Best Secure Email: Top 10 Services

Overview

Popular services like Gmail or Yahoo provide customers with seemingly everything one needs from an email service. Still, they are regularly reported to scan the content of our emails that becomes highly alarming. Even if one deletes emails, the confidentiality of the content is still a question. Supposedly, free services have no financial interest in safekeeping data privacy; that’s why they share their clients’ information with advertisers. Opposites to them are the secure email services whose primary intention is to provide you with private communication. For rather nominal prices they encrypt the correspondence, guaranteeing complete confidentiality and provide other useful features. There are many options of these services available on the market, so, here is the list of top 10 that good enough to consider purchasing:

• ProtonMail
• MailBox
• HushMail
• TutaNota
• MailFence
• RunBox
• StartMail
• LuxSci
• CounterMail
• Posteo

ProtonMail

ProtonMail is one of the open-source services that claims to use unnamed end-to-end encryption (E2EE) algorithm that does not provide any opportunity for decoding. Hence, neither ProtonMail employees, nor third parties can get your data. Moreover, the company’s servers are located in Switzerland that promises data protection by local laws.

The service is quite easy to access having mobile apps for both Android and iOS, desktop applications, and web version. After registration, you are provided with 500MB storage space in a free plan, 5 GB in the “Plus” version, and 20 GB for “Visionary.” The paid versions cost  $5.00 and $30.00 respectively.

Other enjoyable features are that even your IP is not tracked, and emails can be deleted automatically after a specified period. ProtonMail also provides encryption mechanism for a message to a recipient, who does not use it. In this case, encryption is, unfortunately, not automatic, but the user can encrypt a message with a password. Besides, the service coordinates with other mail agents utilizing the desktop application, although it’s uneasy.

Although some customers might find it costly or inconvenient, ProtonMail is perfect for correspondence protection as it is thought over from all the perspectives.

MailBox

Based in Germany and, consequently, conforming to GDPR and local laws, Mailbox provides not only secure mail service but also a cloud and an office as a pack. The prices are pretty accessible – only €1 for all the services; more expensive options are available for teams and business. Currently the option of free 30 days trial is also present. For the prices mentioned, one gets a 2 GB email storage.

As to the safety of the data, all the services company are encrypted through the SSL/TLS protocol and are protected from spam and viruses. For extra protection, you can use PGP encryption in a web version.

One of the specific traits is no extra software or application should be installed to use it. However, Mailbox promises effective push notifications. Apart from this, the inbox is expected to self-learn on sorting the mail in a way convenient for you.

Using the service through other email applications raises questions for data security. Excluding this, Mailbox offers several services of promised high quality for relatively little money.

HushMail

HushMail is another service that provides clients with secure data exchange for 20 years so far. The company uses OpenPGP encryption for the contents of emails in the web version, mobile web version, and an iOS app. With this service, not only no one can decipher your messages, but they will also keep safe in interaction with users having standard email services.

HushMail provides several plans: one for personal use and at least a couple for business purposes. The personal one will cost $49.98 annually – the price comparable to ProtonMail in monthly spending. Still, you can try the service for free in 14 days period. The storage of the email-box is 10 GB.

Among the special features are a variety of domains you can choose when creating a new email and unlimited aliases. Both company’s operations and servers are located in Vancouver, Canada, where personal data is protected under PIPEDA.

HushMail is great if you are interested not only in the quality of email service but also in freedom of using storage space and camouflage for your identity online.

TutaNota

Another service guarding the privacy of our online correspondence is TutaNota. They provide E2E encryption program specifically underlining that all email parts and attachments are encrypted. Two-factor authentication is present for secure access with no personal information required or logged like phone numbers or IP data of both sender and recipient.

TutaNota team and servers are located in Germany, which means that they are subject to GDPR and strict local personal data protection laws. The service is also open-source in case of any uncertainty in their software. 

As to the prices, there are several options: basic and free with secure email and 1 GB storage, ‘premium’ for €1.20 monthly with same storage, and abilities to add one user, create 5 aliases and use custom domains; and ‘pro’ for €6 per month with 10 GB storage and 20 aliases to create. All options include free calendar (also encrypted). For those with the need for larger storage – it can be bought at a separate rate. TutaNota also accepts donations.

TutaNota is affordable and provides all the features required and high-standard security. Among the ones named in the review, this one is definitely worth using. 

MailFence

MailFence is one of the services which uses effective end-to-end encryption. In spite of this, they do not provide branded apps, but should be compatible with any OpenPGP services and can be accessed from the mobile, web, and with different communication protocols. Also, encryption only goes as far as the recipient uses OpenPGP service.

The company is based in Belgium, in which you, as a customer, are defended by European GDPR and local laws. MailFence provides the opportunity to create numerous aliases, choose a domain name, and connect to other mailboxes. In addition to email service, you get calendar, and documents storage (with editing) free of charge.

The team provides three specific plans, one of which is free. This one goes with 500 MB storage for emails, the same for documents. “Entry” option costs $2.50 per month for 5 GB storage for emails, 12 GB documents space, and 10 aliases to use. For “Pro” you get far more – 20GB mail and 24 GB documents storage, 50 aliases – all for $7.50 per month.

MailFence provides quite a lot of useful features; however, one cannot tell if the security of emails is ideal and won’t be compromised. For this very reason, MailFence is not the best service in the list observed.

RunBox

Environmentally sustainable business, RunBox is less famous, but no less effective service than the older ones. HQ is located in Norway, so, the data is guaranteed not to be disclosed or stolen by local laws. It is also protected with two-factor authentication as well as SSL and PGP encryption. Although the service can be accessed via web and other protocols, RunBox does not provide any applications. For other pleasant features, they provide spam and virus protection; convenient filters and sorting features.

You can request a 30-day trial before choosing between 4 different paid options. Prices vary from $1.66 to $6.66 per month with storage from 1 to 25GB respectively. All price plans provide the same number of aliases – 100, while the choice of domain names differentiates. For when you decide to transfer to RunBox, contacts, and data in your current mailbox are easy to import.

RunBox has qualitative encryption process. Still, the absence of applications does not make it easier and safer to use. At the same time, no additional free service is provided for the same price level as competitors have, so, on the value side, RunBox is less beneficial.

StartMail

StartMail is another newbie among above mentioned renowned services. It is no less worth in terms of encryption technology since it uses the PGP program, and even more, newest PFS protocols. The non-user of secure email box will still get encrypted messages. Like many others, SmartMail operates with the help of other mail agents and web; no specific applications are provided and require to be downloaded.

The Netherlands is the country where StartMail operates, which assumes the same advantages as for Germany or Norway. 

The cost of StartMail is $5 per month for “personal” plan. In this plan, you get 10 GB of storage space, ability to use 10 aliases and create domains of any preference. Before the payment proceeds, you can also take a 7-day trial. For any business purposes, the plan is the same as ‘personal’ per every mailbox.

StartMail service has several obvious advantages like technologies used for encryption. However, several valuable disadvantages make StartMail less perfect of service than others on the list.

LuxSci

The only business-oriented company in the list is LuxSci and, consequently, they provide drastically different type of service. They use TLS, SMTP, PGP, and other protocols with E2E encryption to secure emails. LuxSci doesn’t provide any applications. Still, the service is compatible with mobile, web, and email agents.

LuxSci provides different plans for different business scale. In a “Shared” price plan for $1-10 cost per user per month, up to 50 users are expected with 500GB storage for all. “Dedicated” provides secure email for up to 1000 users with total 10 TB storage space. The cost of the latter is $1-10 per person per month, and a separate server fee of $60 is required. In the plans mentioned, you get branding, spam and virus protection, and control of security levels.

LuxSci is also the only company in the list with both operations and servers in the United States. Traditionally, this placement is considered to be risky for personal data, as no significant legal protection is present.

LuxSci is a perfect and quality option for businesses and enterprises to want to make their corporate communication secure with specific plans and features. 

CounterMail

The Sweden-based company, CounterMail, functions on the most quality encryption program available, PGP, guarantying end-to-end security. CounterMail acts by all popular PC operating systems, browsers, and other email clients are compatible with Android.  Any data available in CounterMail’s access is stored on CD-ROMs as opposed to servers. Based on this reason, security won’t be compromised if the server is in danger.

CounterMail provides the same plan for all with 4 GB storage. You can get a 7-day free trial. If you like it, payment for 6 months coasts $29 total per year or $4.83 per month. Monthly price decreases if payment is made for a year and two at once.

Among other features, you can use secure forms, dynamic aliases, and the domain name of your choice for $15. CounterMail also provides extra storage space for extra money. However, this extension is quite limited – up to 1.75 GB only.

CounterMail does concentrate much on security, so, data privacy is near to perfect. At the same time, there are no nice and easy extras among its features and, maybe, for the same price you can get more with other secure email providers. 

Posteo

The last on the list is environmentally sustainable service from Germany. Posteo uses OpenPGP and S/MIME encryption as well as 2F authentication, which can be used on demand by a user. It also operates on all devices and is compatible with any phones and PCs, and one can sign up without providing any personal information.

The cost of email, address book, and calendar together come down to €1 per month only. Email is provided with free 2 GB storage, which can be expanded up to 20 GB for extra €0.25 per 1 GB each month. 

To add to all of the above, you can use 2 aliases for free with Posteo. It also promises that transfer of your information from other email clients will be extremely easy and promises 3 of them to be transferred. Apart from this, virus and spam defense and easy-to-use filters are available.

Posteo is ecological, user-friendly, and on a budget service that many of the users need. However, if we consider the best email security, it doesn’t provide end-to-end encryption or other extra measures, so, can’t be the most trusted email client on the list.

Verdict

Targeted for different needs, functions, and degree of protection needed, all of the services give their users the joy of feeling private in the current world where our texts, location, transactions and other are constantly watched over. If you consider your private data or feeling of being safe to be important, you should consider purchasing one of the services listed above. They will cipher your emails and attachments effectively in any appropriate application or browser, which is useful both for business and private life. Even if not all of them are perfect, some of them are good enough to try instead of or together with your current email client.