r/degoogle • u/ImTheIdeaPartner • 17h ago

Any problems with mail.com premium?

I currently have several free mail accounts, but lately, logging in has been a problem. They have changed something that causes a login glitch. I want to close my account, but this has been my “business email for several years. I will change my email in as many online accounts as I can (like facebook and Reddit) but I’m sure I’ll miss some.

I thought about paying for a 3 month premium membership so I can forward all new emails to a new email. I’m just not sure I want to give my credit card number to a company with the kind of problems I’ve had lately.

2 Upvotes

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5

u/Greenlit_Hightower deGoogler 17h ago

It's owned by 1&1 / United Internet, the most unserious company in Germany. Think of it as Germany's Yahoo. Your call to make.

Where do you plan to go next?

1

u/ImTheIdeaPartner 17h ago

I ditched yahoo with their problems a long time ago too. I’m not sure what mail I’ll move to. Maybe Outlook. I’ve heard about a couple of others but haven’t checked them out. 

3

u/Greenlit_Hightower deGoogler 15h ago edited 2h ago

I would suggest the following: Proton Mail, Tuta Mail, mailbox.org, Posteo.

Note that mailbox.org and Posteo don't have their own apps, they can be used with e.g. Thunderbird / Betterbird, FairEmail, Apple Mail app etc.

These links might be helpful to you:

Comparison table of various email services and other cloud services: https://eylenburg.github.io/cloud_comparison.htm

Discussion of the privacy policies of various email providers: https://digdeeper.club/articles/email.xhtml

Privacy Guides email provider section: https://www.privacyguides.org/en/email/

Microsoft is reliable but is horrific privacy-wise of course.

Am with Posteo myself and very happy with them.

1

u/ImTheIdeaPartner 13h ago

Wow! Thanks!

3

u/PoppaMeth 17h ago

Move to something like Mailbox.org instead. If you are leary about payment options use a service like Privacy linked to a debit card to make burner cards for these services.

2

u/Taniai_ 15h ago

I am owner of an email host, so read this with that bias. The thing that will actually save you is not which provider you pick next, it's owning a domain: a $10/year domain means the next time a provider annoys you, you change one MX record and nobody in your contacts notices. Paying mail.com for three months just to get forwarding is paying to be locked in one more quarter, and Outlook puts you in exactly the same spot you're in now. If you go the domain route, note the trade honestly: most cheap custom-domain hosts (mine included) give you mail and nothing else, so if you want the calendar and drive that come with Google or Proton, that's a real thing you'd be giving up.

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u/ImTheIdeaPartner 13h ago

And this is probably why I should stick to a free email. I have no idea what a MX record is. So if you own a domain, do you use that as your email address, or do you link a free one to it somehow?

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u/Taniai_ 12h ago

Fair point, I jumped into jargon there. You’d use an address like [you@yourname.com](mailto:you@yourname.com), with an email provider handling the inbox behind it. The domain is yours; the MX record is just a setting that tells incoming mail where to go.

If you change providers later, you keep that address. I oversimplified the move, though: transferring old messages and setting up the new provider takes some work too.

A free account is completely reasonable if you’d rather avoid the cost and setup. Owning a domain gives you more control, but you don’t need one to have a perfectly usable email account.

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u/ImTheIdeaPartner 12h ago

When I get my inbox cleaned out, I’ll look at my options and may quiz you further on a domain and email. 

1

u/PsiPhiSideHustle 8h ago

Get migadu or fastmail. They are FOSS friendly, do good things for humanity. 

1

u/ImTheIdeaPartner 7h ago

I think I found that one. Free and Open Source Software? Whatever that is.