Top 3 most secure Email providers in 2023 – Email is a big part of our daily lives. It is essential to know about all the secure email providers out there. Privacy is an important thing to consider when picking an email service provider.
It is a widely known fact that most cyber-attacks take place through email. The mischief mongers can even spread malware or spyware through emails. Once you open a malware-infected email, you can get the malware inside your device. The best encrypted email services have security features like end-to-end encryption, 2FA, and a reputation that doesn’t include serious security vulnerabilities or breaches.
Several secure email service providers have recently made their way into the email client market. As a result, many comparisons, have been put forward because of the tough competition between these new secure email services.
What Are Secure Email Providers?
A secure email provider has features designed to keep your email account and the content of your emails secure. Usually, this is done through end-to-end encryption. End-to-end encryption means that the email is encrypted on its entire journey from sender to recipient.
However, there’s no standard definition of secure email — any email provider can call itself secure. For that reason, when you choose a secure email provider, you have to pay attention to the type of encryption and other security practices used.
Why should you use an Encrypted Email Service?
Most of the world has an Outlook or Gmail address, but you should favor lesser-known services that use strong encryption instead. Here’s why.
Enhanced Privacy
When registering for an email account with a company like Microsoft, Yahoo, or Google, you are asked to provide your name, last name, location, and phone number. But even if you find a way around that or provide false information, these companies will still track you. And they will track you in an incredibly invasive way, gathering information about your device and operating system, location, age, gender, shopping habits, interests, marital status, income, and so on.
To their credit, Microsoft, Google, Yahoo, and other tech firms are pretty upfront about what they do—feel free to skim through their privacy policies and see for yourself. While it is true that you can disable some tracking via the settings menus and such, your data will still be collected and potentially shared with advertisers and other third parties. This is not the case with encrypted email providers.
Better Security
The conventional wisdom that large companies with massive budgets have stronger security should finally be put to rest. If you follow the news regularly, you’ve probably realized that massive data breaches happen on a monthly, if not weekly, basis. In fact, because tech giants have larger attack surfaces than smaller companies, they are more vulnerable to all kinds of cyber threats.
Encrypted email providers, on the other hand, are inherently more secure. Not just because they are operated by comparatively small teams, but because their platforms are built with security in mind. For a start, most use zero-access encryption, which means that nobody but the user has access to sensitive information.
Protection From Government Surveillance
No serious whistleblower, activist, dissident, or investigative reporter uses Gmail or Yahoo to share sensitive information, which tells you everything you need to know about these services, at least when it comes to government surveillance. Google, for one, clearly states on its official website that it retains the right to abide by government requests and hand over user information. Other tech companies are hardly any better, bar a few notable exceptions.
Encrypted email providers are the polar opposite. Obviously, it’s always a good idea to scan through a company’s privacy policy and terms of service before using its products, but most encrypted email services have a strict policy of not complying with government requests. For the most part, they are based outside the United States, in countries with stricter privacy laws.
Independence From Big Tech
Big Tech companies’ business models are largely based on collecting user data. They are accountable to the US government, and often pressured by it to share information about their customers. Plus, it has been shown time and time again that their products are neither safe nor private. And if that’s not reason enough to avoid them, there is good evidence they have monopolized multiple markets in the technological sector.
If you care about your online privacy and cybersecurity in any capacity, you should make an effort to stay away from Big Tech and support smaller companies whose business strategies include more than monetizing peoples’ data and destroying competition through market monopolization and other unfair practices.
Most secure email service providers in 2023
ProtonMail
Protonmail is the best free secure email service provider in the industry, which is based in Switzerland. They offer mobile applications for Android as well as iOS users and a web application that can be used to get security for your personal emails and other information.
Key features of ProtonMail:
- Servers based in Switzerland
- Open source
- End-to-end encryption
- Zero-access encryption
- Self-destructing emails
- Mobile app
- Custom domains with paid plans
ProtonMail Pricing:
- Free: 1 user, 500 MB storage, 150 messages per day
- Plus: $5/month for 1 user, 5 GB storage, 1,000 messages per day
- Professional: $8/month/user for 1–5,000 users, 5 GB storage per user, unlimited messages
- Visionary: $30/month for 6 users, 20 GB, unlimited messages
Mailbox.org
It is dedicated to serving business users with a strong requirement for security, and also comes with encrypted cloud storage, video conferencing features, a functional address book, a calendar, and a task planner. It is a well-rounded solution for businesses looking for an encrypted workflow alternative to Google or Microsoft.
Key Features of Mailbox.org:
- Server based in Germany
- PGP encryption
- Encrypted cloud storage
- Video conferencing
- Calendar
- Eco-friendly
- No free plan
Mailbox.org Pricing:
- Standard: €3/month for 10 GB mail storage and 5 GB cloud storage
- Premium: €9/month for 25 GB mail storage and 50 GB cloud storage
- Light: €1/month for 2 GB mail storage, no cloud storage
Zoho Mail
With servers located all over the world, Zoho Mail is a secure email hosting solution with a focus on data encryption and user-friendliness. Unlike other secure email providers, it tries to achieve a subtle balance between features and privacy to give users a friendly experience.
Key Features of Zoho Mail:
- Servers located around the world
- End-to-end encryption
- Calendar
- Contact portal
- Collaboration tools
- Email recall
- Mobile apps
Zoho Mail Pricing:
- Mail lite: $1 or $1.25/month for 5 GB or 10 GB per month
- Mail premium: $4/month for 50 GB per user
- Workplace: Custom pricing starting from $3/month