What I want is a service without adds from which I can save the emails to my laptop and no google (or anybody else) spying. I only have wifi Internet and the ISP has no mail service.

My story for anyone interested:
I tried free "mail.com" - numerous adds and numerous tricks to make you click them against your will by constantly repositioning images and buttons, you can only read your emails which are deleted after 60 days
but seemed to be stable and reliable so I subscribed to the paid service hoping for something better.
Result: you need to click a few times to log in to your "account", by then you are submitted to the same adds and the same tricks to make you click the adds but you still have no control over your emails after login and you still have a few adds anyway.
I followed the links leading to the cancellation of the account which only drives you to a HTML FORM that asks you to detail why you may be unhappy about the service, saying "the more you explain the better". This leaves you the only option of informing your bank that you want a refund and "chargeback" mail.com.

Remember the name: MAIL.COM

Thank you for your help.

Try startmail.com. No ads, definitely private and they have imap/stmp but I'm not sure about pop. There's a charge but I can't remember how much.

1 members found this post helpful.

I'm a fan of Fastmail. Had it now for like 8 years, renew every year. They have tiered plans, I've never needed to move beyond the lowest tier, I think I pay only $15 a year. IMAP/smtp, webmail, and very good uptime in the years since I've had it.

1 members found this post helpful.

I don't regret my hushmail account. I paid for one feature.
and for $50.00'ish USD I believe you could spend more and get less elsewhere.

IMAP access is the "one feature" you may wish to look into.
I pay ~ $50.00 USD / Year.

Is it "prefect"? Nothing is, including the third word of this sentence.
Is it "reliable"? Three service-based "hiccups" in a year. I noticed one.
I will share the one feature I shopped for...

https://www.hushmail.com/premium/

This is a Personal Referral for personal email service.
(I'm in "The Business" of IT.)

Do I trust it? Abraham Lincoln said "Trust, but verify"
jeremy_g@nym.hush.com

Thank me if it works for you.

1 members found this post helpful.

How about an update....?

1 members found this post helpful.

yes, rblampain, how about it?

fwiw, i prefer to stay outside the US of Atrocities:
https://posteo.de/
1€/month

PS:
they also have extremely versatile payment options:
You can pay by PayPal, bank transfer, credit card or in cash.

2 members found this post helpful.

I have gone for fastmail.com which is fast, clean and reliable. One problem I had was that at some stage and for reasons I have forgotten, they wanted a new password different than any I had used in the last 6 months. Somehow I had forgotten that one character in the new password was lowercase when I intended it to be uppercase (or the other way around) and failing in the login, I tried their password recovery procedure which did not work as it presented endless captchas of streets with shop fronts or containing vehicles or street signs. Assuming I made a few mistakes (not likely) as it seemed difficult to assess what was a "shop front" in the images, I paid particular attention to my selections with no change, the captchas were in a loop. Then I realised my character case mistake and was able to login. I lodged a ticket about the captchas problem, for the price, I understand they cannot afford a human answer (I did not receive any), so whether the captcha problem is fixed or not, I have no idea. An other problem I had, which could have been due to my only superficial attempt, was to fail to download the emails, a problem I still have to investigate later as it is not important.

Regarding the email service I wanted to leave, "mail.com", you get directed to their sales service (or something similar) when you try to cancel your subscription to their service and you are invited instead to "talk" about "your problem", at the time even saying "the more the better" (a suggestion removed now) and the bank is trying to avoid a chargeback. They (mail.com) have a Sydney phone number, which seems to indicate that they are aware of the weaknesses of the Australian laws and regulations, but I am not a masochist and I have no intention of listening to propaganda or to the imaginary need to buy something to solve the problem. As far as the bank is concerned (Commonwealth Bank of Australia [CBA]), I also intend to move my accounts to another bank suffering less bad publicity (I wish I could transfer to the local branch of a US bank or a EU bank) since, as you probably know all Australian banks are now subjected to investigations by a "Royal Commission" for ripping their customers but this "Royal Commission" does not seem to prevent new dishonesty which these same banks seem eager to find in the knowledge that these new dishonesties are outside the scope of this Royal Commission and a new Royal Commission with new powers is unlikely for another twenty years.

Morality, service providers in .au are getting worse on a daily basis. If it is the same in the US and the EU, then it is a global trend and it becomes increasingly urgent to pass our bad experiences, large or small, to others consumers.

I tried to subscribe to others that were recommended, I forgotten which, which could not take my payment for reasons I also have forgotten.

I hope this helps someone.