HN Explorer

Ask HN: Gmail alternative for the lazy activist?

15 points by derealized ↗ HN
I like Gmail and have very few complaints about it as a user.

I don't like Google, the company, and if there is an easy option to migrate to that will cause me the least usability issues, I'll migrate.

Call me a lazy activist if you will.

Any good alternatives that don't look like webmail from the 90's?

16 comments

[ 3.6 ms ] story [ 39.0 ms ] thread
[dead] PaulHoule
[flagged]
derealized
I personally care about how it looks. The facism mention is a huge leap, isn't it?
Dah00n
I see Gmail as hideous. Lots (most?) OSS webmail looks better in my opinion.
cpach
Fastmail. Or a local hosting provider. Some of them have decent webmail.

Another option could be to skip webmail and use local clients instead, like Mail.app or whatever you fancy.

rationalist
Fastmail has an easy and fast tool to transfer your mail from Gmail to Fastmail. Happy customer here.

No reports of Fastmail-sent emails getting dropped like I heard one time about Proton-sent emails (I think I saw that in a comment in HN, and only one anecdotal report, so who knows if it's true or not).

Fastmail also does contacts/calendars/file-hosting (which includes the ability to do simple photo sharing and websites).

I've used their support when I got confused about something, and they were very helpful.

jml78
Been on protonmail for a few years without issue
__jambo
proton has an easy transfer process that I just did. They have to give the govt details they have in case of legal issues like squatting or whatever some bureaucrat makes up, but they can only see your devices and whatever you give them, not the content.

Idk about your style preferences though.

Edit: Hm, https://www.fsf.org/resources/webmail-systems this link below seems to say proton has javascript vulnerability...

weare138
I've been using Proton as an alternative to Gmail. Potential security issues aside it's been ok. Web interface is definitely more usable than Gmail is now. Big down side so far is no SMTP/IMAP support on the free plan. You need a paid plan to use a real email client. Caveat emptor.
protonmail
In order to perform encryption and decryption in your web browser and to properly authenticate you, we need to use JavaScript for the encryption and decryption process.

As any legally operating company, we need to comply with the local legislation. However, do to the zero-access encryption we use on our servers, there is very limited data we can provide in case of a data request. Particularly, we cannot share any of the email content (including attachments, content of your calendars, password, files stored on Proton Drive) in an unencrypted form, because we have no access to those ourselves.

antoine_b
Proton. Import process is super easy. I would recommend going for a paying plan. You can import your own domain name, have multiple addresses, you get a VPN, lots of storage space, etc. And they'll never open your mailbox to the FBI.
antoine_b
And good customer service. Your questions will be answered.