March 01, 2023
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0The Best ProtonMail Alternatives for Secure File Sharing
The most popular “mail for paranoids” ProtonMail, originally from Switzerland, rebranded and renamed Proton. It formed an ecosystem of secure internet services around itself, and updated tariffs.
Now owners of a free account have twice as much space available as before. The most affordable paid plan has not risen in price at all, but it has acquired several advantages.
However, recently many users have stopped trusting this mail service, as cases of mail cooperation with government agencies have become more frequent.
Therefore, today we will talk about the best ProtonMail alternatives for secure file sharing.
The secure and private email services are here.
The best ProtonMail alternative to using right now
Utopia P2P
Utopia P2P is an anonymous multifunctional platform built on decentralization. It reliably protects user data in the online space and does not store information on a shared server. For this purpose, a peer-to-peer architecture is used, according to which special crypto containers for data storage are created.
Registration and use of the ecosystem are anonymous: you do not need to enter your real name, phone number, email address, and other data. All that is required for registration is to download the ecosystem, install it, enter the user’s nickname and come up with a password. Then the ecosystem will generate a unique key that will open access to the ecosystem for users.
Utopia P2P is an arsenal of tools for communication, data transfer, browsing, information retrieval and much more. An alternative tool for sending emails, uMail is an analogue of modern mail services, which offers all the advantages of confidentiality and data security.
uMail does not restrict users to document formats or sizes. In addition, all files are stored on the computers of the sender and recipient of the letter. All data is securely encrypted thanks to multi-level data encryption and unique blockchain technology.
The ecosystem works in free mode and is available for download on Windows, macOS, Linux, Android.
Learn more about Utopia P2P here.
Mailfence
Mailfence is a multifunctional secure mail service. It has a calendar, file storage, groups, as well as standard email and contact support. The service is located in Belgium. This country has proven itself well in terms of privacy and it has strict laws on the protection of personal data.
Mailfence has built-in support for OpenPGP, which means serious protection and compatibility with other mail services. At the same time, the email header and recipients remain unencrypted.
There is an intuitive design, a convenient arrangement of interface elements, and a rich set of functionality. There is support both by email and by phone, and payment in cryptocurrencies is accepted to ensure additional privacy.
End-to-end encryption is used when working in the browser. Third-party companies and even employees of Mailfence itself will not be able to read your correspondence. It is possible to import messages and contacts from almost any other mail service thanks to the support of POP, SMTP, IMAP, Exchange ActiveSync protocols. The service has its own web application and PWA, which makes it possible to work with some browsers on Android and iOS.
Tutanota
Tutanota is a secure, confidential, open source email service from Germany. The company does not have external investors and other factors that can force it to sell user privacy. It focuses on ensuring the maximum possible protection of correspondence, but at the same time it does not become more difficult to use the service.
One of the features of the service is the use of a custom encryption standard based on AES and RSA instead of PGP and S/MIME. Among the advantages of this approach is the encryption of the email header and recipients. Perfect forward secrecy (PFS) is supported, IP addresses are hidden from emails, and there may even be protection against quantum computer attacks if such attacks ever happen.
Tutanota has end-to-end encryption of emails, contacts and calendar. All data is encrypted on the company’s servers in Germany. There are several options for sending messages, depending on who you are sending them to.
If you write to another Tutanota user, the system automatically encrypts and decrypts all messages. From a user’s point of view, end-to-end encryption looks completely transparent.
If you are writing to a user of another mail service, you can send the email unencrypted or send a link to it. You also need to transfer the key-password, preferably by another means of communication. With its help, the recipient will be able to open an encrypted mailbox and read the letter.
Tutanota is one of the most secure alternatives to ProtonMail. However, this service cannot be called ideal either. It does not support PGP and OpenPGP, so it does not allow you to send encrypted emails to users of other mail services.
Tutanota does not support importing emails from other services, there is no support for POP, IMAP, SMTP. The company promises to fix this shortcoming, but this promise has been made since at least 2018 and the implementation dates are not specified.
Tutanota has a web application, programs on Windows, Linux and macOS, as well as on Android and iOS.
Runbox
The Norwegian service Runbox has been operating for more than two decades. Local laws have proven to be favorable enough to support user privacy. Servers are also located in secure Norwegian data centers.
The legal and physical security of Runbox is especially important because there is no end-to-end encryption. Communication between user devices and Runbox is encrypted, but emails on Runbox servers are not encrypted.
It resembles the work of Gmail, for which this service is difficult to praise. However, Runbox is a small service that earns money by processing user correspondence, when Google costs a trillion dollars and earns money by selling user information. Surely many people will decide that entrusting their emails to Runbox will be safer than Gmail or ProtonMail.
Additional functionality like calendar and tasks is included in the open source Runbox 7 project. This project is developing gradually. At the time of writing, the Runbox 7 web client is available for testing, but the rest of the project continues to be under development. The Runbox development team gives users time to familiarize themselves and comment on the beta version, but the release of the final version has been waiting for years.
Runbox allows you to create aliases that can be used to create different email addresses. Depending on the selected tariff plan, you can get up to 50 GB of disk space for emails and 5 GB of secure file storage.
Full support for SMTP, POP and IMAP protocols makes it easier to import data from Gmail and work with other mail services. Runbox uses only the client in the browser, but if desired, you can connect third-party mobile and computer mail applications.
