Privacy-conscious people want to protect their online privacy

Using regular email poses many risks to your online privacy; intrusive third-party ads, hacking, and identity theft, to name a few. Sending and receiving emails should happen in a confidential and protected way. Mailfence offers such a secure email suite to privacy-conscious people, to be used by both private users as well as in business environments. Their service protects your email from ads, tracking, spam, and the like.

A secure email suite to replace Gmail

While the main feature lies in providing end-to-end email encryption and digital signing, their service extends to a full secure email suite, with calendars, contacts, documents, and groups. This makes Mailfence a feature-rich email service in comparison to other solution providers. And as such, it is an excellent replacement for Gmail to privacy-minded users who would like to de-google without giving up on functionalities.

OpenPGP to encrypt your emails

To secure your emails, Mailfense uses end-to-end encryption through OpenPGP, an industry-standard that encodes your message with an encryption key. This ensures the email can only get decrypted when the receiver has the correct decryption key. Other parties will not be able to access your data. You can add digital signatures to provide proof that you sent the mail message. By the way, you can still send unencrypted emails if you like, for whatever reason.

Encrypted messages through PGP keys or password protection

PGP keys are generated and managed in a built-in key store in Mailfence, allowing you full control of your email encryption. While it is easy to send encrypted messages once your keys are set up and shared, there is a – relatively small – learning curve to create keys before you can start sending asymmetrically encrypted messages to others. That is why there is also the option to send password encrypted mails. This symmetric encryption allows you to bypass the sharing of PGP keys. Naturally, to use this feature, you will need to share the password in a secure way outside Mailfence.

Mailfence provides a browser-based secure email suite

As Mailfence is a browser-based secure email suite, the encryption takes place within the browser, using an AES-256 algorithm. While the PGP keys are stored on their servers, this is regarded as adequately secure. Because of the use of JavaScript, there are some security vulnerabilities for any mail clients of this kind; to rule these out, you will need a provider with a dedicated email client. Anyway, all communication with the Mailfence servers runs over Transport Layer Security (SSL/TLS) and HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS), adding as much security as possible.

Access to personal data only under strict conditions

Located in Belgium, Mailfence has to comply with some strict data retention directives. But the authorities can only access your personal data by a warrant and under harsh circumstances. And as dedicated supporters for the Fight for Digital Rights, Maillfence remains utterly transparent on any legal requests for information the authorities may have posed them.

Mailfence is not just another e-mail provider, but part of a worldwide movement to regain online privacy. Encrypt everything and join the fight for online privacy and digital freedom.

– Patrick De Schutter, Co-founder – Mailfence

Get started with a free Mailfence account

You can register for a free Mailfence account, which comes with limited features; for instance, 500mb email storage space. Upon registration, you will need to provide an alternate email address. There is no need to supply your real name so you could use a temporary email account, a so-called burner email. But this is not advisable as you will need to communicate through this email in case you encounter any authentication issues logging into Mailfence in the future. Once you have chosen your Mailfence email address, you can start using their secure email suite instantly.

Upgrade to a paid plan for extended storage and functionality

Paid plans offer more email and document storage, usage of email aliases, configuring custom domains, more calendar entries, more contacts, plus the ability to synchronize with a desktop and mobile dedicated email client of your choice. Supported messaging protocols are SMTP, IMAP, POP, and ActiveSync. In case you want to use Mailfence for business, their team will customize the suite to fit your specific business needs.

An intuitive user interface in a web browser

Once you logged into your account, you will notice a clear and intuitive interface. At the top of the screen, you will find four icons allowing you to easily navigate between messages, documents, calendars, and contacts. The layout that stays available on top stands out in comparison to other browser-based email interfaces. The email section has a classic 3-column design with folders on the left and the most used commands like New, Reply, Delete at the top. The second column displays your emails, and the third provides a preview of the selected mail.

Guided generation of your encryption keys

In case you want to create or import encryption keys, you will need to open Settings. Click on your user name at the top right of the screen, and then navigate to Encryption under the Messages section. A wizard will guide you through the process. Once you wrote your email message, you can opt to send it either unencrypted, encrypted, and digitally signed or not. When you click Encryption, you will be able to select either password or PGP encryption. To digitally sign the message, select the Sign & Send option under the Send button.

Easy to securely share documents and emails in groups

The contacts section offers an extended address book functionality. And it is entirely possible to import or export them; click on the three dots in the top to reach this functionality. Mailfence supports several file formats to import from and supports common types as CSV and Card to export to. To facilitate collaboration, you can create groups to securely share documents, contacts, calendars, and emails among group members; this feature provides a strong motivation to people wanting to de-google while preserving the functionalities they are familiar with.

Local and remote storage of documents

You can store your documents either on your local device as a virtual drive or on a remote server using WebDAV. Popular platforms as Dropbox support this protocol. The Mailfence knowledge base provides extensive documentation on how to set this up and to secure access properly. As for the calendar function, each Mailfence account comes with one personal calendar with a load of features: availability selections, reminders, visibility choices, and color schemes. There is even an option to add tags to your calendar entries.

Use on mobiles through a reduced web version or in a dedicated mail client

A minor point is that Mailfence currently does not provide a mobile app. As a workaround, you can use the reduced mobile web version by entering mailfence.com/m in your mobile browser. Alternatively, in the paid plans, you can also configure your Mailfence account in any dedicated mail client that supports standard email protocols like IMAP, POP, and ActiveSync.

Comprehensive knowledge base and blog

As for customer support, Mailfence will assist you with all questions you might have. Moreover, their website has an extensive knowledge base covering nearly every functionality you want to start using. And the blog contains many useful posts about online privacy protection.

Mailfence protects your emails and data from unauthorized access

In conclusion: The privacy-focused features of Mailfence ensure your emails and data are protected from unauthorized access. The implementation of the OpenPGP standard guarantees compatibility with other encrypted email services. Moreover, there is no vendor lock-in; this means you can export all your emails, key-pairs, and data should you ever decide to leave Mailfence.