Secure webmail (SSL / HTTPS)

[Gerrit]

have serious indications that my passwords may have recently been detected, now I obviously changed them but it did stir up my concerns regarding email security a bit. I realised that it may just not be a good idea at all to use my regular email accounts for personal mails to my bank, doctor etc while just giving this email address to random friends as well.

Now I decided to reorganise my email traffic a bit and create two new accounts, one for email traffic that is quite personal and one where I would send copies of my own writings to (a sort of archiving tool where I can send copies of my own most important writings and documents to).
Needless to say I want to be both to be secure mailboxes with especially password encryption so that I can log in without the passwords being seeable.



From my research (correct me if I am wrong) I am best to opt for any mail provider that has HTTPS or SSL for these secure accounts that I need.

Can anyone advise which reliable mail provider (= likely to stay around for a really long time, rarely or never loses any mail traffic, etc - as I don't need to often control the archiving account I prefer a provider as well where accounts don't expire after for example 60 days without signing in...) is most advisable? Of course free would be great, however I would be prepared to pay as long as we are not talking high sums.



I have been using Safe Mail myself for a while with great satisfaction, I love it that they have no password storing option, no cookies and encrypted login. However, their prices are quite high for a storage space that is not very high, so I would say upgrading my free account would not be the most practical as I would really want more storage than their paid plan offers if I decide to pay.

Lavabit is very good in password security apparently?

I also was told Gmail uses HTTPS and would thus be quite secure, although when logging in the confusing thing is that the signin screen indeed has a https:// address while after having signed in the URL changes to http://



Any suggestions?

 

[nasaboy007]

gmail still works with ssl if you just change the url from http to https.

if you don't feel liek changing the url every time, try looking into gmail's greasemonkey extension with the http-to-https script (http://userscripts.org/scripts/show/2588)

 

[-REECE-]

One person suggested in response to a post on domain name security on my blog today that a good method would be to encrypt a file with the password in it and then copy+paste the password instead of typing it in (gets around any keyloggers).

It's often not the security of the email which is the problem but something the owner does or falls victim to (social engineering, phishing/pharming, filesharing, downloading files or attachments without scanning for malware, etc).

An email address (and any domains associated with it) are only safe if the owner takes the necessary precautions to do his best to ensure they stay that way. I use a Mac for my email (and only for my email) and a desktop for my web browsing, downloading, etc. Basically, because I only use the Mac for email and view all files as text only, never opening attachments, it's pretty much impossible for anyone to gain unauthorized access to my account, combined with a very strong alphanumeric upper + lowercase password + symbols.

 

[Six]

I also was told Gmail uses HTTPS and would thus be quite secure, although when logging in the confusing thing is that the signin screen indeed has a https:// address while after having signed in the URL changes to http://

If you go into the GMail settings page, under the General tab at the bottom of the page is 'Browser Connection' with the ability to choose 'Always use https'.