One of the most private email communication systems consists in using Tor or a VPN to connect to a free webmail service and encrypt the messages yourself with PGP, this method gives you privacy and anonymity. Thunderbird+Enigmail, or GPG4Win can do that and it won’t cost you a cent, the problem is the time and learning curbe it takes to do this.
Encryption built-into the webmail service might not as secure as doing it yourself but if the company claims are true, encryption secure and their privacy policy trustworthy, it is a really easy way to secure your email messages.
ProtonMail: Company keeps minimum logs and can not read your data as the inbox is encrypted. Servers are based in Switzerland. Communicating with other Protonmail users is end to end encrypted, and emailing other email providers is done in plain text, to make the best of this service your friends should ideally be using too. the company itself can’t read your data.
Tutanota: Email privacy service based in Germany, messages are encrypted in your browser and nobody can access the encryption keys, Tutanota staff has no decryption keys, they keep no login IPs and have no way to identify customers or decrypt data. They also publish transparency reports showing how many court orders they had and what it was done about it, like, handing over encrypted data.
Tutanota free privacy email
Unseen.is: Iceland based privacy platform providing encrypted video calls, chat and email service. You can have a free limited account that will never expire and use it to send email with your computer IP hidden. The same company also offers private hosting in Iceland.
VFEmail: With support for PGP encrypted webmail using the interface and anonymous sign up using Tor, this service has a Tor hidden node from where you can access your account. Metadata is scrubbed from emails and your computer IP removed from the headers.
Mailfence: Email service hosted in Belgium that supports sending OpenPGP encrypted messages and two factor authentication. Seamless keystore integration. All encryption happens in the browser. Service includes a calendar and cloud document storage with paid for accounts giving you access to Android and iPhone apps to access your email using a portable device.
Safe-mail: Emails in between Safe-mail users are always encrypted, when sending messages to an external address a digital certificate can be used for encryption after importing it to Safe-mail or use a dropbox, they call it “Safebox“, where the other end is sent a link to a password protected page to retrieve the message. The company is based in Israel.
Hushmail: Offering automatic PGP encryption in between Hushmail users, it eliminates the sender computer IP from the headers, email can be accessed with a mobile device, compatible with the iPhone. If you don’t log into your free Hushmail account for three weeks your account will be automatically closed. The company headquarters are located in Canada.
NOTICE: List only includes services with free option. If you are willing to pay for a privacy email service other companies you should look at are Posteo (Germany), Countermail (Sweden), StartMail (Netherlands) and AnonymousSpeech (Asia).
Webmail services hiding your IP
The following email services do not encrypt your messages but hide your computer IP in the headers. I tested all of them and the sender’s IP is replaced with a neutral IANA (Internet Assigned Numbers Authority) private IP address, a range of IP addresses not linked to any country or person reserved for use in private networks, the only way to find out who sent the email is to contact the company and ask them.
Yandex: Russian email provider offering Email accounts in multiple languages, with huge storage space (10GB), eye candy interface of interchangeable themes, spam and virus filter and free storage for files and documents. Yandex strips your email from the headers but this is not a privacy service they keep internal logs of the real IP in case of abuse.
Zoho Mail: Easy to integrate with their online office apps to work with documents, there are no advertisements whatsoever and your computer IP is not present in email messages. Company based in the USA.
NOTE: Some email services will only strip your computer IP from the headers for webmail and include the computer IP in messages sent using SMTP.
Luke
Thank you for this, but i would like to see also your suggestion.
I am more towards the ones that the company is outside U.S. but i would really love your opinion on this.
hacker10
Hello,
If you are afraid of the US Government I don’t suggest any of them, even Hushmail, located in Canada, outside the US, has been compromised in the past with a subpoena. I suggest Thunderbird+Enigmail.
hacker10
doc
Very useful review.
I’m still searching for a good, free email provider outside US or EU, though.
There are a few good ones in russia but none of them masks your ip adress in the header.
itsa me mario
yeah well ive been using riseup.net email and its ok i know theyre located in the U.S but ive heard good things bout em , and you can use them with thunderbird+enigmail 😉
any other suggestions would be welcome , offshore is always difficult to find , i too have been searching for those but no success as of yet and yes hushmail sucks bad , im suprised it even made it onto this list
hacker10
There are actually providers outside the US and EU, but I did not include them because they are not free. Neomailbox for example is located in Switzerland and AnonymousSpeech in Asia.
hacker10
itsa me mario
yeah ive meant free , too bad there arent any free ones yet
Greg
Discovered you a few days ago.
Set up Vmail.me account — Wanted no IP.
Repeatedly sent 10/11 emails to several Yahoo&Gmail addresses, all failed except 1 Yahoo
Friend emailed, but never received my reply back.
Unable to connect to Gmail at all.
Forums no help
Any suggestions to get Vmail.me to work ?
Thanks, G
hacker10
Hello Greg,
I reformatted your message, next time do not use all capital letters please. As for your question, as stated on the “About” page, I don’t provide support for any product.
Best of luck,
hacker10
GREG
Hello,
Thank you for your reply — fast!
See, got formatting right this time.
Wanted to let you/ your readers know, I deleted my first Vmail.me account and set-up a second with the same or worse results — nothing moves either in or out — messages just sit there, kinda like putting notes in a shoebox tucked under your bed.
It’s pretty funny when you think about it— an email account that does “virtually” nothing — how cool is that !
I realize you’re not tech support, but still, would be an interesting test to know if your Vmail.me experience parallels mine.
Thanks for all you do,
G
hacker10
Hello,
Thank you for posting about your experience with Vmail, the owner has a Twitter account, you might want to try to get support there with him. I have never used Vmail myself, I listed them taking into account the claims they make on their site, the post is not a review or recommendation, it is a list of services, I can’t comment anything good or bad about Vmail other than repeating their claims and at the moment I don’t have the time to review their services.
I wish you good luck finding a free privacy friendly email provider, it won’t be easy.
hacker10
b
I’m not too familiar with the technical jargon being used here but I’m wondering if Gliph provides a similar service in combination with webmail as thunderbird + enigmail, have you heard of them? It apparently allows you to cloak your email address, as well as provides secure and private text messaging.
Dirk
How about gmx? Any kind of review of their services?
hacker10
Hello,
I have an account with GMX, they are not suitable for privacy, GMX shows the sender IP in the headers and they don’t use SSL in webmail.
hacker10
Brian
About vmail…its the only one in this list I could-would use, and unfortunately got the same problem as Greg.
Emails sent to gmail accounts were blocked.
The explanation goes as follow :
“Our system has detected an unusual rate of unsolicited mail originating from your IP address. To protect our users from spam, mail sent from your IP address has been blocked.”
So it appears that the IP adresses vmail is putting in the place of my own have been linked with massmail/spam/etc, and they will not allow messages with these IPs.
Mailoo might be good for me, but for now they won’t allow new registrations until the previous batch of new subscribers have been approved.
secmail
Hi folks,
I created a new service you can access by http://www.internetsecmail.com It’s for free right now and if the people will like it I will start charging a small yearly fees to cover the site maintenance. The idea is to encrypt the messages using the personal Encryption Password of the Sender and decrypt them using Personal Encryption Password of the Receiver. The passwords are set using SSL web interface and stored in an encrypted form. Instead of using email addresses the Subscriber just defines his “member name” and this “member name” can be associated with multiple email addresses which are not shown to other members.
The emails (as well as attachments) are sent by InternetSecMail server as encrypted PDF files. The Sender also receives the copy of the email he sent and can save it in his “native” mailbox. As soon as message been sent, the message and attachments are removed from server. I think this method of communication is safe and allows high level of confidentiality and content protection. Using this service you can safely send your medical results, finance statements, your ideas you want to share only with limited number of people and other information you define as “confidential”.
4mind
Yandex is non US or EU and in combination with Thunderbird+Enigmail a good wedding
contributor
Then there’s kullo.net in Wiesbaden, mailfence.com in Brussels, posteo.de in Germany (which is paid but it’s inexpensive), mailbox.org in Berlin, mail1click.com in Dubai for those who want a non-US non-EU, aikQ.de in Berlin, secure-email.org in Istanbul, …
hacker10
Hello,
That is a good list, thank you for helping others out.
hacker10
John Doe
If you want privacy use for or i2p and send your email by https://www.guerrillamail.com/
lilylune
Hello,
Thanks a lot for all this information and details.
Can mymail.com be eligible for your list or not?
Thanks for help.
hacker10
Hello,
The list only contains email services that have a free version, even if limited. So, I can not include Mymail.com in the list because it has no free option.
hacker10
BLue Angel
And what about countermail based in Sweden ?
Hacker10
Hello Blue Angel,
Countermail is not on this list because it has no free option and the title of the post says free.
hacker10
Unknown
“Vmail Shutdown 🙁
Unfortunately, we have some sad news. Vmail will cease operations at the end of March 2018. Our email server and all related support and services will turn off on March 31, 2018.”
See https://github.com/root-io/vmail/issues/96 for more details.
hacker10
Hello Unknown,
Thanks for the heads up, I am erasing it from the list.
ivan
yandex???
lol, its KGB