Most people nowadays spend several hours checking their personal and work email. Indeed, email is highly efficient and valuable. But it is not always secure, especially when you are making use of standard email providers.
Hackers are fond of email, and it is one of the easiest methods through which they can have access to all the data of your company.
So, for protecting all the information that you regularly exchange via emails, having a secure and safe email provider is a must. This article will showcase the most secure email providers that you can consider this year.
What are secure email providers?
Features are incorporated in a secure email provider that is designed for keeping the security of the content of your email and your email account intact.
Generally, end-to-end encryption is followed for doing this by secure email providers. This means your email is encrypted on its whole journey, right from the sender up to the recipient.
Essentiality of secure email providers:
For understanding why to use a secure email provider, let us see what takes place when you send an email from your standard provider.
It is not that the standard email provider you use comes with zero security features. Tit may make use of TLS encryption for messages encryption in transit between your device and the server.
After your email reaches the server, at a network level, the data is encrypted by your email provider. But your email provider itself can access it.
Your email provider may scan your content and offer features such as “Smart Reply”. Also, your email provider can provide third-party access to your emails.
So, at present, your email leaves the server of your email provider and travels to the destination. If the email provider of the recipient makes use of TLS, then your email will remain protected in transit.
But in case the recipient does not make use of TLS, the emails will become unencrypted, and they can be intercepted easily.
And even if your email is protected during the transit, it may no longer remain safe after it reaches the email server of the recipient because email providers are there who do not encrypt emails at all on the server.
So, it is essential to choose the best one from the list of the most secure email providers because they make use of end-to-end encryption for protecting your email.
This means seven the email provider itself will not have any access to the emails. The recipient is the only person who can check the encrypted email because he or she has the authentication.
A good email provider can also make use of the SPF or Sender Policy framework for authenticating emails and giving you additional protection.
When SPF exists, and someone on behalf of you tries to send an email that is not from a valid IP address, immediately the recipient will get a notification that an unauthorized user has sent that email, and the recipient gets the choice to reject the email.
There are several factors that you need to consider while choosing a secure email provider. Consider an email provider who offers end-to-end encryption, two-factor authentication, meta header stripping, tools such as Google Drive with Gmail and Google Calendar, secure cloud storage, and their usability on mobile and desktop.
Some of the best email providers to choose from in 2022 are discussed below:
1. Mailbox.org:
If you are looking for an alternative to Microsoft or Google tools, you can consider Mailbox.org. Being one of the most secure email providers, it provides video conferencing, a calendar, an address book, a task planner, encrypted cloud storage, and email service.
PGP encryption is put to use by Mailbox.org. PGP encryption is known to be a public-key encryption program that has been standardized for encryption of email.
It is affordable compared to many email providers out there. Also, you can get registered and make anonymous payments for the email service. The best thing about this email provider is that an eco-friendly energy power it.
These three kinds of pricing plan: Standard, Premium, and Light. All the plans come with different prices and offer different kinds of storage limits.
2. ProtonMail:
One of the most popular and secure email providers is ProtonMail. The servers are based in Switzerland, and it is open source.
It offers end-to-end encryption asymmetrically. The good news is that if you have to spend less than 150 messages every day and do not require massive storage, you can make use of ProtonMail free of cost.
The best feature that ProtonMail possesses is that it self-destructs emails. An expiration date can be set for the emails, and at that particular time, the emails will be automatically deleted from the recipient’s box.
When you use ProtonMail, you should know that your data is kept by making use of zero-access encryption. This means your password is not known by ProtonMail, and your email cannot be decrypted by it. There is also a mobile application for iOS and Android offered by ProtonMail.
These four kinds of plans: free, plus, professional, and visionary. Each of the plans comes with different message limits and storage.
3. Tutanota:
Being one of the most popular secure email providers, Tutanota comes with two-factor authentication and end-to-end encryption as well.
It prioritizes privacy. So, instead of making use of PGP, it puts RSA and AES encryption to use. Both these systems make use of the same algorithms that PGP uses, but these two systems include an additional security layer by combining asymmetric and symmetric keys.
Some of the popular other security features are also there, like header stripping, image blocking, and warnings about phishing attacks. It offers encrypted calendars and contacts, and also an encrypted contact form is added to the site.
There are three kinds of pricing plans: Free, Premium, and Teams. All of these plans offer unlimited messages but different storage. Also, add-ons are there for convenience.
4. Zoho Mail:
One of the most used secure email providers that business users use is Zoho Mail. The free version can be used by anyone. Chat features, a webinar platform, spreadsheet software, a word processor, and plenty of other collaboration tools are offered by the Workplace plan.
When your emails are in transit, it is encrypted on the Zoho servers by making use of asymmetric cryptography known as S/MME. A unique digital signature is sent to every user, which ensures that the email is not spoofed. Also, it features a calendar, email recall, and contract portal.
For ease of use, excellent reviews are possessed by Zoho Mail. The control panel featured by Zoho Mail allows you to manage the settings for all the mailboxes of your organization right from a single place. Also, it comes with mobile applications.
It comes with three kinds of plans: Mail lite, Mail premium, and Workplace. Each of the plans offers different storage.
5. Posteo:
The journalists and activists need to remain anonymous. So, for them, one of the ideal secure email providers is Posteo because it allows such personalities to pay and register anonymously.
During the transit and at rest, your data is encrypted by Posteo. Although end-to-end encryption is not used by Posteo by default, you can enable it whenever you need it. There is support for IMAP, SMTP, and POP. It means you can make use of this service provider in an email client.
Besides being an open-source platform, Posteo offers a migration service as well. So, when you are switching to Posteo from another email provider, things become easier to migrate the folder structure, calendar, contact list, and archived emails you have.
Posteo encrypts attachments, metadata, body, headers, and subject.
The offices and servers of Posteo run completely on green energy.
You need to pay for 2GB of storage every month. Also, you can pay for additional storage, and there is the availability of add-ons as well.
6. PrivateMail:
End-to-end OpenPGP encryption is offered by PrivateMail, one of the best secure email providers that one can find. It comes with other security features like self-destructing emails.
The secure cloud storage of this service provider makes it stand out from the crowd of secure email services. The AES 256 encryption keeps the security of your data intact in the cloud. After downloading your field, either you can locally decrypt them or leave them as encrypted.
Secure file sharing is offered by PrivateMail with end-to-end encryption.
PrivateMail comes with two kinds of pricing: Standard Plan and PrivateMail Pro plan. Bost of these plans comes with different email storage and cloud storage options.
7. CounterMail:
If you are looking in the list of secure email providers, you do not need to look more because CounterMail is what you need. It makes of PGP encryption. The encryption is raised by the email provider with RSA and AES algorithms. You can configure a USB for two-factor authentication to give further protection to your data.
The Sweden-based servers of CounterMail are unique because hard drives are not possessed by them. And instead, CD-ROM is used for additional security. The email headers are anonymous, so the security is intact, supports IMAP, and does not keep IP logs.
This email provider’s password manager is Safebox. With a single master password, all the passwords and usernames are protected in Safebox. In case you forget it, you cannot retrieve it.
In case you know someone, which makes use of CounterMail, you may enjoy a free trial period of ten days.
The pricing is based on six-month, one year, or two years. Also, you can pay extra for additional storage.
8. Hushmail:
One of the oldest and most secure email providers is Hushmail. It is highly popular because it is very easy to use. This email provider makes use of OpenPGP encryption. It supports POP and IMAP, spam filter, two-factor authentication, electronic signatures, secure web forms, and a private message center.
It is focused on HIPAA compliance, and it is popular in the healthcare industry. The Healthcare plan from Hushmail allows you to encrypt the emails that contain personal health info. For help in an audit, a different archive account is made by it that tracks all the received and sent emails by all the users of your domain.
Also, Hushmail has its own mobile app.
Hushmail offers four kinds of pricing plans: Hushmail for Small Business, Hushmail for Healthcare, Hushmail for Personal Use, and Hushmail for Law.
9. Mailfence:
The list of secure email providers is incomplete without Mailfence. It is an extremely secure email provider that offers two-factor authentication and end-to-end encryption.
Besides, this email provider makes use of OpenPGP encryption, provides a digital signature, and comes with a password manager as well. It supports SMTPS, IMAPS, and POPS as well and facilitates document storage.
Mailfence comes with a set of office tools such as messaging and calendars. For all the users who make use of regular email providers and need something secure with the same usability level, Mailfence can prove to be a powerful choice.
There are four kinds of plans offered by Mailfence: Free, Entry, Pro, and Ultra. Every plan comes with different emails and documents storage.
10. Runbox:
It is one of the secure email providers that make use of two-factor authentication and PGP encryption for protecting your emails.
You may allow IP addresses for accessing your Runbox account and take a look at the latest failed and successful login attempts. Spam filters are there to give additional protection and also have support for WAP, SMTP, IMAP, and POP.
This email provider is environment-friendly and ethical. Its server is powered by renewable energy extracted from hydroelectric power plants.
There are four kinds of pricing plans offered by Runbox: Micro, Mini, Medium, and Max. Every plan comes with individual email and file storage.
Conclusion:
Daily tasks and business operations need you to make use of emails for facilitating communication. However, not all email providers are safe and secure.
Related Post: Best Autoresponder Email Marketing Softwares 2022
It always makes sense to send any type of confidential information over mail through a secure email provider while ditching an untrustful email provider. Go through the list mentioned above, and choose the one you need.
