I tried to sign up for a new mail account using the Tor browser in Protonmail, Tutanova and Skiff, which are (to my knowledge) the most recommended privacy preserving email providers.
Registration failed in all of them, after many repeated attempts with different Tor circuits.
Ngl, extremely disappointing the state of private email in 2023.
Did you try using a simple vpn? Tons of stuff blocks tor nodes now due to abuse. It’s disappointing, but not impossible to understand.
Would using a VPN to sign up for an email over Tor (provided you could) afford you better or worse privacy?
VPN + Tor is practically the same as just using Tor, the difference being that your ISP no longer knows you're using Tor (they just know you're using a VPN) but you vpn provider knows you're using Tor.
From the perspective of the website, you're using Tor in both scenarios.
I use Tor with a VPN just because I don't want to bother turning the VPN off but I know it makes absolutely no difference in my experience.
If you would like a code to https://riseup.net let me known. They have an onion address as well.
Thanks but that seems like it's target to people who really need it and I'm not one of them. I was mostly just experimenting and sharing my frustration.
You’re welcome. If you happen to find something privacy centric, that meets your needs email wise, do share. I would be interested in evaluating such providers.
I was wrong and I retract this 👇
It turns out I had my Tor browser security settings set to "Safer" instead of "Standard" which blocked 3rd party capchas from those pages.
In the end I managed to sign up in Tuta and Skiff using the Tor browser. Protonmail still failed with the same "No verification method" message. 2 out of 3, not bad!
