As its name suggests, AdGuard is best known for its ad-blocker services. However, the organization has also expanded into other security and privacy services, including VPN and DNS services.

Its latest offer, still in beta at the time of writing, is AdGuard Mail, which provides security by offering email aliases and temporary email addresses – so you can keep your mail email addresses and services protected.

Aliases and temporary email addresses can be helpful in a wide variety of scenarios. You might want to sign up for a service or trial to acquire a discount code without signing up for spam, or you could just want to avoid subjecting your mail email address to the risk of phishing attacks or data breaches.

You may need temporary addresses for testing during software development, accessing a webinar or accessing services you don’t fully trust.

AdGuard Mail: Plans and pricing 

At the moment, AdGuard Mail is completely free – which instantly places this product ahead of many competitors.

Bear in mind that AdGuard says that Mail is free “for now”. Given that users have to pay for AdGuard’s other products, we’d expect AdGuard Mail to become a paid product once it leaves beta testing. Indeed, AdGuard’s FAQ says they plan to add paid features and customization options in the future.

Happily, AdGuard’s other products offer competitive pricing, so we’re not concerned about AdGuard Mail having extortionate pricing once it does leave beta.

For instance, the central AdGuard ad-blocking product costs $2.51/£1.99 per month if you pay annually, the VPN’s monthly costs are similar if you stick to an annual deal, and the DNS service has a basic free service.

AdGuard Mail: Features

AdGuard’s concentration on aliases and temporary email addresses gives users several privacy and security benefits.

By using an alias instead of your personal email address, you can avoid using anything identifiable if you want to send or receive messages. Instead, any emails sent to your aliases are then forwarded to their linked mailboxes, providing a layer of protection between you and the sender.

If you use temporary email addresses instead, you can avoid sharing your details and subscribing to any unwanted spam or services.

Ultimately, AdGuard’s aliases are ideal for ongoing communication without using your real addresses, and temporary emails are better for short-term activities.

This helps you avoid spam, phishing attacks, data breaches and privacy issues because you won’t have to use your own email address.

This approach differs from many other secure email providers, which give users their own, permanent email address, but AdGuard still promises robust security.

AdGuard cannot access your messages when using AdGuard Mail, and AdGuard uses secure SMTP connections whenever possible to protect your emails from unauthorized access.

The firm inspects email and website content before they’re loaded to check for any threats – and does so without retaining any information about the content. AdGuard’s thorough filtering protects you from fraudulent websites and websites that are known to distribute malware, and the firm’s filters are updated regularly – so you’re protected from the latest threats.

AdGuard’s reliance on aliases and temporary addresses protects your personal addresses, and that’s not the only area where AdGuard Mail impresses.

Once created, any emails forwarded from your alias are marked in your email client with a special header, so you can easily see AdGuard’s emails. Multiple aliases can be used for single email addresses, and multiple recipients can receive emails from single aliases.

Attachments are also supported for aliases, although temporary email addresses do not currently support attachments. Also consider that you can’t reply to emails forwarded by your aliases – to send replies, you will need to reveal your email address.

Ultimately, AdGuard’s method is simple and effective: use aliases to add a layer of protection so you can enjoy ongoing communication without compromising your email address – and use temporary emails to enjoy the same protection in short-term scenarios.

Of course, it must be noted that AdGuard Mail is markedly different from other secure email providers. This is a secure forwarding service rather than an actual email client, where you can create your own address and access a new, fully featured inbox.

That’s not necessarily bad, though, especially if you want to keep using your primary email address while adding extra protection. And if you combine AdGuard Mail with AdGuard’s other services, like its ad-blocking, VPN, or DNS, you can build a robust and versatile security package.

AdGuard Mail: Interface and in-use

AdGuard Mail excels thanks to its simplicity and versatility. It’s available as a desktop app for Windows and Mac, as an Android and iOS app, and it can also be accessed using a web interface.

If you want to create a temporary email address for one-time use, you can also just use AdGuard’s website to make and then copy a new address. Once you’ve used it to register for a service or input into a registration form, the reply will actually appear in a temporary inbox that’s right there on the same website. It’s a very clever service.

No matter what platform you use, AdGuard Mail is straightforward. Open the app for the first time, and it’ll guide you through the main features and launch a simple Wizard dialog that will help you create your first alias.

To create more, it’s just a matter of opening a panel, picking a random address and choosing its forwarding address. You can tag your aliases to make organization more manageable and add a description so you don’t forget its intended use.

The app includes an option for adding more recipients, a basic inbox for accessing emails sent to your temporary addresses, and a settings menu where you can choose Light or Dark modes, block senders and customize how the app functions on your system.

AdGuard Mail: Support

Right now, the support options for AdGuard are basic – no surprise given its beta status. Most support queries can be answered by browsing the FAQ section, and users can email AdGuard’s support address to access help.

There’s also a web form where users can give feedback about AdGuard Mail, with options for suggesting features and reporting bugs.

AdGuard also maintains active Telegram, Reddit and GitHub communities if you’d like to talk to other service users or troubleshoot using these methods.

AdGuard Mail: The competition

AdGuard Mail has no shortage of competition when it comes to email aliases. Many secure email providers offer this as part of their broader service, like Mailbox.org, Soverin and several others.

Those are paid providers, though, and, at the moment, AdGuard Mail is free – and judging by AdGuard’s pricing elsewhere, it’ll still be a very affordable product in the future, too.

One of the only secure mail rivals that offers aliasing using a free account is Proton, which includes ten aliases in its free product alongside a new email address and 5GB of cloud storage. So, while you do have to maintain a whole new email account, it’s arguably a better deal.

If you just want email aliasing, consider Apple’s Hide My Email feature, Firefox Relay, or even DuckDuckGo Email Protection.

AdGuard Mail: Final verdict

There are plenty of other services beyond AdGuard Mail that offer email aliasing and temporary email addresses.

That said, AdGuard is currently free, it works very well for both aliasing and temporary emails, and it’s certainly worth using – even more if you’re already a keen user of other AdGuard products.

Lots of the best secure email providers use their own platforms and clients, but Virtru is an enterprise-level product designed to integrate with your existing workflows – which means that, in theory, Virtru should seamlessly start protecting sensitive data in your organization.

Indeed, Virtru’s secure collaboration and email product is deeply integrated with Google Workspace, Microsoft 365, and Microsoft SharePoint, and its Secure Share module integrates with Google Drive, Microsoft SharePoint, OneDrive, Zendesk, and Confluence.

Elsewhere, Virtru works with SaaS products from Salesforce, ServiceNow, Kustomer and more. Virtru’s own Data Security Platform delivers secure collaboration and sharing beyond those apps thanks to an agnostic platform.

In short, then, Virtru works with loads of apps and systems. And, as you may have guessed, this is an enterprise-level product that’s not suitable for individuals who need secure email.

Virtru: Plans and pricing 

Despite the service's complexity, Virtru’s products are divided into four tiers, which makes pricing a bit easier to understand.

The Starter package is ideal for smaller businesses that need email protection. It costs $119/£94 per month for a five-user package. With that offering, you get secure email for Gmail and Outlook, Virtru’s full slate of email and file protection abilities, administrator controls, and integration with Google Workspace and Microsoft 365. Basic support is also included.

The Business package, again for five users, costs $219/£174 per month. It includes everything in the Starter package and Virtru Secure Share, bulk decryption, integration with Google Workspace CSE and Google Vault, SSO compatibility, an audit log APU and custom branding for your business. You also get a 99.9% guaranteed uptime SLA.

If you're willing to pay extra, you can also add optional virtual private key stores and integrations with other third-party tools.

The next tier costs $399/£317 per month, again for five users. It includes everything in the Business package, as well as features designed for organizations that do business with US federal agencies.

It’s built to help ensure compliance with CMMC, DFARS 7012, and ITAR. It also includes FIPS 140-2 validated encryption.

It includes moderate FedRAMP ATO and a Virtru shared responsibility matrix for CMMC documentation. It also allows your organization to host private encryption keys. You also get deployment support, phone support and a dedicated customer success team. Premium support is also available as an optional extra.

The top package, Enterprise, uses custom pricing. It includes everything from the previous products alongside integration with Zendesk, Salesforce, and more SaaS systems. You can also add optional integrations with more systems and premium support.

It goes without saying that when you want to expand a package that includes support for five users, the price will rise accordingly.

Virtru: Features

Virtru is a far-reaching, complex product, but underneath it all you’ll find robust security credentials. Virtru’s systems use Trusted Data Format, or TDF, which is an open-source end-to-end encryption standard that protects your data at every stage of its lifecycle.

Underneath all of that, you’ll find AES 256-bit encryption, and it’s worth bearing in mind that encryption keys are not stored on Virtru’s servers – so you can control who has access to those, too.

This decentralized approach means you and your organization can maintain complete control over your data and its protection, and this zero-trust model ensures extra layers of security. Additionally, Virtru’s reliance on TDF means that you can embed policies and encryption directly into individual apps and objects across your organization’s workflows, which means you benefit from flexibility and full control.

Beyond the excellent underlying format, you can deploy attribute-based access control to enforce who can access your content dynamically.

Virtru’s underlying security prioritizes protection, control, and flexibility, and this ethos is evident in other features of its software suite.

Opt for its Google or Microsoft-integrated products, and you can secure your email and cloud storage data, encrypt meetings, safeguard documents, protect presentations and ensure data privacy.

Choose file-sharing integrations, and you can meet advanced compliance requirements, monitor and audit your data, give collaborators an effortless experience and, again, keep your data protected.

Virtru’s Data Protection Gateway protects emails and files before they leave your domain with inbound and outbound end-to-end encryption to ensure total protection for sensitive information, no matter the services involved.

Virtru’s Data Security Platform uses a zero-trust architecture and granular controls to ensure that your business has complete control over its data and who can access it.

Virtru: Interface and in-use

Virtru’s interface is a little different from many other secure email products – because this is a necessarily complex service that takes a different approach.

Instead of signing in to a web client, for instance, Virtru largely integrates with your existing software, with management handled by Virtru’s Control Center. In this regard, Virtru is excellent: its interfaces and management apps are attractive, well-designed and easy to navigate as long as you’ve got the requisite experience dealing with complex administrative tools.

Given Virtru’s high-end abilities, your organization should already have people who are well-versed in those apps.

Virtru: Support

Varying levels of support are available with different Virtru products: at the lower levels, you get online help, and if you pay for the higher-end products, you can add phone support, a dedicated success team, premium options and deployment help to the package.

Those latter options are precisely the kind of support features we’d expect from a high-end enterprise product like Virtru.

In addition, Virtru’s website has an extensive knowledge base and basic live chat functionality.

Virtru: The competition

Virtru’s status as a high-end, enterprise-grade secure email and data product means it competes with similar products, such as Zoho’s suite of business apps. Indeed, Virtru even competes with Google and Microsoft, albeit with a greater focus on security and encryption.

In many ways, though, Virtru stands alone. Zoho is more focused on productivity across a wider variety of apps, and Google and Microsoft are designed to act as the underlying tools beneath Virtru. There isn’t much out there that offers the broad concentration on enterprise-level security and protection like Virtru.

Virtru: Final verdict

That leaves Virtru in a good position, especially with larger organizations – and that’s no surprise, because there’s lots to like about this product.

It’s packed with features and has excellent security credentials. The overall design of the Data Security Platform means that Virtru’s tools should integrate smoothly with virtually all of your systems.

Virtru can undoubtedly become expensive, but you get what you pay for – and if you’re a large business that wants to take data protection seriously, you should be considering Virtru.

Lots of the best secure email providers function by providing a web client or mobile app for you to use, but PreVeil is a bit different: as well as using PreVeil’s web client or Android and iOS apps, you can also send using your existing Outlook, Gmail or Apple Mail clients.

That immediately adds a huge amount of versatility to this app. If you move beyond that, you’ll find a secure email provider trusted by defense contractors, education institutions and legal organizations – so there’s some pedigree here.

PreVeil: Plans and pricing 

That sort of customer base and feature set makes it all the more amazing that PreVeil actually starts its offering with a free product.

PreVeil’s free account gives you 5GB of encrypted data storage, end-to-end email and file encryption, integration with Outlook, Gmail and File Explorer and mobile device access, so it’s a well-rounded offering if you need secure email and cloud storage.

The Individual plan costs $25/£20 per month, which is immediately more expensive than most of the other individual plans you’ll find on the market – but, in PreVeil’s defense, that package comes with a mammoth 5TB of data storage. That’s more than you’ll find anywhere else. You can also provide free accounts to third parties using this product.

The Business product costs $30/£24 per user per month but the feature set accelerates. The Business tier meets compliance requirements for HIPAA, FERPA, SOC 2, GLB, FTC and IRS standards, and you can use an admin console, system logs, admin protection and data loss prevention.

Each user in the business product gets a massive 10TB of storage, too, and you get priority support and a dedicated customer success team.

If you work for a government organization or in the defense industry, PreVeil has a product that meets compliance requirements for DFARS 7012, CMMC, and ITAR and is FIPS 140-2 validated.

In this final tier, you get FedRAMP Moderate Equivalent, all data is stored in the AWS GovCloud, and you enjoy a Compliance Accelerator with pre-filled forms – and access to compliance experts.

If you’d like to access that final tier, you’ll need to contact PreVeil for a quote. SMEs can also use PreVeil Pass, a CMMC compliance solution that costs $415 per month for three users and includes encrypted email, pre-filled CMMC documentation, and specialist support.

PreVeil: Features

PreVeil operates using Zero Knowledge encryption with end-to-end ability, which means that all information associated with your emails is only encrypted and decrypted on user devices – so PreVeil can never see or access the contents of your messages. Underneath it all, you’ll find robust AES-256 used for symmetric encryption and elliptic curve P-256 used for asymmetric keys.

Passwords aren’t used with PreVeil, either. Instead, account access is managed by secret encryption keys that are only stored on user devices. Levels of encryption are used to “wrap” those keys to prevent unauthorized access. Your key remains stored on your device, so login is simple and secure.

To encrypt your emails and files, PreVeil deploys a symmetric system with varying keys used with Public Key Infrastructure technology. PreVeil doesn’t use any PGP system, though, which may be worth bearing in mind if you want to work with people who use PGP-based encryption.

Approval Groups cryptographically distribute trust to predetermined groups of users to avoid individuals compromising entire networks, and Trusted Communities allow organizations to safelist domains and email addresses.

We’ve got no qualms about PreVeil’s security, and the service remains impressive elsewhere. Its ability to work with email clients and free Android and iOS apps means that you can access your encrypted emails from anywhere – a boon when using PreVeil’s services in mission-critical business and government scenarios.

It’s not just about email, either, because PreVeil includes secure cloud storage that deploys the same level of encryption as email.

Administrators can manage users, devices and approved groups of users, define rules across their organizations and record the actions of users with tamper-proof logging.

PreVeil: Interface and in-use

If you use PreVeil’s web browser or mobile apps, you’ll benefit from a straightforward, simple, and well-designed experience. Navigation is down the left, and your inbox is right in the middle.

A pop-up window makes composing emails easy, although there’s no option here to switch to a three-pane email management interface. Indeed, many other products offer a wider range of configuration settings in general. PreVeil is easy to use but not overwhelmed with tweaks and options.

If you want to use PreVeil with your existing email client, you’ll need to go through a cryptographic setup process. Once that’s done, PreVeil adds a Secure Messages folder to your email app or interface, and a toggle at the bottom of your composition window allows you to activate or remove PreVeil encryption from your messages.

So, while PreVeil may not have as many settings as some rivals, it’s easy to use, whether you use the web client or your existing email app.

PreVeil: Support

Support tickets with PreVeil are filed over email, and there’s a huge knowledge base with loads of information on configuring and using the product.

The support ticket itself is comprehensive. You can provide a phone number to give PreVeil another option for contacting you, and they also have the facility to launch Zoom meetings to provide live assistance.

Certain customers at upper tiers also get priority support, phone support, and onboarding sessions, and PreVeil can provide webinars and training sessions.

PreVeil: The competition

PreVeil’s status as a certified provider for defense, government, and enterprise ensures that the service competes with some major players.

Hushmail, for instance, offers plans designed around the compliances required by legal and medical firms, so both services are worth investigating if you work in those industries. Zoho, too, offers HIPAA compliance. PreVeil goes further than both with military and government accreditations, though.

If you need to explore those accreditations and compare PreVeil to a key rival, check out Virtru. Both aim at the defense industries alongside healthcare and education, and they share many of the same accreditations.

PreVeil: Final verdict

PreVeil might not be the only secure email provider to deliver such a high level of security, compliance and encryption – we’re looking at you, Virtru – but it’s undoubtedly one of the best.

PreVeil's encryption and security are rock solid, and despite the level of power offered, they are very easy to use and, in most cases, very easy to set up.

PreVeil’s ability to work with existing email clients alongside its own interfaces and apps adds versatility.

It might be a little pricier than some secure email providers, but PreVeil justifies the cost with excellent design and security, especially for sensitive data in mission-critical scenarios.

Most of the best secure email providers offer users a new email address, client, and service to start from scratch, but most can be daunting, too, with loads of technical language that non-experts may not understand - and a wealth of tricky, intimidating options to select while setting up and configuring the client.

That’s not the case with Soverin. This secure email provider still aims to provide robust encryption but with a more accessible and straightforward approach than many rivals.

That makes it a potential winner for anyone who wants secure email without delving too much into the technical side of security.

Soverin: Plans and pricing 

Soverin’s pricing structure isn’t divided into rigid tiers. Instead, this product uses a more personalized system that enables you to build a package based on your needs.

The minimum cost of €39/$40/£32 per year immediately undercuts many other secure email providers. For that money, you get one mailbox that uses your existing domain and 25GB of space, which is a generous amount of capacity – lots of other services only provide 5GB or 10GB.

If you want to buy a new domain to set up a new, secure address, that costs extra, with .NL and .EU domains costing €13/$13/£11, .COM and .NET sitting at €18/$19/£15, and .ORG topping the list at €23/$24/£19.

Additional mailboxes cost €10/$10/£ each, and if you want to add an extra 25GB block of storage, it’ll cost you €29/$30/£24 every time.

There’s a thirty-day money-back guarantee, and the service doesn’t need personal information when you sign up – although you can’t pay with cryptocurrencies or cash, as you can with other secure email providers.

Soverin: Features

Soverin offers full encryption to emails sent and received through their servers, which is an excellent start for any secure email service. Soverin strips IP addresses from emails – something that not every secure email provider actually does – and supports two-factor authentication through its own web client.

Outbound SMTP servers check and honor TLSA records, and inbound servers benefit from published TLSA records.

Soverin uses DKIM/DMARC by default and, deploys SRS and ARC for email forwarding, and is fully compliant with a broad range of laws and standards, like GDPR, AVG, SPF, SSL, DANE and more.

Third-party services independently verify Soverin’s encryption: it scores a 100% confidence rating on CheckTLS.com and an A+ from SSL Labs. Soverin also scores 5/5 in the EU’s MESCA email test.

It’s worth noting that while Soverin always uses encrypted connections with OpenPGP used throughout, they don’t control security used outside of the Soverin ecosystem. If you want this level of security, you’ll need to use your own OpenPGP connection using a service like Mailvelope.

There’s no tracking, no advertising, and no chance for Soverin to see the contents of your mailbox.

Elsewhere, lots of features prove Soverin’s versatility. Thanks to IMAP and POP3 support, it works with any mobile or desktop email client, and you can use your own domain. A unified platform with full user control can be built and provided, mail can be imported from external services, and domain management is available, too. The platform also has its own spam filter and 24-hour monitoring and alerting for suspicious activity.

If you’re buying Soverin for an organization you can customize the product with custom colors, menus and your logos, you’ve got complete control over the number of mailboxes and aliases you use alongside custom domains, and the web client has integrated calendar, contact and task functionality.

Soverin’s servers are hosted in three data centers in the Netherlands, where secure infrastructure and disc encryption protect physical hardware. Hosting providers are selected based on Soverin’s strict privacy requirements. No customer information is shared with third-party organizations.

Soverin: Interface and in-use

Because Soverin works by encrypting your existing account, a little setup is required to get things started. You’ve got to verify that you’re the owner of your domain by adding text records to your DNS, MX and SPF settings.

Once that’s done, you can access Soverin’s mailbox. This attractive and straightforward mail client mimics the three-panel design so often seen elsewhere, making it easy to use for anyone familiar with online email.

At the window's top-right are icons that allow you to switch to your calendar, contacts, and to-do list. In the settings menu, you’ll find all of the key options you need for configuration, but it must be said that many other services give you more granular control over functionality – Soverin’s settings menu is not complicated or intimidating, but you will have more options elsewhere.

Soverin: Support

To access Soverin’s support, you can email them – it’s that simple. The company intends to respond to messages quickly and maintains a service status page on its website.

Elsewhere, the Help section includes guides on setting up your service and customizing key functionality. The guides are well-written and have straightforward explanations that should be easy to follow, even for beginners. There’s also a good FAQ section.

That’s it for support, though. There’s no live chat and no phone support here, which is the kind of thing you’ll find from larger organizations, and lots of other email products offer more depth in their online FAQ and help sections, too.

Soverin: The competition

Soverin’s status as an accessible and affordable secure email provider sees it competing with some big names, including Tuta and Posteo.

All three services are similar, with good security functionality and rock-solid core email client experiences.

Soverin offers more storage than Posteo, but Posteo is even cheaper than Soverin – and it’s not like Soverin is particularly expensive. Tuta, meanwhile, has exceptional security and it also has mobile apps, but customer support is not great.

If you’d like more functionality, including Office tools, VPNs and cloud storage, then it’s worth considering products like Proton and Mailbox.org – and even Zoho if you want a complete business solution. But they’re far more complex and potentially much more expensive, too.

Zoho Mail: Final verdict

Soverin is an effective secure email option, with robust security procedures, straightforward design and flexible, affordable pricing – so if you want a no-nonsense secure email product, it’s worth consideration.

That said, products from larger organizations will offer more support functionality, which is essential for businesses, and the lack of in-depth support won’t sate technical users and people who want more control over their emails.