Suggestions-email providers_least intrusive that still work

Looking for suggestions for free / low cost email providers that at least claim to have SOME privacy respect & still have good reliability? Maybe even w/ support that gets back (w/ an actual answer in < 5 days... or NEVER). Some providers (seem to remember vaguely) that respect privacy have such low use / tiny storage limits, really only good for "special" emails. Thoughts on that?

AT&T / Yahoo is my ISP. Mail's OK, though if ever DO need to call support, you'll think it's a 5th grader on the phone.
Since AT&T has built large facilities to monitor web traffic for our uncle, good bet they scan & log lots of email.

Not planning on sending bank acct #s or trade secrets thru unencrypted email, but if discussing some family or friends' health, marital issues, etc., it's not the sort of thing I'd like companies scanning & storing. Should be some reasonable expectation of privacy. Especially, if civil action can be brought against one if they "hack" into their spouse's email, w/o permission. But it's OK for providers to scan & log everything.

Gmail is upfront about scanning everything & I'm not keen on helping Google continue its quest to rule the internet.

Used GMX a while now (say they don't scan email), but had increasingly more issues w/ accts getting locked for no reason & sometimes a PIA to resolve (esp. using a client). Always says, "wrong PW," but it's really locked acct. For me, could never find or was given reason for it. Plus, more sites / servers reject GMX mail.

I'm not a hi vol user, but super low # emails / hr or day isn't ideal. For "private" providers w/ very low storage, guess could just d/l mail & del off server, if needed. Anyway, suggestions would be appreciated.

 

I won't advise you on best email providers for hacking into the email of your spouse...nor would I be your spouse for long if you pulled that with me, lol.

GMX I thought was a decent enough provider until they started with Facebook. It was often slow though. I use Outlook.com myself. Even though they claim they have/will have ads, I've yet to see them and I've yet to see any indication they're scanning my mail. Obviously stay far away from Google as God only knows who has access beyond Google and you.

 

I have GMX as a secondary email it is slow to load,could be symantec security scanning and besides that, Facebook and adds of ladies in my area looking to meet is sickening,going to ditch it my self. I use Gmail as my primary synchronized to my mac mail with notifications,No bloat or adds.For your windows, Maybe try the new outlook that claims it doesn't invade your privacy. www.outlook.com

 

gandi.net

Buy domain from them and you have 5 mailboxes, unlimited aliases, 1gb space. Price varies depending on tld, most of them under the 15 euro/year.

 

Make sure you're not logged in on gmx.com while sending mail using a client. Does that help?

 

Just deleted all GMX accounts and added outlook.Nice clean UI and very simple.

 

What the H are you talking about? Is that a poor attempt at humor, or did you interpret I even hinted was looking for some type of help hacking into spouse's email?

Outlook - obviously run by MS. Isn't that just Hot Mail /MSN/Live Mail under another name? Don't know anything about it yet, but why would one think MS would respect their privacy? Are they under "New Management?"

Don't use Facebook, so not an issue or the problem.

Pinga - Once GMX accts get locked (PW is wrong), I've tried NOT being logged into webmail, after deleting old & entering new PWs in Tbird. It always takes requesting PW reset email about 3 times, before it will authenticate Tbird access. One or 2x won't do it. I'm far from only one w/ lock out / resetting PW problems. Lock out doesn't happen often, but given the hassle, once is enough.

Wroll - have to check into that. What is "tld?" I've known some that rented domains & get email. Guess depends on provider, but read complaints w/ certain domain email, about serious (some, almost overwhelming) spam problems / poor spam filters. Any thoughts on it or have you experienced that?

 

Outlook.com is the best web based email around. I love it after using Yahoo for 5 years.

 

Aventador, again - isn't Outlook.com just another MS mail service under another name? Or maybe one they bought up, but it's still MS run. It may work OK, but as for privacy & MS (in spite of some policy), most advanced users don't trust them as far as they can throw them.

 

Since I've started using them I never seen spam [to be fair I haven't seen spam with my previous main mail provider, which I still use, lavabit.com]. I create a different alias for every website I subscribe. If the alias gets compromised I just create a new one and delete the old [that in case I still want to use that website].
TLD = Top-level domain [.com, .eu, etc.]

 

It use to be Hotmail. But now its completely new. No crap. Just email. No privacy concerns for me. What are you so paranoid about?

 

Simple misinterpretation is all. As to the new Outlook, imho it is far better than the old Hotmail (and I think they are intending on Outlook being its replacement.). The privacy issue is, I'm afraid, not going to go away if you use any of the big league webmail providers. But I'm very comfortable saying Outlook is nothing like the massive ad and scanning operation that is Gmail.

 

Thanks Wroll. Someone else mentioned Lavabit. They have free accts, but I probably wouldn't mind paying a few $ / yr, than have all email scanned & categorized, have it mostly work & some support worth a crap.

Aventador - you don't sound like someone w/ kids; medical / legal issues, or else you might value privacy. Either way, I doubt an MS mail service is for me.

Why am I paranoid, or why do I value reasonable privacy?
Besides, "If someone's out to get you, it's not paranoia." And they ARE out to get your most personal info.

A lot of doctors, etc. communicate private info to patients. If people actually stopped & thought about what those (lack of) Privacy policies meant, they might not be so "OK" w/ it. You want mom to start getting male escort email / snail mail ads because dad had his prostrate removed?

This has been debated to death. How would most feel if the post office opened & ELECTRONICALLY scanned letters, to sell or use data for more ads? "They wouldn't be 'hurting' anyone & no live person would read them."
That's what email providers are doing, pure & simple. Find me a sane person that thinks (in a country it's not already SOP),

What if someone sat outside your house w/ a listening device, ELECTRONICALLY recording & scanning personal conversations, to deliver email or snail mail ads? Would most be OK w/ that?
Where does the line start / stop from being clever business to invasion of personal privacy? Suddenly, your young daughter's getting free coupons for birth control, because doing a science proj. & used "SEXtant" in email.

The ridiculous concept of it "being OK to scan my private conversations, cause I've nothing to hide," can be taken into more & more scenarios where most would say, "Hey! Wait just a minute - I don't want anyone knowing that!" The scenario just has to be bizarre enough where avg people will pay attention.

 

Wroll, that's a lot of alias addresses (for me) - even using a PW manager.

After reading Lavabit's info, couple questions pop.
1st, there is no "online, self help," per se. Also no forum, so can't get see types & # of problems users have. Only contacting support for "real" problems.
2nd, site info says they have no way for users or support to reset PW "if you forget it." OK- fine, but they have a support category of "locked" accts & looks like they want you to send another email address.

Not sure what else they ask for, but point is, do you know of users getting accts "accidentally" locked & must contact support to unlock it?
I'm talking for no fault of the user? Wondering WHEN that happens (& it'll happen - to me) how long it takes them to respond / fix issue? They do say it may sometimes take few days to reply to support requests.

Every ISP & email provider I've had (& many others heard about) has locked my acct "accidentally," (NEVER said to be my fault). Happened several times, in fact - over yrs. Even w/ free phone support or "reset your own PW" feature, can be a real PIA. Hate to think about waiting days to hear back.
Thanks.

 

What if you had your own domain and got email there? something like admin at phkhgh.com ? I'm not sure of the details about when you have your own email at your own domain, maybe there are privacy concerns there as well...not sure..but I suspect a domain and email set up could be had for fairly cheap.

 

That would be subject to whoever is providing the hosting, unless you're actually able to host it yourself (which ISPs generally forbid for typical residential customers).

 

Yes, I ran across the idea of renting a domain w/ email. Don't know a LOT about it, but depending on host, I'd think spam & getting blacklisted might sometimes be an issue. Yes?

Lavabit support wrote back. For FREE accts, they confirmed if your acct gets hacked, you forget a PW, mistype a PW when changing it (support's words) or (really) ANYTHING happens that locks users' accts, that they can't "determine" wasn't your fault & wasn't a hacker, etc., "you are hosed." [direct quote]

The free account would be permanently lost. You will NOT find this info in their documentation. I'm not lucky enough to not get locked out of a free acct & lose it. Given that, - I - wouldn't use their free accts for everyday or important stuff.

Paid accts are different - they can use payment records - if used a CC or similar to verify identity. They're very low cost.

 

I don't know enough about how spam is classified to tell you one way or another, although I think several factors are considered before an email is considered spam, and each spam filter may have different factors. I've found emails sent from legit yahoo and gmail addresses in my spam folder in the past. I have my own domain for my business and have had no complaints about an email I send going to someone's spam folder, although I'm sure it could happen. But then again, even if I use gmail or yahoo and I send an email that is important I follow it up to be sure it did not get sent to someone's spam folder. So whether something is likely to go to a spam folder or not is an issue that you may need to consider no matter which email provider you end up using.

 

Thanks. I briefly looked into getting a domain w/ possible email - yrs ago for another reason. My guess is any privacy issues of email would come down to the host. That, like looking at email providers, would be a case by case basis. Probably also issue of domains / IPs from that host having bad rep of getting black listed.

I tend to look before leaping. GMX gets blacklisted - probably more than most larger providers. I'm sure there's a valid reason, but have hard time imagining Site XYZ gets more spam from GMX than Gmail or any other large, free providers.