I am wondering whats the best solution to get away from gmail but still be compatible with everydays tasks. I usually use gmail with my own smtp server + TLS/SSL encryption for incoming/outgoing. I use push on my Android device and never really use webmail (although it sometimes is handy). I also run a few mail accounts on one of my linux servers. I know that push can be done on your own linux server. But is the hassle really worth it? Is it even possible as a hobby IT guy who can't dedicate 24/7 to his linux server(s)? What if the server crash, hdd failure,etc ? Is there any other alternative?
The problem for me is that email requires TWO folks at least. A chain is only as strong as its weakest link. I have some select friends where I can bank on secure communications pgp/gpg, etc.... Most folks are sooooooooo careless and just don't give a c$$p about security, so trying to keep my end strong is mostly a waste of energy and time. I apologize for not addressing your question but it reminded my of my personal battles on the issue. LOL!
Secure from datamining, government, what ever....after some research it looks like running my own mail server + gmail as backup server is the best solution. That way all my mails will run over my mail server and google wont read a thing. How ever, if my server crashes or fails, all mails will run over gmail automatically during the downtime. So I wont miss any mails.
Traditional email through the public Internet is inherently insecure. All servers may see plaintext. And even with end-to-end encryption, servers see message headers. That's sometimes called metadata, but really it's just more data: datetime, subject, recipients, plus lots of routing information. While there are various proposals to secure email, there's no broad agreement that I'm aware of. Countermail, Protonmail, etc are developing as walled gardens. They're "secure" only for email sent from one customer to another. Outside that, it's just normal email, albeit encrypted.
As Palancar said most folks "don't give a c$$p about security." How many of those people will you be communicating with via email? If your cousin has a Gmail account and you email him back and forth on a regular basis your messages are being stored on Gmail's servers anyway. I'm not saying this is a reason to throw your arms up and give up, but it's something to take into consideration.
Well, that depends on what you and your cousin are discussing Let's say that you and your cousin each have a bunch of well-anonymized email addresses. Each is on its own Whonix instance, to reduce risks of correlation and cross-compromise by malware. And let's say that you pair them up statically, so the pairs don't get correlated with each other. Then you randomly switch among pairs during a conversation. Or you could use Pond, first encrypting stuff with GnuPG in case an adversary pwns Pond. Anyway, there are options
@zakazak have a look @ https://mailbox.org/en/ and https://posteo.de/en both would be a good alternative to gmail and winner of a security test (both have in common the goal of reaching # 1 in the test)
