Did you see the comment by “FT” in our recent inquiry about ProtonMail? FT recommended MailFence. We tried it and we LOVE it! It’s secure, free, and they even have other tools and resources built in. Belgian privacy, no ads, no spam, no trackers – and no back door. Check it out – and we’d love to hear your input on it, as a ProtonMail alternative: https://mailfence.com/.
10) Another Option for Secure Email
First, thanks for all you guys do. I did a software project (eGiving.com) for years and wanted to comment about Proton vs Mailfence without knowing anything but subscription vs free. When things are free on the web…you are the product. There is no “free” with security. Just sayin’…
… unless, as is the case with Mailfence, “free” is to hook you to pay later for premium upgrades.
Thought I’d give you my 2¢ on a paid Mailfence account now that I have used it for 6 months.
Pros:
I assume it is secure, though I have never tested that aspect
It does work reliably, no down time
Cons:
You have to log in every time you want to check your email. This is very annoying to me. I have the setting on the longest “login period” they allow. I know this is for security reasons, but I find it a bit overkill.
It does not do conversation threads reliably and almost never includes your replies in those threads. I found this “feature” the most troublesome. It makes it hard to follow projects and correspondence through their progress.
Whitelisting and filtering does not work. I consistently had several people whose emails always ended up in my spam folder no matter what filter I put on them or even if they were whitelisted. I don’t think the whitelist feature works at all. This is also very annoying since it means that I daily (or more) have to go through my spam folder.
The search feature lacks criteria. You can only search EVERYTHING, including the trash, but never spam. And the search results were never threaded.
No native iOS app. Again with the constant logging in and clunky interface.
I will continue to use Mailfence for secure communication, but I have gone back to gmail for my regular emailing.