Hey guys,
I am looking for a new email provider as I am still using gmail and like to get that removed finally. I am currently looking at Tuta and proton. I would be using it mainly for email and the Calendar. most other things I am self hosting but email in particular is not something I like to self host.
Proton being hosted in Switzerland and Tuta being hosted from Germany I think Proton has a edge over Tuta in that regard although I am not very familiar with both country’s privacy laws.
Also how do they compare to each other regarding flexibility in creating email filters and folders. I believe proton hat some restrictions on the amount of email filters if i am not mistaken.
And lastly can you get calendar invites with these email providers? If I like the email provider i might move the business email to one of the providers as well but seeing we get like calendar invites which works fine with outlook. I dont know if this works with the email clients of proton or Tuta.
Also if their is a better email provider i am open to suggestions.
I personally suggest Tuta (and I use it daily) over Proton. Several reasons:
Proton:
- it is leaky in terms of social graph encryption. Sun Knudsen has a great video about it (https://youtu.be/GdDFUycXR_M&t=0)
- had this case about the climate activist (https://www.theverge.com/2021/9/6/22659861/protonmail-swiss-court-order-french-climate-activist-arrest-identification). And since they position themselves as a privacy company, this looks disturbing.
- I’d prefer a such a privacy oriented company to be more open to anonymous payment methods.
Overall, Proton seems like a little more privacy-conscious Gmail alternative.
Tuta
- doesn’t use Google/Apple notification servers
- encrypts more stuff than Proton
PS In both cases, emails are not end-to-end encrypted. Even though both are marketed with E2E encryption by default. Again, Sun Knudsen has a great video about the topic (https://youtu.be/G2Jh8bQ2wM8&t=501).
Also, as far as I remember, Proton is more expensive while having less features (the cheapest option) than Tuta.
Migadu and your own domain
Protonmail sucks because you can’t use it with 3rd party mail clients like claws-mail or mutt without handing over $$$ (even gmail lets you do this for free, I believe). The plaintext mode in Protonmail appears not to be actually be plain text because I’ve had trouble submitting plaintext patches to the OpenBSD lists several times with it.
Have no experience with Tuta.
Self host on a VPS. OpenBSD makes it easy, follow a guide like this one.
Not trying to make the choice harder, but mailbox.org seems to fit into the choices as well (also hostesd in Germany). Also in terms of hosting in Switzerland, keep in mind that it’s not actually part of the EU, which is the primary/original source for many of the privacy laws you probably care about if you’re looking into these providers.
