Before you compare EU email providers, get your own domain. It is the single change that lets you switch providers later without redoing the painful migration.
Leaving this link here might get me a lot of downvotes, but I for one am not going to set up my own domain for personal mail and am happy using Proton. They offer a tool for gmail users: https://proton.me/blog/proton-mail-connect-gmail
You can use a domain with proton mail. And when proton turns into garbage someday, you register your domain with a different mail provider. That way you get to keep your mail address.
The benefit is that you can keep the same email if/when a provider enshittifies, including proton.
Custom domains are a lot like open sourcing in software; helps keep the SaaS honest. If most customers use a custom domain, the service provider would act based on the knowledge that they could lose most customers easily.
Leaving this link here might get me a lot of downvotes, but I for one am not going to set up my own domain for personal mail and am happy using Proton. They offer a tool for gmail users: https://proton.me/blog/proton-mail-connect-gmail
You can use a domain with proton mail. And when proton turns into garbage someday, you register your domain with a different mail provider. That way you get to keep your mail address.
The benefit is that you can keep the same email if/when a provider enshittifies, including proton.
Custom domains are a lot like open sourcing in software; helps keep the SaaS honest. If most customers use a custom domain, the service provider would act based on the knowledge that they could lose most customers easily.