How to choose the right email provider
First, please avoid those big providers like follows.
- Outlook/Hotmail - sucks in UI
- iCloud - silent filtering issue
- Yahoo - too many ADs
- Mail.ru - always blocks mailing lists
- Yandex - very worse spam filters, too many FP
More importantly, if you get troubles on them, you won't get direct/manual support from them.
Gmail from Google is great. Gmail is a technical product, not just a commercial product. I tested for enough time to get this conclusion.
Second, avoid those ISP providers. Because once you leave the ISP, you lose access to their emails.
Most ISPs have no dedicated person to maintain their email product. For example, Orange, Vodafone, Virgilio outsource their email services to third party - Open Exchange.
(screenshot 1: orange webmail)
(screenshot 2: virgilio webmail)
Also ATT, frontierNet, Rogers just outsource their email services to Yahoo.
But some ISPs do develop and operate good email product, like T-online, Comcast, Earthlink and BT. They have not bad reputation on their email services. When I was in the US, I had an earthlink.net email address, which impressed me.
(screenshot 3: t-online webmail)
The next, you should choose the dedicated email providers. There are many in different countries/locations.
For instance, the delicated providers who have good reputation I know,
- GMX.de - from German, free email
- web.de - from German, free email
- Mail.de - from German, free email
- free.fr - from France, free email
- Yahoo Japan - from Japan, free email
- Protonmail - from Switzerland, free email
- Riseup.net - from USA, free email
- Fastmail - from Australia, paid email
- Pobox - from USA, paid email
- Runbox - from Norway, paid email
- Mailbox.org - from German, paid email
- Posteo.de - from German, paid email
- Gandi.net - free email for domains on them
I highly recommend using GMX Mail, as I have wrote another blog below.
(screenshot 4: GMX webmail)
Finally, wish you have choosen the best suitable email service for you.