The situation with Protonmail handing over data in Spain is nothing new.  But,

When I tell people they should self-host email on a VPS, they often respond with “email is not private.”  And that’s true, and that’s why you should self-host it, BECAUSE it’s not private and people force you to use it anyway.

So because you’re going to leak data, it should be to someone just renting you a computer, and not to someone literally administering your account and running the software you’re using.  That makes it so easy to monitor it.

And if you don’t want to go through the trouble, we have combo packages to include Email, Chat (XMPP or SimpleX), and Cryptpad, all on one tiny VPS!  Cryptpad is an end-to-end secure replacement for Google docs.  We just set it up and then hand over the passwords/keys to you.  So we’re just tech support, and not the cloud host.

Is email flawed?  Yes.  But you can get as self-sovereign as you can be, and even more so with your documents and chats.  

 The reason I don't self host is because of spamhaus. Just using a VPS is usually enough to guarantee that your mail won't be delivered. It's been a while though, things may have changed. 

 Our setup is guaranteed to pass spamhaus or your money back 

 So you know the keys to the VPS? No thanks. 

 What are you smoking bro?  How are we going to set it up without having the SSH keys.
Then we hand it over to the customer (which I’m assuming isn’t going to be you because you’re a spamming troll), and then they can change it. 

 As long as they have a way to re-encrypt it all. 👍 

 If you're a ProtonMail user, do not have a recovery email that leads to one that is spied on. On top of that, practice good OPSEC, for OPSEC is what determines how long until you're caught practicing privacy. 

 True.  but also shouldn't be doing political protesting via email 

 That's where OPSEC comes into play. 

 How secure is self hosted email? As I understand it's not very secure and easy to hack. So we either get scammers hacking my emails or big brother seeing all my email. 

I think it's a bs... I'm sick of the internet. Can I go back to 1985 when Marlboros were less $1 a pack and all I cared about was getting laid and driving fast cars.  

 ALL email is insecure for an international state level actor (such as the federal US government) to hack, and this includes proton.  This being said, self-hosted is much stronger resistance than services like proton, because proton can much more easily access the data and has a history of doing so for thousands of people.  You would find this article very useful:
https://simplifiedprivacy.com/email-basics/

We can’t go back to 1985.  But you can still get laid and drive fast cars because of all the extra time you’ll be saving by having us setup your email for you. =) 

 Thanks I mostly get it... But I've always had a heck of a time with my domain email service through my vps. Secondly, you help me set up whatever email / domain, then it's not much private any longer? All this shit makes my head spin. 

 

 Well, we set it up, and then hand over the SSH keys, admin passwords, and VPS credentials to you.  So you're in charge of your VPS and it's all open source software.  And it's not just email, but also cloud team docs Cryptpad and XMPP/SimpleX chat.  So you get the most of your 1 CPU VPS.

As a 2nd option, we offer guided "hands off" setups.  Where we don't have access and we tech support guide you through it via audio or text.