Which free mail service is more secure?

When you want a free mailbox, which factor is what you think most? The answer is SECURITY obviously.

Unfortunately, the designer of IPv4 didn't think of security when he done, so we must patch encrypt protocols on the data we transfer.

In mail transfer progress, we usually us SSL as encrypt methods. We can send/access our mail via HTTP or SMTP/POP3. So, the question is: which free mail service providers MSPs can provide SSL encryption in whole mail transferring?

First, we access our mailbox with SSL over HTTP. As I've known, there are a few free MSPs use SSL encryption, some is Google, hotmail/live mail, 163/126/188, and hushmail.

The most MSPs above just encrypt the data when they authenticate your account, that mean, only your username and password you type in are encrypted, all data except that are transferred in plain text mode.

When you come to live mail, there are 2 security options, standard and enhanced. If you choose standard security, you will be promoted to key in your account ID and password in a plain page, when you click the log in button, your account info will be sent to a encrypted page, that's safe; if you choose enhanced security, you will be promoted to key in your account ID and password in a encrypted page, that's more secure than standard security mode. Crackers can use DNS spoof to make a fake login page with same FQDN, it's the risk you choose the standard mode. If choose Gmail, you will be in an encrypted page first.

After the authentication, you will go to your mailbox. Live mail and all domestic free MSPs just transfer your mail data in plain text mode. Gmail is different from others, if you log into Gmail from http://mail.google.com, then after authentication, you will access you mailbox in plain text mode; if you log into from https://mail.google.com, then you will access in encrypted mode, which mean, all data transferring from your PCs to Gmail are encrypted, critical and secret data will be transferred in safe.

So, if you just access your mailbox from browse, Gmail is your most secure choice.

Then we check the access through POP3. The most of free MSPs overseas don't provide the access through POP3 except Gmail. Yes, it's Gmail again. Gmail provide POP3 access and more, secure POP3 access. You'll have to connect Gmail's SMTP/POP3 servers with SSL/TLS. In mainland of China, almost all free MSP provide SMTP/POP3 access, but none of them provide secure access. So, the answer is clearly, your only choice of secure POP3 access service come from Gmail.

Google's Gmail is the only choice if you think a lot of security. If you send a mail to receipts that also use Gmail, you can trust your mail couldn't be sniff by anyone except Google.

Google insists his faith: Don't be evil, so I trust him, I love him.