Which webmail provider is the best?

From a privacy perspective which provider do you guys think is best? I am thinking of opening a new account and I am interested on the opinions of my fellow Wilders members. Thanks.

 

Up until a couple of weeks ago, I would have gone with GMX. But I deleted my account when the "Sign in with Facebook" button showed up there, and, I had to allow Facebook in NoScript to use the website. Gmail is also a no-go as I refuse to give them my cell phone number and I'm not big on ads that are relevant to my email content. That leaves, in the big players market at least, Yahoo and Hotmail. I chose Hotmail myself. I've become pretty trustworthy of Microsoft these days. Yahoo is still a good option if you use the "old version". I find their new version has trouble loading correctly a lot of times.

 

Do either hotmail or yahoo connect via https like gmail does?

 

Yahoo can be logged into securely, yes, but once in it reverts back to the standard, insecure http. At least that is my most recent experience with it. Hotmail does not have this function that I can see.

 

You might like to try Lavabit

 

Yes, it does: https://login.live.com/

 

I did not know this, lol, thanks. On another note, it hates Firefox. It tells me there is a "temporary problem with the service". It must be because it can't launch Messenger when I sign into Hotmail...which is a stupid behavior to begin with.

 

Worked fine for me back when I was using firefox. Hit up hotmail.com and click the text at the bottom "Use Enchanced Security", see if that works for you.

 

You're right, doing it that way works just fine, and, I don't have to deal with messenger popping up as well. Thanks for that

 

What exactly are the security ramifications of allowing facebook in Noscript? GMX actually seems pretty decent if not for that issue. They allow connection via https and not just for signing in ala hotmail and yahoo. They also promise not to scan your e-mails for info.

 

I just don't like that Facebook anything is forced on me in order to use a service. I don't know whether their script does any tracking or not, my guess is it does in some manner. Call me silly if you want, that's alright, I'm just getting a bit tired of Facebook creeping into everything on the web.

 

Then I'm silly, too. I can't stand seeing this Facebook encroachment on site after site.

For webmail, I use self-installed Roundcube at my own host. I also purchased an SSL certificate and a dedicated IP address. Those additions cost me a little over a buck a month extra. I think it's worth it. By the way, if you set it all up while out of town and never access it except through a VPN or TOR, it's very private.

 

dw426: You make a good point of tracking with scripts.

Do you guys know any webmail providers which provide full https connections and dont scan your e-mails ala GMX? Thanks.

 

Give free Safe-Mail a try - http://www.safe-mail.net/ It's https upon login and all communication between safemail users are encrypted. Also has additional security options to send to non-safemail users.

If you use strictly web-based email and their web interfaces, use this to send and receive encrypted email - http://www.instantcrypt.com/index.php

Very simple, uses GPG and again, it's free!

 

I'm curious if anyone else here rolls their own webmail? It's actually quite simple. Roundcube, for one, makes it very easy to install to your web host. With SSL certificates having come way down in price, having the SSL protection is great. I have full control. I can also backup my own mail, don't have to worry about a service going under, I can delete mail off my server, install robust spam filtering, on and on. If you have a web host, give it a try as a secondary webmail; maybe like me you'll soon make it your only webmail. And by the way, Horde is producing some quality product. If you go with Horde, (I've been considering making the switch because of the larger user forums, etc.) you get a free groupware installation (if you want) with a web portal of your own that includes webmail, calendar, task listing, notekeeping, local weather and more goodies. It looks like this:
http://www.horde.org/groupware/screenshots/portal_1_1.png

 

Safe-mail only allows 3Mb of space for free? That can't be right, I'd have to delete mail daily at best. I have no intention of using paid services.

 

All the above are very good options to have and i'm not aware of any other provider that has ALL that. However, nowhere could i see a privacy policy ? I wonder if they store logs/ip's/emails etc ? If so how long for ?

Where are they based ?

 

I hate to get into this as I sound like a conspiracy guy and I'm not. But safe-mail.net has been accused of having connections to the Mossad for years. Here's just one post that gives a lot of the information:
-http://forums.steroid.com/showthread.php?t=216191-

 

Conspiracy theories are one thing, actual conspiracies are Real ! So you're NO nut

Your right, i do remember other links about their very dodgy connections now. Thanks for the info, and reminder

 

I trust the Israeli intelligence services over my own country (U.S), that's a sad thing to have to say. Anyway, again, if they offered more than 3Mb of storage for free, I'd jump in.

 

What i would do DW is open a gmail (5 gig space i think) or hotmail (25 gig) account. Then install Thunderbird, Enigmail extension and GPG4Win (all free) on your computer and setup whichever account you decide on in thunderbird. This is my setup for both my hotmail and gmail accounts and all encrypted email remains encrypted on the server so they cannot scan it. And is decrypted through thunderbird on my machine. If using IMAP, they will still remain encrypted on the server even after decrypting in thunderbird.

EDIT: Safe-mail can be set to receive email in thunderbird (would take care of your storage issues) However, you cannot send mail thru thunderbird with the free version of safe-mail.

EDIT#2 : Or as i mentioned earlier, just use Instantcrypt with a gmail or hotmail account if you don't need/want to use an email client.

 

Unfortunately, they work so closely together on certain things that they're almost one and the same. Who pays for the Mossad? OK, before it gets political, I'll leave it there.

 

Always appreciate your input on privacy matters LockBox

However, your safe-mail example pretty much applies to everything - email, proxies, vpns. Even your Roundcube if your using a webhost. Unless your running your own server, you have to put your trust in these 3rd parties.

 

Thanks, tobacco.

Absolutely. No getting around that. Too often, we have to select the lesser of evils.

 

Not a bad idea there, Tobacco.

@ LockBox: Point well taken, though how much longer they cooperate with each other fully, given the political situations going on, is up in the air. I'll stop there as well.