Neir

Grade update (2026-09-29, verified). Re-checked after the operator flagged the grade publicly. Neir now publishes an Ed25519 PGP key + fingerprint (`A1E7 25BF 6F4A 6DD6 0736 E585 47EA 0FE0 8CEA DFAC`) and its warrant canary is dated (last updated 2026-09-01, monthly renew cadence) — the two accountability gaps that had held it at B-. Grade moves B- → B. The remaining gap to A is tenure plus an independent audit and a named legal entity.

Disclosure honesty update (2026-08-12). Neir's own privacy policy was revised (last observed 2026-08-09 via our weekly monitor) to spell out three things the earlier language implied more loosely. These are clarifications, not service changes:

• Server sees inbound SMTP in plaintext at the ingest step — true for every non-fully-E2E email provider (Proton, Tuta, Mailfence all have this shape). Neir's *browser-side OpenPGP* still applies to outbound bodies and to reader-composed mail; it does not and cannot apply to inbound mail from a plaintext sender.
• 14-day IP log in the operational journal for anti-abuse. Reasonable retention window; comparable to what other privacy-first mail providers publish.
• Optional open-tracking pixels on messages that include them (sender-side toggle, off by default).

ToS update simultaneously introduced a *"Private anti-abuse proof"* signup step — a bounded cryptographic proof, non-bypassable, no-KYC in nature. This is a friction addition, not a privacy regression.

Because the changes are honesty improvements rather than service regressions, the grade moved up to B- (from C) — the earlier grade had been carrying two feature tags (`e2e_bodies`, `no_pii`) that overstated the trust picture. Tags corrected; review recalibrated to the operator's actual posture.

What you trust. Browser-side PGP key generation — private key never leaves the client in plaintext; encrypted before send with a key derived from the Account Key. Message bodies are opaque to the server. Metadata is NOT opaque — treat sender/recipient/subject as visible to Neir. Zero-signup design means recovery hinges on the Account Key + recovery phrase; lose both and the account is unrecoverable (there is no email fallback, no support-side reset).

TOS quote. From the Terms page: *"Neir does not and will never require identity verification or know-your-customer (KYC) checks to create or use an account."* The Terms contain no counter-clauses about reserved-right-to-request-ID or law-enforcement cooperation — a clean statement of posture.

Log policy. The Privacy Policy states *"We do not log or store your IP address or geographic location against your account."* The claim is self-attested — no third-party audit, no published bug-bounty programme, no open-source client to inspect the browser-side PGP flow.

Operator identity. *"Based in Sweden"* per the footer. No named legal entity and no team / about page, but the operator does publish an Ed25519 PGP key + fingerprint (`A1E7 25BF 6F4A 6DD6 0736 E585 47EA 0FE0 8CEA DFAC`) on `/canary`. Contact via `hello@neir.io` and Telegram `@neir_io`. Warrant canary exists at `/canary` with the four standard statements (no NSL, no gag order, no backdoor, no seizure), and it is dated — last updated 2026-09-01 with a monthly renew-by cadence. An inline PGP *signature* is not visibly rendered on the canary text, so treat its freshness as date-attested rather than signature-verified — a minor refinement, not the blank-and-unsigned gap the earlier review flagged.

Tenure. Wayback earliest snapshot 2024-09-10 (~22 months). Not an aged-domain re-brand — no evidence of prior unrelated use.

Onion mirror. `itlmjjwnpraaxvm5gkjeebwhjy5zycildwyg2u3lyrfigz5e6hntdqqd.onion` — advertised on the clearnet homepage footer, byte-identical response to the clearnet HTML at the same path. Real Tor mirror, not a proxy.

Peer directories. kycnot.me lists Neir at 8/10 (Privacy 100 / Trust 62), *"Guaranteed no KYC"*, "Listed, but not yet reviewed by the team" — a community-contributed listing with a positive score, weaker signal than a team-reviewed one. monerica.com lists under the 2026-07-30 additions batch. Privacy Guides does not include it in the recommended-email shortlist (which is Proton / Tuta / Mailbox.org today).

Pricing. Free tier at 100 MB storage. Pro tier at $4.99/mo month-to-month, down to $4.25/mo on the 12-month prepay. Payments accepted across 31 currency/network combos including XMR on the Monero network with a 6-confirmation requirement — first-class alongside BTC, LTC, ETH, USDT-on-6-networks. Payment surface reads as third-party crypto-processor integration (NOWPayments / CoinPayments style) rather than native XMR wallet; typical for a boutique provider.

Fees. Free tier: none. Pro: monthly + prepay pricing above; no per-message fees, no per-alias fees, no storage overage fees disclosed.

Positioning. Full-mailbox provider (not alias-only like AnonAddy / SimpleLogin, not classic-IMAP like Cock.li / Disroot). Zero-signup-friction places Neir closer to Cock.li's ethos with Tuta's browser-side E2E approach. The metadata-plaintext limitation puts it below Proton/Tuta on the encrypted-metadata axis. Free tier + XMR-native + no-signup-data is the differentiator.

Grade B — what it means here. Acceptable with the caveats above named. Real signup posture, real E2E for bodies, real XMR payment, real onion mirror, honest metadata disclosure. The two gaps that had held it at B- — no operator PGP fingerprint and an undated canary — are now closed: the operator publishes an Ed25519 key + fingerprint and the canary is dated with a monthly renew cadence. What keeps it below A: no named legal entity, no independent audit or open-source client to verify the browser-side PGP claim, and Privacy Guides does not list it. The path to A is longer tenure plus an external audit.

Useful when. You want a full mailbox with zero identifying data at signup, accept metadata-plaintext as the tradeoff, and pay in XMR. You are comfortable with a small operator whose canary + identity surface is thinner than Proton/Tuta. For PGP-encrypted body correspondence only, this is genuinely low-friction; recovery discipline (Account Key + recovery phrase) matters more than usual because there is no email-based reset path.

Caveats. The canary is now dated (2026-09-01, monthly renew cadence); the one remaining refinement is that an inline PGP signature is not visibly rendered, so its freshness is date-attested rather than signature-verified. Legal entity + jurisdictional recourse: "Sweden" without a named legal entity is thinner than Proton's Swiss corporate transparency. Metadata plaintext is honest but material — if your threat model treats subject lines as sensitive, a fully-metadata-encrypted alternative (Proton, Tuta) is a closer fit.

Policy update (2026-09-20, verified). Neir's privacy policy now discloses that dashboard support tickets are stored as plain readable text (not OpenPGP-encrypted at rest) — worth knowing for an email/privacy service: don't put secrets in a support ticket. Its ToS also added an age requirement and Pro-subscription terms (prepaid crypto via Heleket, non-refundable). Honest disclosure; no grade change (B- holds).