In 2013, former NSA consultant Edward Snowden confirmed and made public what many already suspected, namely that governments around the world can spy on us using special software and intercept any online communication. Practically all the most popular sites for creating email addresses, such as Gmail, Outlook and Yahoo Mail, are vulnerable to espionage tools because they do not use an encrypted system for transmitting messages.
For example, as seen in the article to explain how Google makes Gmail secure, we have noticed that the only way to have end-to-end encryption in Gmail is to install an additional program and it is not integrated with the mail service. .
End-to-end encryption means that messages are only decipherable by the recipient, so that they cannot be read even if they are intercepted.
Therefore, those who want to have an online email communication tool that supports end-to-end encryption must use a different service and, precisely, one of these listed here which are the safest where to create an Email account.
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1) ProtonMail is a Swiss encrypted e-mail service provider that uses end-to-end encryption so that messages are protected until they arrive from the recipient and so that not even the company that manages ProtonMail can decrypt them.
ProtonMail, open source, can be used for free, for an account that can receive attachments for a maximum of 500MB in total.
To have more storage space, you need to pay a Premium account instead.
ProtonMail also guarantees anonymity for those who have an account, without requiring personal identification data during registration and without tracking the access IPs (and therefore the location where we are using it).
In addition to the web, ProtonMail can be accessed via apps for Android and iPhone.
All data is stored on the company's server in Switzerland, which has a tough and pure position regarding privacy and data protection.
It is important to stress that ProtonMail is open source, which means that anyone who wanted to could verify the security of the platform on their own.
ProtonMail does not store any data once it is deleted, therefore when you delete an email this is truly irretrievable, unless it has been stored in a backup, which is renewed every 14 days, after which everything is deleted.
Even if emails to and from other ProtonMail users are end-to-end encrypted, if you receive emails from services like Gmail, ProtonMail scans these emails for spam protection.
However, the company guarantees that this scan is done almost immediately and immediately encrypted without leaving any traces in the clear.
ProtonMail is also used in the MrRobot hacker show
2) TutaNota is a German service that you can use for free with a 1 GB space for storing messages and attachments and very cheap premium accounts from 1 $ per month.
The servers of the service are in Germany and are subject to the strict Federal Data Protection Act.
In addition, it is now known that German intelligence had worked with the NSA to develop surveillance programs.
Despite this, Tutanota offers a very interesting secure service, similar to ProtonMail, with end-to-end encryption to ensure that no e-mail messages are visible on their servers.
If you then send an email to an unencrypted account like Gmail and the others, Tutanota sends a link to this address with the request to open a temporary account to view the encrypted message.
Tutanota is also open source, with the code available for checking.
Currently it does not have encryption on the metadata associated with emails, such as sender, recipient and date (in their FAQ they say that they would like to add this protection in the future).
As cryptography, Tutanota uses RSA 2048 bit and AES 128 bit methods, not PGP which is the most common method.
Tutanota, in addition to the website, also provides apps to access encrypted email from Android and iPhone apps.
3) Mailfence is perhaps the best secure and encrypted email service today.
Mailfence is maintained in Belgium, a country which does not appear to have collaborated with the NSA for surveillance programs and which has rather strong privacy laws to guarantee consumers.
While Belgium's privacy laws require companies to comply with orders issued by a judge, no external authority can impose orders or access company data.
Mailfence ensures the privacy of emails and other integrated tools such as calendars and document archiving.
Unfortunately, Mailfence is not open source, therefore it is not possible to control how it works directly and you must have confidence in the company that takes care of it, ContactOffice.
As proof of reliability, it should be noted that ContactOffice donates 15% of the income generated by Premium accounts to organizations that defend privacy such as the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) and the European Digital Rights Foundation (EDRI).
Mailfence supports end-to-end encryption and supports the OpenPGP standard.
The problem with Mailfence is that it does not currently provide smartphone applications, although they are expected to arrive by the end of 2017.
4) Other encrypted Email providers are:
- Hushmail is a very popular and advanced protected mail service, but suspected, in 2007, of having allowed the access to your data requested by the authorities.
However, it remains a guarantee of reliability, also having an interface similar to that of the best mail services.
However, there is no possibility of having a free account, but you can try it for 14 days.
- Scryptmail is a free service (it seems that they will offer premium accounts in the future) that offers a secure, anonymous, secure and encrypted email box.
The service is quite recent, but it seems the most powerful that can be found, even with the possibility of creating within the disposable email account, very effective against spam and to remain anonymous.
- Lavabit, the encrypted and protected email service that Snowden used and which had closed some time ago, has returned and is ready to offer even more security and reliability, with premium accounts at $ 15 per year.
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