End of Yahoo Mail in China (2021). Alternatives?
 

Yahoo Ceases Operations in China (PCMag, 11/2/2021).

Apparently, it was several years ago that Yahoo pulled the plug on its ".cn" services. Nevertheless, Yahoo Mail users with "@yahoo.com" have continued using the service from within China... until now. The article above says that Yahoo and other companies are discontinuing services in China due to changes in the legal environment as of this year (2021).

My friends, an elderly couple living in China and using an "@yahoo.com" address, were notified that they would not be able to use their Yahoo Mail account after 2/28/2022. They have asked me what email service they should move to.

Anyone know what email services will continue to be accessible from within China in the new legal environment (i.e., not requiring a VPN, and not requiring reading Chinese)...? Free options are preferred (assuming there are any).

1. protonmail
2. ik.me
3. outlook
4. zoho
5. yandex

they are all big providers who wont run away quickly.

Thanks for the info. Regarding Outlook, please note that the PCMag article mentioned that Microsoft has been affected by the new legal environment (they discontinued their Linked In service in China). So I'm thinking that the outlook for Outlook may be unclear.

Any idea about gmx?

gmx had bad reputation for deleting user accounts from my experience.

My friend in China said #1 and #2 didn't work (they didn't specify what failed, exactly). Then they tried #4 (zoho) and it worked.

Just FYI for anyone else in this situation.