One of the most important tools that a writer uses is the Email. It is undeniably an integral part of every writer/academic’s life. Without a robust email which has all the necessary functionalities, most of our work would remain undone. I primarily use my mailbox not only to communicate, but also to store important files, photographs and other relevant documents like CVs etc. Like most people I used to rely on Gmail for a very long time, till I started getting spammed with scam emails, the Nigerian chain emails and other shady communications. My Gmail account is quite a fossil now. I rarely use it these days. For my work, I primarily use Laposte (the French email service) and store my important files on Digiposte (a branch of Laposte). It is indeed one of the fastest and most convenient email services that I have encountered over the years. Laposte is swift, has a strong spam filter (in fact I hardly ever find any spam mail in the spam box), and even has alias addresses. The only catch is that you must be fluent in French to understand and navigate properly through both Laposte and Digiposte.

The second important email service that I have chanced upon and hope to keep for the rest of my life is the Vivaldi mail service. The best part about the Vivaldi mail service is zero ads, focus on privacy, a strong spam filter and extremely swift service. In fact I have noticed that emails that I send to other mailboxes in conjunction with the Vivaldi mailbox reach late when compared to the latter. Vivaldi mail is also extremely convenient since it is integrated with the Vivaldi browser, thus eliminating the need to log into the account time and again. Further, I’ve also noticed that compared to other mail clients, Vivaldi mail allows a copy of the original mail to remain in the mailbox rather than deleting the same. I’ve often faced this problem with MS Outlook Express, Thunderbird and other mail clients.

In a nutshell, I must conclude by saying that if you are writer or an academic or anyone whose major portion of the daily work depends upon the written word, then please do invest in a reliable mail service. The Gmails and Hotmails and Yahoos have outlived their purpose. With the amount of spam and phishing mails that are delivered to those mail services, as well as the various privacy concerns regarding the same expressed by IT experts, it is time that we looked elsewhere and tried out newer and more secure emails. Apart from Vivaldi and Laposte, the few other important mail services that I would recommend for my readers are GMX (they host their servers in Germany), Protonmail (with servers in Switzerland) and Hushmail.

Good luck and au revoir and happy mailing this season !