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Switzerland-based ProtonMail, yet another secure email service
Edvard:
Just found this, and signed up to receive an invite. Let's see how this pans out...
Our Story
ProtonMail was founded in summer 2013 at CERN by scientists who were drawn together by a shared vision of a more secure and private Internet. Early ProtonMail hackathons were held at the famous CERN Restaurant One. ProtonMail is developed both at CERN and MIT and is headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. We were semifinalists in 2014 MIT 100K startup launch competition and are advised by the MIT Venture Mentoring Service.
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https://protonmail.ch/
...
So, what we got here looks like:
* Based in Switzerland and backed up by the Swiss Federal Data Protection Act (DPA)
* Fully free and paid accounts
* Anonymous access (they don't track IPs)
* Browser-based UI
* Two-factor security (one password to login, another to encrypt emails)
* Transparent encryption/decryption (they claim no private/public keys needed)
* Other features like SnapChat-style self-destructing messages (don't know how they manage that one)
Sounds legit...
from CodeProject News
lanux128:
thanks, tried to create an account but their severs are overwhelmed atm.
Innuendo:
Signed up for the beta. I'll wait for the invite when they have room for me in the beta program.
IainB:
@Edvard: Thanks for posting about this. I too am now signed up for the ß.
The subject line says "...yet another secure email service". Could you say what others you are aware of that are like this one?
Edvard:
They seem to have popped up here and there after Lavabit shut down. Silent Circle and Lavabit devs teamed up to create Darkmail, and Startpage/Ixquick announced their encrypted email service Startmail a while back, and beta tester accounts were activated sometime in March (for whatever reason, I never activated mine...). Those are the only ones I personally knew about, as I had used their services (Lavabit, StartPage) in the past. Protonmail came up on my radar recently from reading CodeProject News, and was the only one I found that had free accounts. After doing a few discrete searches, I found a couple more:
Lavaboom:
https://lavaboom.com/en/
Free accounts offered. Currently a waiting list for beta accounts. 'Zero-knowledge' key handling, 3-factor authentication (for paid accounts, free accounts have 2-factor)
Hushmail:
https://www.hushmail.com/
Apparently, these folks have been around a while. Free accounts are web-interface only, 25MB of storage, and you must login at least once every 3 weeks. Paid accounts have POP/IMAP access and 1-10 GB storage. Not so popular with the hardcore crowd because their terms of service stated they would comply with authorities if you were found to be doing something illegal. Reading through their TOS today, it looks like they've omitted that language and simply state they will terminate your account.
... and a few services that aren't email providers, but do promise to provide easy-to-use encryption:
Virtru:
https://www.virtru.com/
Works with Gmail, Yahoo and Outlook.com, and provides some cool features, such as revoking read permissions after sending (wat?).
Check out lifehacker's write-up: http://lifehacker.com/virtru-encrypts-your-email-lets-you-recall-or-see-if-i-1572789184
Lead developer has a background in the NSA; make of that what you will...
Sendinc:
https://www.sendinc.com/
Send an encrypted email right from your browser or mobile device, or their Outlook plug-in.
How it works: http://www.sendinc.com/about/how-it-works
There were others, but these looked the most interesting.
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