So I have recently found out about forward email just a few months ago.

I am currently using tuta as my email provider, and I have been doing so for the last three years. But I am not very happy with the closed ecosystem and locking of basic features behind paywalls.

So I decided to give forwardemail a go after reading about it on free software foundation’s webmail systems (this is a web archive link, more on that later)

Now the thing is, the service works. But things don’t really feel legit. They claim to have thousands of users but there’s surprisingly little information about them other than their own website. The branding seems completely generic and pretty much all of their code seems to be coming from one single account with no real information.

There’s a couple reviews about them on trust pilot but the positive ones mostly come from accounts where the only review is for forwardmail.net

I’ve read some discussion about them getting recommended on privacy guides, they sounded very professional and mentioned even wanting to get auditioned, but to the best of my knowledge that has not happened yet (please correct me if I am wrong). Worse than that they seemed to stop replying to the thread a couple months ago.

Finally, I realized today that FSF has removed their recommendation for forwardemail from their website

In conclusion, I have tested and the service does work, but I can’t tell if there is something shady happening. What do you all think?

  • SterbenDeathGun@lemmy.ml
    0·
    4 months ago

    If you want privacy, sadly, you will have to pay. I am currently using Proton Pass (special offer 1$ monthly), you get a good password manager, plus unlimited email aliases.

    Proton is also known to be one of the best Email Providers based on good privacy.

    • shekau@lemmy.today
      0·
      4 months ago

      I am currently using Proton Pass (special offer 1$ monthly)

      LOL, aren’t there other, better FOSS password managers for free, like KeePassXC? paying for password manager is kinda ridiculous when there are better free options

      • SterbenDeathGun@lemmy.ml
        0·
        4 months ago

        I mostly pay for the unlimited email alias, the password manager is free by itself.

        I was using Bitwarden before, but the unlimited email alias sold me on Proton Pass, and 1$ monthly is nothing for not getting spam anymore.

    • miau@lemmy.sdf.orgOP
      0·
      4 months ago

      I’m with you on that one. Currently paying for tuta (1$) and addy (1$) and forwardemail (3$). Forwardemail is actually more expensive

      But neither proton nor tuta support IMAP, SMTP, at least not without the bridge thing.

      • voracitude@lemmy.world
        0·
        4 months ago

        You want privacy and security but you want it over plain IMAP/SMTP, then you’ll have to manually encrypt and decrypt every message. It’s a good thing they don’t offer IMAP/SMTP support as those protocols are old and insecure by nature - SSL and TLS are bandaids, they can only do so much.

        There are compromises to keeping yourself safe online, one of which is to convenience, and the other is to your wallet - yes, privacy costs. If you don’t want to make those compromises, just open up and let Google in and get comfortable watching your data get siphoned away.

        • baconman1945@lemmy.world
          0·
          4 months ago

          Don’t change anything about your proton plan. I didn’t realize that if I subscribed for their vpn, that I’d lose my $1 special. They wouldn’t revert the change, even the same day it was made.

          • SterbenDeathGun@lemmy.ml
            0·
            4 months ago

            Thanks for the heads up, I will definitely keep that in mind.

            That’s strange that they would not help you out.

            Are you still using their Proton VPN? How is it? I am with NordVPN, and I have been using it for more than 5 years, and it is crazy fast and so many servers are available.

            • baconman1945@lemmy.world
              0·
              4 months ago

              It’s okay. I had their top tier plan for a few years, but I hadn’t needed the vpn for anything until attempting to set up a media server.

              Since switching to LMDE and setting up my server in January, I’ve been using ProtonVPN and consistently had an IP leak or something, and my isp has pretty consistently sent me nasty-grams each time I p2p file share. I’ve taken to only doing it at hotels. Kind of frustrating to constrain myself, but I don’t have time to research more and don’t want to lose my sweet $50/1000mbps and have to switch to my old isp. I don’t know that the issue is ProtonVPN, but I don’t know how to investigate it much.