Low-Security Email Providers?

[Disgusted]

(Feel free to skip the first paragraph to get to the actual question.)

I've recently had access to my Yahoo email accounts (some of which date back to the first year Yahoo provided email) limited or stopped entirely because I refuse to change my passwords to meet Yahoo's new "security" standards. I am not a congressman or Secretary of State, or Mark Zuckerberg, I have no banking or credit card info connected in any way to these email accounts. No one is trying to hack into my account. The only way someone would (or would want to) access my email is if they happened to be walking by my desk and saw my password written out on a sticky note because I'm expected, but unable, to remember 20 different 10+ character passwords for different sites, all containing various configurations of numbers, uppercase letters and symbols. The idea that such things promote security is thoughtless and asinine, and I won't be a part of it. I apparently don't share much of the world's paranoia over such stupid things. Then again, I'm not stupid enough to post all my personal info to any person or website that asks for it. I can make my own choices regarding online privacy, and I neither need nor want Yahoo or any other corporation to hold my hand and protect me from my own foolishness.

So, can anyone point me in the direction of a free web email provider that allows a password of 6 characters, and will not ask for my real name, secondary email address, or phone information? I will go without an email account before I provide any of this information. The only one I've found was in Slovakian, and therefore unusable to me. I don't need (or want) a calendar, encryption, POP...etc. I only need something by which I can send and receive text based messages, and an occasional attachment of 2MB or less. That's all. Why do these companies have to ruin everything?

[petergh]

Protonmail fits the bill. All that is required is a mailbox name and two passwords (identical 6-character passwords are accepted), and there's a free plan.

https://mail.protonmail.com/create/n...2&currency=EUR

[janusz]

Originally Posted by Disgusted

a free web email provider that allows a password of 6 characters, and will not ask for my real name

For the record: the so called "real name" is used only in the From field of outgoing messages, can be changed at any time and, most importantly, can be anything.

[somdcomputerguy]

Originally Posted by Disgusted

, but unable, to remember 20 different 10+ character passwords for different sites,

This password manager, http://keepass.info, has a lot features and can have somewhat of a slightly steep learning curve, but it's great.

- bruce

[William9]

Disgusted,
Lastpass and 1Password are 2 other very good password managers. Many people are using those applications nowadays instead of writing their passwords down, which is not a good practice.

[Zach]

Originally Posted by Disgusted

So, can anyone point me in the direction of a free web email provider that allows a password of 6 characters, and will not ask for my real name, secondary email address, or phone information? I will go without an email account before I provide any of this information.

Tutanota and Yandex are free and won't ask for your real name, secondary email address or phone information - but both of them need passwords of at least 8 characters. If remembering a password is a problem for you, why don't you just use the 6 character password you already have and add the word 'password' at the end?

[Zach]

There's also GMX, mail.com, overmail.de & lumail.lu, which don't require phone numbers or super-complex passwords.

https://www.gmx.com/
https://www.mail.com/int/
http://www.overmail.de/index.php?action=signup
https://lumail.lu/

[libCognition]

Originally Posted by Zach

Tutanota and Yandex are free and won't ask for your real name, secondary email address or phone information

All good qualities, but caveat-- Yandex has become unstable. They have started blocking Tor with this not-so-temporary message:

Yandex 403

Access to our service has been temporarily blocked.

Your computer may be infected with a virus, which is sending repeated requests to Yandex.
We recommend you scan your computer with an antivirus or contact your network administrator.

If you come across any problems or would like to ask a question, please do not hesitate to contact our Support service using the contact us form.
© Yandex

Blocking all Tor exit nodes for weeks is either a sign of incompetence or a demonstration of privacy hostility. Either way it's not good.

[janusz]

Originally Posted by libCognition

Blocking all Tor exit nodes for weeks is either a sign of incompetence or a demonstration of privacy hostility.

It's the latter:

On July 7, 2016, President Vladimir Putin signed into law two sets of legislative amendments after they were rushed through parliament without adequate debate or scrutiny.They include numerous deeply disturbing provisions that severely undermine the right to privacy and are particularly detrimental to freedom of expression on the Internet.

The legislation requires telecommunications and Internet companies to retain copies of all contents of communications for six months, including text messages, voice, data, and images. Companies must also retain communications metadata for up to three years, which could include information about the time, location, and sender and recipients of messages. All information must be stored inside Russian territory.

Internet and telecom companies will be required to disclose communications and metadata, as well as “all other information necessary,” to authorities, on request and without a court order.

Equally troubling, the new counterterrorism law also requires Internet companies to provide to security authorities “information necessary for decoding” electronic messages if they encode messages or allow their users to employ “additional coding.” Since a substantial proportion of Internet traffic is “coded” in some form, this provision will affect a broad range of online activity. At a minimum, it could require companies to hand over encryption keys. The day the counterterrorism bill was signed into law, President Putin ordered the Federal Security Service to define the list of technologies that must comply and set the procedure for disclosing such decryption keys within two weeks.

Source

[Zach]

The legislation requires telecommunications and Internet companies to retain copies of all contents of communications for six months, including text messages, voice, data, and images.

Internet and telecom companies will be required to disclose communications and metadata, as well as “all other information necessary,” to authorities, on request and without a court order.

More lax than the UK then, which will require companies to store the data for a year under the new law that is currently going through Parliament. AIUI, there won't be any court orders necessary in the UK either.