Protonmail, but not really because of encryption. I just liked their Android client and webmail the most. I’ve had sensitive backups on Proton Drive for a long time, so that also played a role in the choice.
I hosted my own server for quite a few years, but the SMTP clients (Thunderbird, Evolution, K9 mail) all doing things slightly differently made me give up. Biggest push was that K9 mail didn’t really move deleted mail to trash. These were probably dovecot configuration issues, but I got tired of searching for solutions. Never had any deliverability issues.
The article is old, yes, the first one from a search engine. If you have a source for saying it’s not in the works anymore, I’d be glad to see it. Not saying you’re wrong.
Just this month there was a statement from FiCom (finnish organization advancing IT businesses’ interests) urging our government to not accept the bill, so to me it seems it’s just under development.
You install the Google services and Play store from the gOS Apps application, then use them like normal.
Behind the scenes they run in the sandboxed environment, but to the user it makes no difference.