I signed up for the waitlist a while back after seeing them on reddit, looks like they will be launching in a week or so. Any thoughts? Fully FOSS
Never heard of it. Thanks for sharing.
It’s actually E2EE, not E2E.
It says we are not the product but also doesn’t say how much it costs if that’s the case. 
Also, why do you say FOSS? It’s open source. We’d have to look into to see if it’s actually FOSS or only OSS.
You’re correct on both of those points, I didn’t check the source code license.
It seems strange to me that there is not a truly open source fully end to end option for encrypted email. The only one I know of is the Dovecot crypt plugin which still allows the server owner to access emails while the account is logged in.
Looking at their UI/UX upon logging in, they are heavily inspired by Proton’s. Very similar looking.
Also, no private way to pay yet. No crypto option. Defeats the purpose of private, secure, encrypted email for me.
Other things I’m noticing:
- USA based.
- It’s basically ProtonMail with a Internxt inspired skin.
- They say zero knowledge architecture. Isn’t this Proton’s marketing terminology as well?
And FYI for others reading:
Interesting that the free plan offers custom domains, that’s fairly rare
But no catch all until the 8.99 plan.
Considering you can get Proton Unlimited (well established, and all the other good things about them) for 10 USD per month, this one seems to be asking for a lot more. I’m not convinced it’s worth it even if it holds up to the same privacy, security, and encryption standards of Proton/Tuta or even if the audit shows all is great with this one (which I am doubting).
Could be good for an alternate free private account to test out which is how I’m going to use it. If they offered a lifetime plan I’d probably throw them some money and see where they’d land in a few years
Another group of discord kids trying to replace proton mail. Sigh.
Serious question why is it a bad thing that we have alternatives? They have to start somewhere. There have been some serious criticisms of proton of late as well and the only other real contender is Tuta
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Zero knowledge isn’t strictly “Proton’s marketing terminology “, they do use it, but so do numerous other companies which focus much of thier marketing on privacy advantages.
Otherwise I agree that this looks like:
and:
Yeah, there’s a waitlist, but you can also make an account as well via a link at the bottom of the main page.
No 2FA settings, although looks like a placeholder.
Edit: hours later, 2FA and other settings are available.
There is 2FA. Turned it on and it worked
Hrm, yeah, now it’s there. I didn’t have radio buttons hours ago for all the settings, just one.
Cannot access that. The website was shutdown?
The free plan looks good. Why I cannot access the website? Anyones access it successful today?
No, it works. May be just you.
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Working fine for me.
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Their Github states “Aster is completely open source under AGPL v3” but there doesn’t seem to be any published code. Though as it’s still in Beta I’d at least give them the benefit of the doubt here.