inbox.eu and inbox.lv user experience and review
 

Today I signed up for an business account at inbox.eu. The company behind inbox.eu is the same that run inbox.lv since 1998. It is based in Latvia, Eastern Europe, a country that is part of European Union, it has a solid economy and adopted the euro currency 10 years ago.

Regarding the privacy and security of coimmunications in Latvia: https://eng.lsm.lv/article/society/s...rules.a125896/

Latvia 2018 human rights report: https://www.state.gov/wp-content/upl...HTS-REPORT.pdf

The company behind inbox.eu claim that they offer:

I set up a business account, this way I can use my own domain. You have to setup the dns for your domain and then to buy as many mailboxes you need, for 9,99 euros / year. They don't offer DKIM, only SPF.

There is a 30 days free trial, but in this case you are limited to only 3 outgoing emails / day. But if you want to test the webmail you can also sign up for email.lv that gives you the same experience but only 20 Gb disk space.

Every mailbox come with maximum 5 aliases, 100 Gb disk space, webmail, IMAP/POP/SMTP and 2FA. For IMAP access you have to use a different password than the one that you use for webmail access. The disk space could also be used to store your files on their server, similar to Fastmail. You can't set up multiple personalities, you can't send emails from the alias addresses, only from the main account address.

The webmail is kind of old style, php with no ajax, for example you cannot drag the messages in folders and you have no preview pane. However is a thousand years ahead Runbox in terms of functionality and design.

They also have an Android app. It seems very basic, but it does the job.

I'll continue to update this thread with screenshots and more details in the next few days.

Leaving Tuffmail?

There also is an app for IOS.

:cool:

https://www.inbox.lt/ as well is owned by them has same features like inbox.lv
https://www.state.gov/wp-content/upl...HTS-REPORT.pdf
https://gettingthedealthrough.com/ar...acy-lithuania/

I tried for 30 days inbox.eu and am not impressed. One of the reasons only 3 outgoing emails per day.

No, Tuffmail is too good to leave it :D :cool: At Tuffmail I have hosted my primary email.

But I have several domains and I like to check other paid email hosting companies. I have paid accounts at Fastmail, Runbox, Mailbox.org, Protonmail, Tutanota, Posteo, Outlook, Namecheap, and I also had accounts at Soverin, G Suite, Polarismail, Mxroute and others that I can't remember right now.

Omg, I think I'm a compulsive shopper when it's about email accounts :rolleyes:

I like to test different services in search of the perfect email provider.

Back to inbox.eu

These are some screenshots of the webmail. I selected the blue theme, this is how it looks. It really bring back memories of the Worldmailer webmail from 2003. Nostalgic :)

https://ibb.co/album/nEbrfa

And here are the same screenshots, uploaded on the storage space from inbox.eu:

https://files.inbox.eu/ticket/folder...844b39a4852b46

There's no preview of the files hosted on inbox.eu, the only option is to download the images.

Good luck :):D

I have found that first impressions can be misleading, and it takes awhile before you can assess the reliability of the service. Customer service response is another important factor. My own personal criteria go something like this: 1. Security 2. Reliability 3. Features/Interface 4. Value. A service is not worth evaluating if you don't have the first two, and those are hard to determine with the smaller providers. As we have seen on here many, many times a service can go along swimmingly for years and then one day they just disappear or have a major technical failure.

That's why this review is updated as soon as I have new experiences, either bad or good with inbox.eu.

Of course, nothing is bulletproof: even the biggest providers could make a turn for the bad, look at what happened with Gandi a few weeks ago. Or Microsoft who lost users emails so many times.

In my opinion a provider could be considered reliable only for the near future. You always need to have a back-up email provider and having your own domain gives you flexibility, you can switch providers daily if you want or need to.

Tuffmail is my first choice. It's stability is legendary. What worries me is that it's a very small company, 2 or 3 people from what I read here. What will happen with Tuffmail if something bad happens to them? That's why I will always look for backup providers.

I don't test those providers only for the short trial period. I pay for a full year account, I test, then I retest after a period, I have time for a full year to make an opinion, good or bad.

I have never heard of that happening permanently. The big ones have so many backups that it is unlikely any emails will be permanently gone even if they disappeared from your account for some reason. I've had both Gmail and Outlook.com accounts since the early 2000s and have never had a loss of data or even unavailability for more than a few hours. As you note, some services are so small that there is a real danger of going belly up when the owner(s) move on for some reason.

Not permanently, but enough times to understand that no matter how big a company is, the hardware fails and bugs or technician errors can render the service dead for hours, days or weeks.

Remember the Rim's Blackberry multiple outages?

I prefer to be safe than sorry, all my email is backed up on my computer in case of some problems with the email providers. Check Mailstore Home for a good and free backup solution.

If there's an outage with my actual provider, let's say Tuffmail is going belly up, then I immediately change my MX of my domain and I am up and running with another provider, no mails lost. I am using the cloudns.com paid service for fast DNS propagation.

@Alex, surprised to see you have so many paid accounts.

AFAIK gsuite is 6 USD/mon, office 365 is 4 USD/mon at least, Fastmail is 5 USD/mon.
So you paid xx or xxx USD per month just for email?

I had also fastmail, but canceled it days ago. Now I have been using pobox only.

For paid email I have g suite, it's 12 USD per month, but not for email, just using their unlimited storage, which I have used about 4TB.

I once owned the paid accounts include: FM, Tuffmail, Runbox, Mailbox, Earthlink, Freenet, Posteo. But until now I canceled all them, keep pobox only.

Regards.

In practical terms: how do you evaluate that? Can you really be sure nobody can hack your mailbox? Can you really be sure the service won't crash for several hours/days?

I always pay yearly. My Fastmail subscription ends in 2021 (I paid 3 years upfront and will renew for the next 3 years at 154.70 USD), Tuffmail should be renewed this year, it's 48 USD because I have 2 accounts, from the screenshots you can see that inbox.eu is paid until 2023 (I got a promotion, after the first year it was renewed at 3EUR / year), for Outlook I have Office 365 Home and it's paid until december 2021, Runbox is paid until Feb 2021 but I will not renew if they don't evolve somehow better, Protonmail subscription end on Dec 2021 and will be renewed at 95$/2 years (I got a promotion) and so on.

G Suite offered me less than Office 365 Home so I cancelled it, Mxroute canceled, and so on.

You can't evaluate security and reliability for the small players, which is why I stay away from them for mission critical email. The only practical solution is to utilize only the biggest and oldest players that have so many users of all types that their systems undergo extensive real-world testing everyday. That means Google and Microsoft for anything important, with a few companies in the second tier like Fastmail. If anything does happen with one of the big ones you will read about it and chances are it will be solved quickly and efficiently. Plus, you are quite insulated being a small needle in a huge haystack of other users.

@Alex, can you share me the promotion? I have interest in buying a mailbox from inbox.eu.

When I bought the first mailbox the price was 9,99 euros, then in my mailbox, under the folder list there is a text that shows how long is the subscription then a link Extend. When I clicked the link there was a popup that let me add years to my subscription and it was like this:


Renew domain subscription (1 mailbox)
Loyal client discount
70% off original price
€3/1 year

But beware, if you want to get another mailbox, the new mailbox will have as minimum subscription period the total period for which you paid for the first mailbox. I paid for 3 years in advance for my first mailbox, now if I want to buy another mailbox it will have 3 years minimum period (it will cost me €29/1094 days).

I am sorry for the late reply and for not being able to make you some screenshots, things are a little hectic here since the number of coronavirus cases is still rising in Romania.