There are 2 kinds of companies:

1. Evil companies
2. Companies that are not evil YET.

What this means in this case is that only your own E-Mail server running on a Raspi in your own home can be considered private or secure in the long run. Unfortunately this is really really hard to do, which is the only reason i have not done it yet.
Personally i do not consider any E-Mail private, because E-Mail is not E2E-encrypted, and 99.9% of times one side of the conversation is going to be hosted on some shady companies servers.

Of course Proton delivers a great service, because they make an insecure protocol a little less insecure, and i personally use Proton mail. Unfortunately their closed-source nature makes it impossible to switch providers without abandoning their great software.

As for services like Drive, they can actually be hosted privately and securely on your own Raspi with stuff like NextCloud/OwnCloud.
For those that can’t/don’t want to self-host, i would recommend paying for a hoster that hosts FOSS software and contributes to it either with money or code. In that case you would probably loose E2E-encryption, but gain the ability to switch providers once your provider turns on you. In that case at least some of your money would continue to offer value to you by having improved the software you are still using.

Maybe not the contribution that you’re looking for, but going to tell you this story regardless.

I am Swiss, and used to be a former diplomat at the Embassy of Switzerland in the United Kingdom. My colleagues and I had organized an evening on cybersecurity, where we showcase what Switzerland has to offer. I invited stakeholders such as:

• Dreamlab (really cool company, should look them up if you don’t know of them)
• NCSC (Swiss National Cyber Security Center)
• Some Swiss cyber regulator; and
• Proton

Firstly, when speaking with the CEO of Dreamlab, he ushered a statement; upon me saying I’m a huge Proton fan and subscribed to all services - “they are lying to your faces”.

I was curious, so I spoke with the regulators and NCSC delegates, they said that Proton has been involved in a handful of leaks - some that were made public, some behind the scenes.

When I spoke to Andy, having told him that I grew up in Canada, I asked him what his plan was for North America. His response: “I will gladly take their money, but never open up shop there - too many national security services that come knocking on the door”.

Now I see that (on the Proton page), that they are looking for a few US based positions for Marketing and Growth - going against what we discussed a few years back. In all honesty, I still have a Plus subscription with them, but beginning to questions a lot more things regarding security and ethics at Proton. Guess I’ll just self-host in the future. Trust no one but yourself with your personal data.

I’m currently on Tuta, because I can’t imagine Mail without a free tier. It’s run out of Germany(EU). Its 3€ a month for the normal tier, free takes away most features. Like Proton, you need to use their (OSS)-Client, for encryption reasons. It’s currently growing and I hope they don’t go crazy anytime soon.

I was looking at Posteo, but I don’t want my entire internet identity to be gone, if I ever can’t pay for it.

I’ve said it in another thread: German users should consider posteo as a green, safe, and affordable (1€/M) alternative. https://posteo.de/de

https://soverin.com/

Remember when businesses stayed the fuck out of politics so they didn’t alienate their customers because they like money? Pepperidge Farms remembers.

Thank fuck I didn’t get that subscription, I was looking into getting a secure mail service. I engaged with people calling proton a CIA honeypot, investigating what was up with the rumors and I was about to jump into bed with proton.

So literally one guy can change your entire network lifestyle?

I know Google just donated to Trump’s inauguration, and also does all the stupid surveillance capitalism crap that Google does, but I just compared prices, and Google Workspace is a few dollars per month cheaper per user than Proton is, for my needs (family, custom domain names, etc)

We’ve been on Proton for a few years, and it’s fine, but we do also have Pixel Android phones, and not using Google services constantly feels like swimming upstream, plus all family members also still end up having to use Google services for work, anyway

It’s just not practical for me to de-Google, which is a shame, so I think I’ll be switching in a few months, unless pricing changes significantly :S

Does DisRoot count ? It has a myriad of services that are all FOSS tools Has a “Hub-App” on Fdroid

Damn dude. I swear I can’t wait for AI to program everything so I don’t have to keep track of the shitty things people do because we are a shit species.

Trump’s terrible politics aside:

1. the Republican party is pushing legislation which requires you to identify yourself to view porn

2. you can get around this with a VPN

3. proton is a VPN (nonprofit, but still).

I’ll be switching email providers when I can… I can’t remember when my subscription ends.

I swear by Njalla, which is run by Peter Sunde

Abandoning the Proton subscription now. How stupid and irresponsible. In fact, are running away from all your principles.

It seems there aren’t any exact replacements, but this probably lists service providers to consider: https://www.privacyguides.org/en/email/