What are some email alternatives to Gmail? Gmail is very convenient but what else is out there to use? Something more secure, less commercial.
Look into yahoo, might be better in some ways. Hotmail also, but it's been hacked on a number of occasions.
There are MANY, outfits that will host your Private Email Systems, on their servers for a price... Free systems like gmail, HotMail, and YahooMail, are free but do, or CAN, you really trust them with your email? For a few decades now I have run my OWN eMail, and Web Servers. I have TOTAL Control over them, and they live on a T3 line in my Partners Basement, in Seattle, Wa.... I trust NO ONE else, with my Private Stuff...
I've been hearing ads for email at Reagan.com, specifically the ads say your emails are not scanned like at the free services. I agree with BTPost that you can run your own email server, but that's a lot of work and you still have to have the DNS records, so you have to pay somebody. Either that or your email address will be something like HAZMAT@192.168.1.1 , but that would still require a static IP, you probably still have to pay to get that. I'm not sure if you can run an email server with Dynamic DNS, I guess you could... Still, a lot of trouble and if your power goes out or anything you lose messages. Email is not secure no matter what server you receive it on. Any hacker in Taiwan has already read your message before it ever arrived. Think of it like that even if it's not literally true.
Just a NOTE, here.... My partners, and I do, NOT PAY anyone for our DNS or Static IP addresses, that our Servers use. We DO PAY, for our Domain Registrations, just like everyone else. We used to run our own Root DNS Servers, but a couple of years back we switched to OpenDNS, and their Free DNS Root Servers. Yes, it does take a small bit of Admin, to keep our networks running, on occasion, but that is the price We PAY, to control our own DATA. The learning curve for doing the Admin is fairly steep, if you didn't "Grow up" as the Internet did, but with some Book Learning, anyone with a High School education, (1970's type) can get there, without to much hassle. ..... YMMV....
It is not really a security issue. I figure my email is read many times as it gets passed around to its destination. Having Google reading my email and then targeting me for ad's just seems kind of creepy. Plus Gmail seems tied in to other stuff, Facebook and YouTube and whatever. All of them seem to know who I am and ask for more info and access if I want to explore some new application. Okay, I guess it is a security issue. The PC Magazine article was good. I picked one of those to try, but it had the type in the word image security gizmo. Maybe my eyes or maybe this Linux laptop, but I can never read the letters in those images. Maybe try again. Thanks Guys.
Tormail.org comes immediately to mind as being pro-privacy. EDIT: If you're willing to pay for your privacy, also check out Hushmail.
