The conscious use of Email

What are the differences between webmail and clients? What are the major risks when using email? How to choose a good provider? A brief overview.

Emails are one of the most widely used communication tools in the world, especially in the workplace, but they are also one of the worst for security, privacy, and anonymity.

In addition to being vulnerable to many types of cyberattacks, email systems are a natural source of data and metadata that can easily compromise users' privacy and anonymity.

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If possible, it would be preferable to avoid using email as a communication tool and for sending sensitive information and documents, opting for more modern encrypted communication solutions.

However, in some cases, it’s inevitable. So, if we must use them, it's better to do so consciously. In this article, we will explore the main features and vulnerabilities of emails, how to achieve more privacy and, in some cases, even anonymity, and how to choose an appropriate provider.

Webmail and Clients: what they are and how they differ

There are two ways to access an email service: via webmail and via client. Webmail is a service that allows you to access emails through a browser, like Chrome or Firefox, without the need to download additional software. Gmail is one of the most well-known webmail services. The advantage of webmail is that email is accessible regardless of the device used: all you need is a browser and an internet connection.

Webmail is typically based on the HTTPS protocol, which encrypts the communication between the browser and the email server using SSL/TLS (Secure Sockets Layer/Transport Layer Security). This ensures that the data transmitted is protected during transit, preventing third parties from easily intercepting the information.

An email client, on the other hand, is a dedicated application for managing email. Some of the most famous include Outlook, widely used at the corporate level, Apple Mail, and Thunderbird, the most famous open-source client. Additionally, various apps developed by email providers, such as ProtonMail, are increasingly being made available to users.

These software tools can manage multiple email accounts and allow for more in-depth control over security settings.

Email clients use various protocols for managing email:

• IMAP (Internet Message Access Protocol) and POP3 (Post Office Protocol): IMAP syncs emails between server and devices, while POP3 downloads emails to the device and deletes them from the server. IMAP is more flexible, but POP3 can offer more privacy since emails are not stored on servers.

• SMTP (Simple Mail Transfer Protocol): used for sending emails. Here too, it’s important that data is encrypted during sending using SSL/TLS (as is often the case for more well-known providers).

Why avoid Webmail

When using webmail, the email provider can collect a lot of information about the user, including browser data and browsing details. This tracking often occurs through technologies like JavaScript, persistent cookies, and supercookies.