No matter how big, small, famous or ordinary you are in the internet world, your emails can still be a likely prey for hackers. Over the years, email hackers have upgraded. With the prevalence of email hacking and spamming, how can people still rely on unprotected email services?

Even celebrities have been victims and were not exempted from them. One good example would be David Beckham’s emails, which was famously known as “Beckileaks”.  The leaked email contained Beckham’s concerns about not being awarded as “Knighthood” and insults to the honor’s committee, which was kind of embarrassing.

Also Read : How to Keep Your Email Clients Safe

Not only famous celebrities become victims of cyber criminals but also companies. Yrar2014, eBay’s 145 million users have been breached. Their names, date of birth, addresses, and encrypted passwords were leaked and exposed. Luckily, eBay separately stored its user’s financial information, which contains its users’ credit card numbers from another database. If the hackers got hold of that financial information too, millions of dollars would have been lost.

A secure email service guarantees a secure and encrypted email. Let’s review two of the largest names in the secure email industry: Tutanota and ProtonMail. The question is, which one of the secure email providers is most secure and how can users choose?

Tutanota – Encrypted Emails with Passwords

Tutanota is a secure email provider that was founded in Hannover Germany in 2011. Tutanota means “secure message” which is derived from the Latin words “tuta” and “nota”. Tutanota does not require any phone number when you register.

You can make a Tutanota account for free with 1GB storage space and can access to limited features only. A free Tutanota account lets you customize your folder, organize your emails, and supports file attachments. If you’re willing to pay for the premium service, several features will be unlocked like having 1TB storage space and lets you purchase up to 100 aliases. Tutanota supports Android and iOS devices. It also has its standard web version.

Also Read : 5 Tips To Make Your Password Strong And Manage Them Securely

If you want to exchange messages with a non-Tutanota user, all you need to do is to specify a password for the email you want to send, so the recipient can view the message through it. If both recipient and sender is a Tutanota user, an email account is just what they need.

Here are some examples of suffixes you can use if you want to create a Tutanota account:

@tutamail.com, @tutanota.com, and @tuta.io.

Tutanota is safe from online hackers since it has built-in encryption which means nobody can access your personal information online.

Protonmail – Email Privacy Protected by Swiss Laws

ProtonMail is an encrypted email provider that was founded in Switzerland in 2014. ProtonMail does not keep any IP logs. ProtonMail is similar to Tuatnota in its security level and design. Just like Tutanota, ProtonMail has a free and a paid version. The free version only supports 500MB storage space and gives 150 messages per day usage policy.

The paid version, on the other hand, offers more storage capacity, custom filtering options, built-in VPN protection, auto-reply, and unlimited email-sending every day. ProtonMail also offers a Business plan which is suitable for companies or people involved in businesses.

Both secure email providers ProtonMail and Tutanota offer end-to-end encryption which means that only you and your recipient can read the emails sent and received. Even when somebody else is able to intercept the email, they won’t be able to break the encryption. Using ProtonMail, nobody can decrypt your emails without your password. Which is why you are always asked to type in your password every time you open ProtonMail.

Tutanota uses AES 128-bit and RSA 2048-bit protocol in encrypting your emails. AES 128-bit encryption is for encrypting the messages, while RSA 2048 uses math algorithms. Tutanota is so easy to use. When both sender and recipient use Tutanota, all emails sent and received are automatically encrypted (AES 128). Tutanota does not support OpenPGP. If an email is sent to an external recipient, the sender will be required to provide a specific password for encrypting and decrypting the email sent (RSA 2048). In that way, the recipient can reply securely using that interface.

On the other hand, ProtonMail uses AES 256 in encrypting emails and clings to OpenPGP quality. Meaning, you can only send end to end encrypted emails if the recipient has configured PGP on their email.

Both secure emails from Tutanota and ProtonMail does have an end to end encryption, but all encryption is done in JavaScript by your browser. This is still vulnerable to determined and seasoned hackers.

Both Tutanota and ProtonMail are available in Android and iOS devices, and they are very similar to each other in terms of security and ease of use. The two secure email providers operate outside the United States – one from Germany while the other from Switzerland. Tutanota supports spam filtering and includes 1GB storage space for free. Unfortunately, it does not let you import your contacts in one bulk and does not support IMA. ProtonMail has two-factor authentication. It does not support POP3, IMAP, or SMP. Using the ProtonMail free version, you can’t change the default signature, unlike Tutanota.

In the end, the choice depends on the features that you need since each secure email service has different advantages, disadvantages, and features.

Masked Emails: Protect Yourself from Data Breaches

Keep your real email private and never use it to sign up on various sites. Use alternative emails instead: randomized emails that look like newly generated secure passwords. Services like “Joinesty” and “Figleaf” provide users masked emails to protect the real email from entering in 3rd party databases so they can’t expose anything about their owners even in case of a data breach.

Secure Email and a VPN

If you are truly after security, you should also protect all of your internet activities, not just your email communication. The best solution is to use a VPN together with any of the two email providers. A VPN hides your identity over the Internet, and when used in conjunction with a secure email, you will have utmost protection from hackers. Get the best vpn service now!

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Neha Shelar