The five best free email addresses: providers compared

There are free providers of e-mail addresses like sand at sea. We have picked out the five best in our comparison and tell you which free email provider you use best.

The best provider for free email addresses: Outlook Live

The freemail provider Windows Outlook Live scores above all with large storage space, which is not least thanks to the free service Skydrive. The service was originally called Hotmail.com - you can choose between outlook.com and hotmail.com as your email domain.

• 15 GB free storage space and another 7 GB in the cloud via Skydrive.
• E-mail attachments up to 20 MByte, up to 10 GB via Skydrive online hard drive.
• A dedicated app for smartphone use is available in the app store.
• The Microsoft chat service Skype is integrated directly into the Outlook mailbox.
• POP3 and IMAP are free. Active Sync is available as an IMAP alternative.

The best free email providers: T-Online Email Basic

With T-Online's free email provider, you can attach larger attachments to your emails than the competition. To do this, you have to live with advertising, which is also placed below the emails you send.

• With 1 GB of solid free storage. Even a whopping 100 GB extra via the cloud. However, you pay EUR 9.95 per month for this.
• E-mail attachments up to 32 MByte, even receiving mails up to 50 MByte.
• You can access the email provider via the homepage.
• Free email access via POP3 and IMAP4.

The best free email providers: Gmail

The search engine giant and freemail provider Google has revolutionized the world of free email providers and has catapulted itself to the top of our free provider comparison:

• E-mails are sorted and displayed more clearly in conversations. Overall, the Google Mail layout is very intuitive and can also be extensively personalized.
• There is a dedicated iOS app and Android app as well as the Gmail Notifier for Windows and for Mac.
• The normal memory is 15 GB. If you need more storage space, you can create a paid cloud account. The memory there is between 100 GB and 30 TB.
• Free email access via POP3 and IMAP.
• E-mail attachments up to 25 Mbytes can be sent.
• There is also an integrated telephony and chat function via Gmail.

The best free email providers: GMX

Almost one in four email users in Germany has their GMX account. The provider is the most popular email service in Germany, as a representative study by the company Convios Consulting found. The GMX freemail offer is not up to the competition in all respects:

• GMX provides users of its free offer with a mailbox size of 1.5 GB. This includes a cloud storage of up to 8 GB.
• With GMX you can send attachments with a maximum size of 20 Mbytes.
• Especially in these areas other providers like Gmail or T-Online do better. If you need more storage space, you can use the GMX Premium offer. Depending on the scope, they pay either 2.99 euros or 4.99 euros per month.
• In addition, GMX provides an easy-to-use and well-structured app for Android and iOS devices.
• In terms of security, GMX offers its customers secure end-to-end encryption using the Pretty Good Privacy (PGP) encryption concept. The cloud storage can also be encrypted with the GMX Vault.
• One advantage: As with Web.de and Telekom-Online, the company stores all data in German data centers.

The best free email providers: Web.de

In addition to GMX and T-Online, Web.de is another German email provider. This means that your data is also stored in Germany here. As a result, you are bound by the strict German data protection law - as a user, you benefit from this. Elsewhere, the free Web.de service is not at the forefront.

• The free service from Web.de provides a mailbox of 1.5 GB for its users. In addition, there is cloud storage of up to 8 GB in the free version.
• With Web.de you can attach data of up to 20 MByte to emails.
• If you need more capacity, Web.de offers you the opportunity to join the so-called "Web.de Club". For 5 euros a month you have unlimited storage capacity and the option to send attachments of up to 100 Mbytes.
• Web.de also offers a suitable client for using the service as an app on Android or iOS devices.
• Just like Web.de, your emails at GMX are protected by secure end-to-end encryption. As with GMX, you can encrypt the cloud storage with the Web.de vault.

Important: Security risks with free e-mail providers

You should know the following about the email providers listed above:

• The non-German providers are proprietary services of large international groups such as Google and Microsoft. In most cases, the data is stored on servers in the United States.
• The providers of Web.de, GMX and T-Online, on the other hand, store their email data in German data centers.
• Ever since global surveillance by the secret services became public, it is questionable how secure such services are in terms of privacy and data protection.
• In addition, almost all free email providers earn money with personalized advertising: information from your private emails is evaluated in order to advertise suitable products for you.
• That's why you almost always have to pay money if you want to use a secure email provider that respects your private information. This is also confirmed by the current e-mail provider security test by Stiftung Warentest, which the providers Posteo and Mailbox.org recommend, but not the free services.
• We present three recommendable secure email providers for more privacy: Usually you only pay 1 euro per month - a fair price for the service.
• Insider tip: In the article mentioned you will also find two free email providers for secure mailing traffic. The services are politically motivated initiatives that can only survive on a donation basis. Use their email services, so please consider providing financial support to the providers as otherwise the services would have to be discontinued.
• You can find out which tricks and tools you can use to effectively prevent Internet espionage in our picture gallery on the subject.

If you are looking for temporary disposable email addresses, you should read on the next page.

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