a list of associative mail-providers, probably in Europe, most of the time.

I do currently not care about their conditions, prices or functionality. It is just that www.chatons.org was the only URL I tested to get this list. Know, that the listed “software” does not mean that this is the client you have to use. For my own associative network, RoundCube is indicated, but I have always used pop3s and smtp.

You may have a dozen more ways to find Mail-providers. Especially in the USA.

Edit III: If nothing works, at least, once, consider Riseup. I always considered them too exposed to be reliable, but – however – they are! In addition, their efforts to secure the mail-system are immense, due diligence with respect to the role, they play. But anyway: exemplary!

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moving my email to gmx.com

I just signed up for ProtonMail. The free version is webmail only: I can't fetch my mail to read at home or dispatch messages from home. To do that requires the 'bridge', which is for paid accounts only.

RandomTroll,

I don't understand.

The whole point of having webmail is that it is accessible from anywhere (home, work, on holiday etc) via a browser.

I used to use claws rather than thunderbird for this kind of thing. The advantage of using a pop3 client is that you can collect mail from different providers in one place. But I gradually noticed that webmail providers were becoming more and more hostile to pop3/smtp access. RandomTroll's experiences seem like a continuation of that.

Agreed, although this is not a mark of the pop3s or IMAPs protocols, but rather of the Email system, as a different way to proceed had first to be invented.
If this is the case, we have to counteract, shun such services and adapt our routine when talking about Email.

I fetch messages with fetchmail; I send them with sendmail; I write them with emacs; I manage them with mailx; I archive them by sender or recipient in individual files on my computer in mbox format. I want them on my own computer.

Yours is not a response to beachboy2's post.
A response would have been: POP3s, IMAPs and SMTP allow to access the same mailboxes and the same mails on several accounts from several computers. You do not have to erase them on the server and even Pop3 allows now folders on the remote server.

There is absolutely no technical advantage, concerning transfer of messages and their consultation, in using WebMail, no matter how many machines are involved on either side. I still wait to see a comprehensive list and argumentation that could tell me other things than that preferring 1 software (a http-capable HTML-interpreter) for every task under the sky, habit, laziness and indifference are what advocates of Webmail must exhibit to make themselves look coherent.

You may even state that I am right.

RandomTroll,

Fair enough.

If 2FA is your onlyu concern that might or might not work, but gmx is just as bad as gmail in most aspects, and worse in some.

Same for IMAP btw.

When I first started using gmail, there was a help page telling you exactly how to set up an email client for access to their pop3 and smtp servers.

Later, I noticed that the page had been taken down. I continued to use claws for access because I knew how to, but obviously no new customers could do so easily.

Later still gmail started buzzing me with threatening pages telling me to stop "insecure access" to their mail service. This was very worrying. I thought they were trying to make me access gmail with a smartphone, which I don't have, and not with my browser. It took me quite a while to realise that they actually meant smtp/pop3 access.

In those days I used to have a mailbox supplied by my ISP. Obviously I needed a mail client to use it and so it made sense for the same program to collect my web mail so that I could read it all together. When my ISP stopped providing free email and web pages, I had no more need of claws so I stopped using it. Now I just use my browser.

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Same for Pop3(s) btw.

Been a while since I used it, but afair it loads email for offline use and you can end up with different representations of your remote mailbox across devices?
IMAP is specifically designed to make that - well, almost impossible.

You misunderstood. I am not against webmail and occasionally use it. I am for not-having to use it. ProtonMail, which @beachboy2 recommended, services only webmail to its free accounts. I explained why I did not want to have to use it.

IMAP is specifically designed to make that.
Folders on remote systems, where you leave your mail intact after fetching (POP3 classic) are a newer feature of Pop3. I admit that I do not have any use for that .., either (you knew it). Our hosting association proposes the possibility.., God knows, why.

A default Pop3 behavour, where your mail is fetched+removed renders remote folders a moot point. I do not deny that.

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