[SOLVED] where is Opera e-mail hosted? and other questions about e-mail security

Once you install enigmail and generate your keys, encryption/decryption is transparent, no more trouble than sending or receiving plaintext emails. Like I said, the problem is getting others to use encryption. Opengpg is still secure, AFAIK, since the source code is available and is checked by lots of people who know what to look for. Commercial encryption software can't be trusted not to have backdoors, and I wouldn't use it for anything.

If you're worried about your email provider getting your data and/or selling it or giving it to the government, GoDaddy would not be my first choice. Google is far preferable. Finding reliable, secure email providers is becoming difficult at best, and some of the old reliables have closed down due to US government intervention. They decided to close rather than give up their users' emails. The only US provider I know of that can be trusted right now is riseup.net. Providers outside the US don't have to abide by US government orders, so they would probably be a better idea, although most are not free. But if you're really worried about it, they aren't that expensive.

There are lots of email providers out of the USA, some are free, some are not. It is not a problem with actual offer, at all. Also, I don't think that is relevant to the mail problem.

The problem is that you are using a lot of middleman for the task, and you have to trust everyone of them. That is the problem. Email is convenient but arguably insecure by design.

Asymmetric encryption helps, but usually you have to set it for the people yourself or have trouble convincing them to set it.

True, email is inherently insecure. The only way to secure it currently is with encryption. That may change soon, however.

This Slate article has some encouraging news.