also personally use Tutanota as well, and both systems have their pros and cons. Hopefully, by the end of today's article, you'll be in a better position to decide which could be the better setup for you.
Proton.me
Proton.me was founded in 2013 in Switzerland. It offers paid and free plans.
The free plan allows you to have one email ending with proton.me, 3 folders and labels, and you can use your inbox for a maximum of 150 messages a day. You also receive 1 GB of email storage in the free plan.
I think it's plenty, but everyone has their own needs.
They also have a Proton Mail Plus plan which includes 15 GB of storage, 10 email addresses, unlimited folders, labels and filters, unlimited messages and priority support. They also allow you to use one custom email domain and gives you the Proton Calendar. This plan cost 3.99 Euros a month.
Proton Unlimited includes 500 GB total storage, 15 email addresses, unlimited folders, labels and filters, unlimited messages. It supports 3 custom email domains and has priority support. You will also receive the Proton Calendar, Proton Drive and Proton VPN.
This is where it gets to being almost like an entire privacy setup out of the box.
Is it smart to have your VPN and email from the same provider, it is totally your call? The beauty with Proton.me is that it is all E2EE (end-to-end-encrypted) which also extends to the Calendar and Drive.
This setup will cost you 9.99 Euros a month.
They also have the Visionary Plan which was for early birds who have stuck with them. We have this (humble brag!) and, as I mentioned, are happy with them for our company setup.
A big pro on proton.me is that it allows us to use 'old style' PGP emails. You can add a PGP key to your signature, and if a contact of yours has one, you can add it in your contact book and emails will get encrypted automatically. Very useful and, for us, an important solution.
The Drive option is great and works within the browser, there is no extra app required for your mobile device.
The Calendar is useful and can be shared with others via a link. Sadly, there is no option for teams to both edit the same calendar, we can share, but that's it. The sharing link allows you to add the calendar to a calendar app on your phone and sync that. However, that would then be unencrypted and is, therefore, not recommended.
For mobile, you have apps for Email and Calendar on both iOS and Android. The Drive has no app as yet, as already mentioned.
This brings me to the first of the cons of proton.me. The email and calendars app require Google Services to be activated to receive emails or push notifications. You can use them without, but you wouldn't get any notification. Others have done it without Google, so I don't see why this should be a problem for them to resolve. I am not a fan of anything Google and don't want an app telling me that it won't work properly if you don't install Google Services and Framework.
On desktops, such as macOS, Linux and Windows, you can use Thunderbird or Apple Mail to connect via a Proton Bridge. This give you a native feeling, just as you would have if you use IMAP. However, it is all encrypted. The bridge is definitely a great plus on the side of proton.
The VPN is great and fast, but this is not a VPN review, so I'll leave that with you.
You can pay Proton.me via Bitcoin, which is a privacy plus! And it works within your settings page, which is another big and easy plus...no credit card required!
Tutanota
Tutanota is located in Germany and started up back in 2011.
The Free Plan on Tutanota gives you 1 GB storage with a Tutanota domain, limited search and a calendar.
Premium costs 1 Euro a month, provides 1 GB storage, 1 custom domain, unlimited search, multiple calendars, 5 alias addresses and inbox rules.
Teams costs 4 Euros per month, if you add a user it costs you an additional 2 Euros per user per month. You receive 10 GB storage, 1 custom domain, unlimited search, multiple calendars, 5 alias addresses, inbox rules, and you can share entire calendars. This is very useful with team and groups! Big plus for Tutanota for how simply this works.
They also have business accounts starting from 2 Euros. Here you can also have your own custom logo and colour, contact forms, auto responder and invent invites.
Secure Connect is an end-to-end encrypted contact form for your website. This is a great tool when you want to connect with clients or website visitors. The service can be purchased for 20 Euros a year, per form.
Tutanota does not offer PGP, but explains why not:
"Current encryption standards like PGP and S/MIME have several issues that we plan to address with Tutanota. These standards do not support forward secrecy and are not resistant to attacks from quantum computers.
In addition, it is important to us that the subject line in emails is also encrypted. That's why we have developed a solution that is also based on recognized algorithms (RSA and AES) and that automatically encrypts the subject, the content and the attachments. In the future, we plan to upgrade these algorithms to quantum-resistant ones that also support forward secrecy. You can find more information on why Tutanota does not use PGP here.
We also see the importance that Tutanota needs to be interoperable with other encryption solutions. We will develop an API so that Tutanota users can communicate with users of other secure services confidentially in the future."
There is no Drive or VPN service, but I honestly prefer having them separated from my email provider anyway.
Tutanota offers special discounts to non-profit organizations.
The app from Tutanota is simple, beautiful and works without any Google involvement, You can get it on F-Droid and on the iOS store.
They also have a desktop app that works the same way as the mobile apps. The beauty here is it is one app which has email and calendar all in one.
For me, the app just makes more sense and the push notifications without Google Services being forced on you is just the better solution.
Which brings me to payments, Tutanota does not offer Bitcoin payments. Which is a letdown when it comes to privacy. However, via the ProxyStore it was easy to buy gift cards which allow you to pay anonymously.
ProxyStore
You can even pay via XMR and so that is what I did. You get a for just 1 Euro per month, and it provides what most people need. You can even run your own email addresses (up to 5).
Verdict:
Regardless of which provider you go with, you will be happy with the services. Proton offers you more services, and you need to decide if you want or need them. Tutanota is more privacy-friendly, considering that push notifications work. I also like the calendar setup more on Tutanota. But again, that is the individual's choice.
Both are excellent, and I can recommend either of them.
For all privacy news, check out our companion site, privacy.do
where we regularly add, amend and update all aspects of online security and privacy...recent additions include:
Added Wormhole to Encryption & Sharing
Added Cider to Music & Streaming
Stay secure and be private!
The Privacy Advocate
