Following on from recent leaks and media coverage, there has been a lot of hipster geek interest in encrypted emails and services offering more privacy than Google. Initially Lavabit looked like the answer, Edward Snowden used it, and if anyone knows about secure email it is likely to be him. Well Lavabit closed down, and now no one trusts any of the US or Canadian email providers.
Looking around there seem to be numerous alternatives, the following seem to have a good few favourable mentions,
Neomailbox
$49.95 per annum, based in Switzerland. Looks to offer what you would expect it to, as well as an anonymous surfing service that will mask you IP address for the same amount again.
Countermail
$59 per annum, based in Sweden, has the coolest gizmo of the lot, you can have a USB stick for when you need to access your account. This does look hardcore, for people who are really serious about their encryption.
Mykolab
$64.92, or thereabouts, the pricing is complex. Based in Switzerland, Mykolab recently offered a lite version to attract those looking for a Lavabit alternative. The main focus seems to be calendar and contacts management for businesses, with the encryption as part of the overall package. Interestingly one of their FAQs, is
“I heard Swiss internet is routed via the UK. Isn't that worse than the US?”
Swissmail
$35 per annum, unsurprisingly based in Switzerland. The service seems pretty basic, with a website that looks like something from the dawn of the internet. It does not offer anything special for encryption, but is easy enough to get set up.
Most of these will offer a free trial, to see whether they work for you before you shell out any actual money.
As far as I can recall, the most expensive Lavabit account was $16 per annum, so none of these would have been plausible contenders while Lavabit was about.
Also worth keeping an eye on is the Wuala (pronounced like the french voila) by the French firm LaCie, which offers encrypted cloud storage. There is not much point in encrypting all your email if you are just backing up all your data to some US based servers, like Evernote, Dropbox, Apple iCloud, etc. There does seem to be a real opportunity here for canny European firms, or anywhere else that can convincingly claim to protect your privacy.
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