Riseup invitation code

It is arguably only tangentially related. However, this is the General Free Software Talk: "a place to discuss free software, free culture, *online privacy* and related topics."

EDIT: In fact, the topic of email services is directly related to free software: as mentioned on the fsf page, many providers use JS at least at signup, including non-free JS in some cases.

I believe your problem is going to be the Riseup invitation system. I am afraid I cannot help you here, I never got one myself. Note that "the person who invited you is responsible for inviting you" [1] so you may want to ask someone you actually met in person in your local activist café. Anyway, keep in mind that no third party can provide end-to-end encryption, this is something you need to arrange with the people you are communicating with, using GPG [2] for instance.

[1] https://riseup.net/en/email/settings/mail-accounts#how-do-i-create-an-email-account
[2] https://emailselfdefense.fsf.org/en

If your interest is email and using a web client, https://www.freedombox.org using the "pioneer box" is a cheap solution only using debian packages from "main" (i.e. free software only) to run your own email server and have a webmail (and also access it via IMAP or POP from icedove or any email client) with some but limited efforts.

The main limitation is that, by default, the storage is only on an SD card, so there is somehow limited storage capacity.

To use that, you need a public IP adress, a registered domain name, configure entries in the DNS server to refer to your public IP address, and, if your network connection is behing a NAT routeur, to redirect the ports for email to your "pioneer box" (or put in in the DMZ).

Once this is done, the most difficult is done, maintenance work is close to zero: occasionnally (on average 3 to 4 times a year), I loose control of my freedombox, then I unplug the power, put the SD card in my computer running trisquel, run "fsck.ext4" on on the /boot file system and "btrfs check" on the / filesystem, put it back in the "pioneer box" and put the power again.

You must be joking, or under the influence of some potent psychedelic agent:

"Note that Riseup support will not give out invite codes."
https://support.riseup.net/en/topics/10340-invite-code/posts

Also: "At this point it's looking more and more likely we're going to stop even recommending Riseup. Even if we continue to list it, dealing with invite codes is outside the scope of PRISM-Break. Please stop spamming this issue tracker with things about this topic." From the thread you linked to.

Any email service with your received emails accessible via POP or IMAP and the possibiliy to send email via SMTP should be fine, no matter the provider (it means you have a large choice of free software email clients, like icedove, evolution, claws mail, sylpheed, etc).

Just remember:
- your provider can read all your unencrypted emails
- your provider may drop all your received email at any time, so store them on your computer
- if the domain of your address belongs to your provider and it stops the service, you will have to change email address

I have been using a xxx at free.fr address for more than 20 years, it can be obtained for free at https://subscribe.free.fr/accesgratuit/ but not sure you can apply with a physical address and phone number in Italy (assuming this is where you live). I don't expect that they will stop this service soon, but impossible to know.

I have registered a domain name with OVH since more than 10 years (it costs around 12 euros per year, not that expensive) and I paid a one time fee to get an infinite number of mailboxes (25 euros maybe?). Like any provider, they can stop any time, but I could reuse the exact same addresses with another provider.

With respect to running an email server: the "miracle" of freedombox is that I have zero competence about running an email server but yet I am now running one and it works fine.

Riseup is recommended, to whoever manages to get an account there.

Have you tried autistici/inventati, the next entry in the fsf recommended list? There is no invitation system, they seem to process account requests manually instead.