Who of you uses one of the above services, what do you think of it?
Fastmail is great but it’s a totally different market /use case, you wouldn’t go with them if you’re privacy oriented. They’re better than Google in that sense but you’d go with Proton if you’re looking for privacy features.
Also keep in mind Fastmail is based in Australia and their government tends to be anti-privacy with the laws that get passed there.
AU laws are worse than US laws, in fact, the US gets AU to do things for them that would otherwise be illegal if performed by US agents
I’ve used both and have had good experiences with both. One benefit of Proton is that emails sent to other Proton users are encrypted, but if you mostly just email people who have @gmail.com addresses, then Gmail’s going to store a copy of your emails to that person on their servers anyway.
Both Proton and Fastmail allow you to have a custom domain with a wildcard catch-all address, but the process for replying from that random wildcard address is much more seamless on Fastmail. Proton requires some extra setup and workarounds. But then again Proton is more secure.
It really depends how you use email and what’s important to you (security, convenience, features). I mainly just get junk mail and newsletters. For more private communication I use Signal.
I’ve used Fastmail with a custom domain for a few years now… (5+?) and have been really happy with it. I wish it was a bit cheaper (or had a better family plan), but it works well with my terminal email client (mutt).
The web client is pretty quick and I use the calendar there all the time. Fastmail supports all the normal standards such as CalDAV, so you can use it with third party applications.
Note that ProtonMail and Fastmail have quite different feature sets.
ProtonMail does not store your Email in plain text for instance; they cannot read them or be ordered to read them. This comes with some drawbacks such as that standard protocols such as IMAP do not work without a bridge because they necessitates that the server can read all the emails.
Though the bridge works really well
I looked at both, and went with fastmail because at the time it had a shared calendar you could use, which I do with my family to track events and do scheduling. Fastmail is standard commercial privacy though. Good enough for me, but no where near Proton Mail from what I understand.
I’m a proton unlimited subscriber and it’s great. I love the email aliasing from simplelogin, protonvpn, drive storage, calendar, etc. well worth it imo. I love the company.
Proton Mail with a custom domain. The only reason why is that I had it before I knew Fastmail existed and it would be a pain in the ass to move my entire family to it. However, I was VERY tempted when 1Password put Fastmail temporary email support into their product.
Fortunately, Proton Mail just released their own temporary email product based on SimpleLogin.
I use Proton, business tier. My only gripe is that addresses can’t be deleted without contacting support, or so I’ve read. I can’t find a delete button on any of my addresses, but can find the button to buy more address slots.
Using custom domains and a catch-all pointing to certain labels is my workaround.
I also find it weird that you can’t create unlimited addresses on your custom domains.
For the shared domains, limits in this regard are absolutely understandable as the supply is limited but addresses should have next to no cost for PM when they’re under my own domain.
Why is that? @protonmail@mastodon.social
This and the fact that I can’t use my mail clients on android (I understand the bridge and the incompatibility with encryption, it makes sense, I just don’t like it), stops me from being a paid customer
I really like Proton.
I was using Protonmail, and their other services, and was a paying customer for over a year. But I stopped because of their poor Linux support, and not being able to receive email notifications on my de-googled phone. I made a shift to mailbox.org and am liking it. Yes, I have to manage my own PGP keys, but the experience is much better, in my opinion. Their storage even supports WebDAV. I can encrypt the whole inbox and the files stored in their drive with my own key.
Be careful with mailbox.org and their “your contract period ends soon” email. It actually means “pay us or your data will be irrevocably deleted under 60 days”. The mail sounds inconspicuous enough, is rather verbose, and even contains the phrasing “you may silently ignore this email”. And you will not be getting a single warning before your data is entirely, irremediably deleted.
And even if you only wait 30 days, not 60, your account gets deleted (but not your emails), so you lose any and all ways of contacting their support (rescuing your emails after that gets much trickier). Speaking of which, make sure you use a widespread browser on a computer to use their support platform: otherwise you will get a visual confirmation that a ticket was created, but none will ever be.
TL;DR: mailbox.org good, but (A) make absolutely sure you always have up to date local backups, and (B) beware of the unexpected caveats and the clumsy, confusing wording.
I tried both. Proton email client on Android at least was awful. Super sluggish to navigate. In fact I have a chunk of credit with them because I cancelled too late to get a refund. No idea what I’m going to do with that. I already have a VPN and a Pwd manager…
Fastmail has been snappy and I like that the app has a notes section for quick jotting of ideas. I also like that Rclone can attach directly to Fastmail files. They just recently added Proton Drive support too though.
Give the new Android app a shot. Its been flawless so far.
It does seem snappier. But damn, I’ve come to love Fastmail’s all-in-one app. Having calendar, notes, contacts and files all in the email app is something I didn’t realize I’d care about but not sure I can do without now.
Yeah, I kind of miss the convenience of that, but all I need those for is email, everything else I self-host, so I’m used to the opposite, lol. In any case, both are great options, and e2ee for Proton only really works with other Proton users, so its not like you’re missing much by using fastmail instead. As long as we stay away from the mainstream providers, were golden.
That and not being shown ads in my damn inbox is what lead me to the hunt for a better provider than Gmail. Another I just remembered about Proton that I didn’t care for (and there may be a way to opt out) is the amount of promotional notifications/emails I’d get for their other services. Not as bad as NordVPN, but then again I don’t think anyone is as bad as them regarding self-promotion. I’m happy to pay for a service if it means retaining some more privacy but mostly get rid of ads but the constant need to upsell was getting to me.
I use both, bit Proton is more fearute rich. Never mind the fact that this is the first company I’ve seen that lowers it’s prices because they are making good money. That alone is worth a shot.