Our Proton Mail review puts this popular secure email provider under the microscope to see if it truly keeps your data safe from prying eyes. Operating out of Switzerland with zero-access encryption and fully open-source apps, it packs a serious punch for your digital privacy. It even bundles in great ecosystem features like an encrypted calendar, secure cloud drive, and a built-in VPN.
However, it isn’t an impenetrable fortress for whistleblowers; it plays by classic PGP rules, meaning message subject lines are left unencrypted and accessible under Swiss court orders. We tested its real-world performance, app usability, and pricing tiers to see if it deserves a spot in your privacy toolkit.
| Website | Proton.me |
| Based in | Switzerland |
| Storage | 15 GB – 1,000 GB |
| Starting price | $3.00/month |
| Coupon | 60% off Proton Mail > |
Proton Mail pros and cons
+ Pros
- End-to-end (E2E) and zero-access encryption for email, calendar, and contact information
- Swiss jurisdiction
- All data stored on servers physically located in Switzerland
- Apps for Android and iOS mobile devices
- Web client, encryption algorithms, Android, and iOS mobile apps are open-source
- Support for custom domains
- Strips IP addresses from emails
- Third-party integration through the Proton Mail Bridge feature
- Can import contacts and emails
- Future-proofed with post-quantum cryptography
- Part of a privacy ecosystem
– Cons
- Message subject lines are not encrypted
- May require personal information for verification of new accounts
- Handy features like the Proton Mail Bridge are locked behind paid tiers
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Proton Mail Black Friday Deal is Live:
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Proton Mail overview
Proton Mail utilizes strong end-to-end (E2E) and zero-access encryption standards to protect all email, contacts, and calendar data. All your data is encrypted when stored on Proton Mail servers, except for email subject lines (which remain visible for PGP network compatibility).
Aside from this multi-tiered encryption system, Proton Mail serves up a terrific toolkit of privacy features:
- Self-destructing messages – Automatically deletes sent emails at a time you specify.
- Address verification – Ensures public keys from other users haven’t been tampered with.
- Full PGP support – Seamlessly integrates with classic OpenPGP standards.
- Secure non-user delivery – Sends password-protected, encrypted emails to contacts who use mainstream providers like Gmail.
- Proton Mail Bridge – Integrates your encrypted inbox with desktop clients like Thunderbird or Outlook.
- Easy Switch – Quickly imports your history of messages and contacts from Big Tech inbox providers.
- Cross-platform apps – Native mobile apps for Android and iOS alongside a polished web client.
- Post-quantum protection – Upgrades your inbox to quantum-resistant encryption to shield your data from future supercomputers.
It is an incredibly robust feature set that turns complex data protection into a simple, daily routine.
See all Proton Mail security features here >
Since our last review, the core ecosystem has grown far beyond basic email. Your unified Proton Account now automatically bundles together the free tiers of Proton Mail, Proton VPN, Proton Calendar, Proton Drive (which now includes collaborative Proton Docs), Proton Pass for password management, and Proton Wallet for secure digital asset handling.
Company history and ownership
Proton Mail was founded in 2014 by a team of scientists who met while working at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland. The idea for a secure, encrypted email provider famously started in the CERN cafeteria as a grassroots effort to protect digital freedom. Today, the company has scaled massively, employing hundreds of people and serving over 100 million accounts worldwide.
To protect the platform from hostile takeovers or traditional corporate pressures, Proton underwent a major structural change. It is now majority-owned by the Proton Foundation, a Swiss non-profit entity dedicated to keeping the company’s core privacy mission aligned with its users in perpetuity.
Historically, Proton’s growth has been fueled by alternative funding channels rather than standard venture capital:
- Crowdfunding: Launched a 2014 Indiegogo campaign raising roughly $500,000 from early privacy advocates.
- Early Investments: Accepted an early $2 million seed investment from Charles River Ventures (CRV) and the Swiss non-profit FONGIT. As noted in the Proton shareholder update, CRV fully divested its shares back to FONGIT, meaning no traditional corporate venture capital firms remain on the cap table.
- Government grants: Received €2 million from the European Commission’s Horizon 2020 program to assist in building out their ecosystem of encrypted tools.
Because Proton builds and maintains its own secure, physical server infrastructure across data centers in Switzerland and Germany, its premium plans naturally cost slightly more than competing localized services like Tuta Mail or Posteo.
Subject line encryption
One notable limitation is that Proton Mail does not encrypt email subject lines. According to technical disclosures on the official Proton Mail support site, all data at rest and in transit is securely encrypted, but subject lines are not end-to-end encrypted. This means that if Proton is served with a valid Swiss court order, they do have the technical ability to turn over the subjects of your messages.
From the Proton Mail site:
Subject lines in Proton Mail messages are not end-to-end encrypted to remain compliant with standards and ensure interoperability. Proton Mail adheres to the OpenPGP standard. In PGP, the subject line is part of the header packet, which is not end-to-end encrypted.
Proton Mail complies with the OpenPGP encryption framework to guarantee global email compatibility. Under that protocol, address-related metadata is part of the message header and must remain unencrypted for your message to successfully reach its destination.
If leaving your message headers exposed is a problem for your threat model, you can check out our Tuta Mail review. Tuta Mail does not rely on classic PGP frameworks and fully encrypts email subject lines right alongside your message text.
Ultimately, Proton Mail’s approach keeps them perfectly compatible with the open PGP ecosystem but leaves this specific metadata unencrypted.
Data security and server infrastructure
All Proton Mail servers are physically tucked away inside high-security bunkers across Switzerland. This physical setup means your personal information is shielded by Swiss privacy laws, which provide much stronger data protections than standard US or EU frameworks.
However, Proton Mail makes it clear that if you happen to break Swiss law and a binding Swiss court order lands on their desk, they are legally required to hand over whatever information they have on you. This is exactly where the unencrypted status of your message headers can throw a wrench into your privacy plans.
While your message bodies and file attachments stay safely scrambled, your basic tracking metadata, sender or recipient addresses, and email subject lines are technically readable. If a third party gets their hands on this unencrypted header data, it is more than enough to give them a clear blueprint of exactly who you are talking to and the specific topics you are discussing.
IP address logging
Additionally, Proton Mail may log your IP address if they suspect a violation of their terms and conditions, or if explicitly ordered to do so by a binding Swiss government directive.
This tracking mechanism is one of the biggest reasons to run a trustworthy VPN service to mask your actual location and internet address. Keeping your real connection details hidden is a smart baseline move for everyday digital privacy anyway, especially since local ISPs routinely log your web traffic in the background.
Because of early funding grants from the EU and seed investments from a US firm, some privacy purists still debate how insulated Proton AG truly is from outside international influence. Furthermore, while Switzerland enforces data retention regulations, Proton Mail has consistently argued that these directives legally target traditional telecom providers rather than secure email services.
At the end of the day, Proton’s threat model documentation is refreshing in its honesty, openly stating:
“While we can offer more protection and security, we cannot guarantee your safety against a powerful adversary.”
Global intelligence agencies absolutely fit the bill of a “powerful adversary.” While Proton Mail is a phenomenal tool for locking down your daily digital life, it isn’t an invisibility cloak. If you decide to take on the Five Eyes or break local laws, relying on any secure email provider alone won’t save you.
Privacy and anonymity
We have received several comments from our readers related to the security, privacy, and anonymity of Proton Mail. It is easy to see why.
The registration verification gate
It used to be that the Proton Mail home page claimed that the service “provided an anonymous email gateway” and “requires no personal information to create an account.” However, the automated algorithm that controls the registration process sometimes decides that it needs personal information before allowing you to create an account.
When signing up, you may encounter an “Are you human?” verification prompt:
- Conditional anonymity – The system doesn’t always force you to enter personal info, but if its algorithm flags your connection, you will be forced to use email, SMS verification, or a payment donation.
- Data handling – Proton explains on its Human Verification procedures page that only a cryptographic hash of your email or SMS is stored.
- The catch – The company states this hash is “not permanently associated with the account,” but it doesn’t clarify if that means “temporarily associated” or how credit card tracking is handled.
While it makes sense that the company needs to block spammers and bots, claiming that no personal information is required isn’t completely accurate when the registration gate can choose to demand it. If you want a secure email service that offers a more consistently private registration process, you can read our Tuta Mail review.
Technical specifications
Proton Mail uses a variety of cutting-edge encryption algorithms to protect your messages. All messages are secured with zero-access encryption at rest and remain safely scrambled in your mailbox until you actively open and read them.
The client architecture runs on open-source versions of modern cryptographic standards:
- Zero-access and E2E storage – Uses AES-256-GCM and Elliptic-Curve Cryptography (Curve25519) to encrypt message bodies and attachments before they leave your device.
- Post-quantum protection – Supports the OpenPGP v6 framework, layering on quantum-resistant algorithms to defend newly sent emails against future decryption threats.
- Classic interoperability – Maintains full compatibility with classic OpenPGP standards for seamless encrypted communication with external PGP users.
For encryption in transit, Let’s Encrypt acts as the automated Certificate Authority (CA) that vouches for the integrity of Proton’s web subdomains. The transit layer utilizes highly secure HTTPS configurations, forcing modern TLS protocols, SHA-256 hashing, and Perfect Forward Secrecy to eliminate the risk of eavesdropping or man-in-the-middle attacks.
Proton Mail hands-on testing
If you have used mainstream webmail services like Microsoft Outlook or Gmail, you will find Proton Mail incredibly easy to work with. For this review, we focused our hands-on testing using the premium Mail Plus plan, which drops restrictions found on standard free accounts.
Creating an account
To get started, you will need to sign up for a unified Proton account. This core membership grants you instant access to the free versions of their entire encrypted privacy family, including Proton Mail, Proton VPN, Proton Calendar, Proton Drive, and Proton Pass.
You can set up an account in a matter of minutes:
- Visit the platform: Head over to the official Proton Mail website and select the account creation option.
- Select your tier: You will see several subscription plan choices. We recommend starting on the free tier to get a feel for the interface layout before spending any money.
- Set your credentials: Choose a unique username and a strong, complex account password.
- Complete verification: Run through the final security check options to launch your inbox.
It is worth noting that if you try to sign up while hiding behind a high-privacy connection like the Tor network or a strict VPN, Proton’s anti-abuse algorithms will often freeze registration and force you to complete phone (SMS) verification. While jumping through anti-spam gates can be annoying when you are trying to stay stealthy, it is a necessary evil to keep automated botnets from flooding their network.
If your threat model demands absolute anonymity from day one, you can easily bypass this tracking roadblock. Consider renting a temporary SMS burner number just long enough to capture the verification code, using a disposable email address you plan to discard, or using privacy-focused payment methods to make a baseline donation.
Accessing your mailbox
Logging into your mailbox is straightforward. Simply enter your login credentials right on the main homepage. Once inside, we highly recommend setting up a secure recovery email address immediately so you don’t lose access to your data if you forget your password.
From there, you can choose to remain on the free tier or upgrade to a premium plan. Like most secure email alternatives on the market, paid tiers expand your data storage ceilings and unlock advanced features that are completely locked away on free accounts. As we explore these features below, we will flag exactly which utilities require a paid subscription.
User interface
The interface of Proton Mail uses a familiar, highly intuitive design that makes transitioning from mainstream webmail completely seamless. The interface defaults to a standard three-pane layout, allowing you to easily toggle between a classic horizontal Row View or a modern vertical Column View.
With Column View enabled, your folders sit in the far-left pane, where premium users can add unlimited custom folders and labels. To maximize your security, the interface blocks remote web content and tracking images by default, giving you a clean option to load them manually at the top of each window.
The web client is highly responsive, though you may notice a slight split-second delay when opening heavily encrypted threads while the browser locally decrypts your data.
Customization settings
You can tailor your inbox through the Settings menu by navigating to Appearance. This section lets you toggle between various light and dark themes, adjust font density, and switch your preferred inbox layout.
Composing messages
By default, clicking compose opens a compact Composer pop-up in the lower-right corner equipped with rich HTML formatting, inline image support, and attachment toggles. You can also access privacy controls such as:
- Expiration timers – Automatically deletes sent emails after a set period (works exclusively between Proton accounts or via password-protection for non-Proton recipients).
- Read receipts – Notifies you when a message is opened.
- Manual encryption – Adds password protection for external contacts.
If you prefer a larger workspace, you can change the default composer behavior to Maximized in your appearance settings. While it lacks heavy corporate macros, it supports a wide array of keyboard shortcuts for fast, encrypted composition.
Messaging non-Proton users
Like some other secure email services, such as Tuta Mail and Mailfence, Proton Mail gives you the option to send encrypted messages to people who don’t use the service.
The recipient will need to know a shared password to unlock the message, which you must arrange and share through an external, private communication channel. When you hit send, your contact receives a standard email containing a secure link. Clicking this link and entering the correct password allows them to read your message and reply securely right from their web browser.
These password-protected emails automatically expire in 28 days by default, though you can easily set a shorter self-destruct timer within the message composer if you prefer. The system works incredibly well, especially if you pair it with a trusted, secure messaging app to pass along the secret password.
Searching your inbox
Proton Mail handles mailbox searching a bit differently due to its security architecture. Because your emails are fully encrypted on their servers, standard network algorithms cannot read your message bodies to find specific keywords. By default, standard searches are limited to unencrypted metadata like sender names, recipient addresses, and email subject lines.
To search the actual text inside your messages, you must give Proton Mail permission to build a local search index. When you activate this feature, the browser downloads and decrypts your message history locally, building an encrypted index that sits directly on your device. This allows you to perform secure full-text searches across your entire mailbox without ever exposing your cleartext data to Proton’s servers.
While this local indexing method solves the encryption roadblock, it can feel a bit heavier and slower to initialize than mainstream webmail search engines. By comparison, competitors like Tuta Mail have utilized a similar device-side encrypted indexing framework for several years to handle zero-knowledge full-text searches.
Proton Contacts
The Proton Contacts manager is built directly into your inbox interface, giving you a smooth, secure way to protect your address book.
The system automatically generates dedicated contact encryption keys upon setup. It applies zero-access encryption to scrambled cleartext fields like home addresses, phone numbers, and custom notes, ensuring that absolutely no one (not even Proton Mail) can read your contact details. The platform also layers on digital signature verification to confirm that no outside actor has secretly tampered with your saved contact profiles.
Proton Calendar
Building a secure digital schedule is surprisingly complex because a calendar must constantly interact with external platforms to handle event invitations, bookings, and reminders. Proton resolved these zero-knowledge sharing hurdles by launching Proton Calendar as a unified, fully encrypted scheduling tool.
All Proton Mail users get native access to the calendar, which utilizes robust end-to-end encryption to hide your daily itinerary, event locations, and participant lists from outside observers. The platform comes equipped with several convenient features:
- Calendar sharing – Securely share your schedule or specific availability blocks with friends and colleagues.
- Universal invitations – Send and receive event invites seamlessly, even if your contacts use mainstream tools like Google Calendar or Outlook.
- Inbox synchronization – Automatically parse and sync travel bookings, dinner reservations, and event confirmations straight from your incoming emails.
- Simple importing – Migrate your historical schedule instantly by uploading existing calendars in standard .ICS format.
Proton Drive
Proton Drive has evolved from its early testing phases into a mature, fully encrypted cloud storage solution. While the platform historically went through a notoriously long, multi-year beta cycle, it is now fully launched and tightly integrated into the core user experience.
Unlike Proton’s early rollouts, secure cloud storage is no longer locked exclusively behind a premium paywall. Every unified account (including the free tier) receives a baseline allocation of secure storage to store documents and photos. Of course, moving up to a paid tier significantly expands your storage capacity, pushing your caps anywhere from 15 GB up to 1,000 GB.
The platform has also expanded far beyond simple file storage. Drive now natively hosts Proton Docs and Proton Sheets, allowing you to write documents, build spreadsheets, and invite team members to collaborate in real time with complete end-to-end encryption. If you haven’t checked it out since its early days, the current version is absolutely worth a spin for hands-on privacy.
Proton Mail mobile apps
Compared to competitors like StartMail, which offer no native applications whatsoever, Proton Mail delivers fully developed, native apps for both iOS and Android. The mobile user experience is exceptionally smooth, utilizing modern interface redesigns that have rolled out across their entire mobile family in recent years.
The Proton Mail Android App has scaled immensely, boasting over 10 million downloads with a strong 4.5 out of 5-star rating across nearly 100,000 reviews. The app operates cleanly under full open-source licensing guidelines, though privacy advocates should note that the verified binaries are still distributed through primary stores rather than open architectures like F-Droid.
On the Apple side, the Proton Mail iOS App mirrors this strong community consensus. It is also fully open-source and maintains an impressive 4.8 out of 5-star rating backed by more than 50,000 user reviews.
Both platforms support native mobile features including custom swiping actions to quickly organize threads, an offline caching mode to read pre-loaded emails without network access, and instant biometrics integration for local security. Aside from slightly delayed indexing periods when scanning heavily encrypted local mail logs, the overall mobile performance is top-tier for daily messaging routines.
Proton Mail business features
Proton Mail provides a dedicated platform called Proton Workspace, offering full end-to-end encryption designed to lock down corporate and team communications.
The enterprise ecosystem includes automated migration utilities and hands-on technical onboarding to help transition your organization away from traditional hosts like Google Workspace or Microsoft 365. The business dashboard features a built-in administrative console, giving your IT managers complete control over user hierarchies, custom domain provisioning, and organization-wide catch-all email routing.
Historically, the localized encryption framework meant that tools like shared calendars and full-text searching felt a bit restricted for heavy corporate collaboration. However, with recent additions like real-time encrypted document editing via Proton Docs, the platform has become a much more viable alternative for teams trying to escape Big Tech data tracking.
Customer support
Proton Mail tiers its customer support options based on the type of subscription plan you have.
Free accounts get basic access to a searchable knowledge base packed with detailed troubleshooting guides and step-by-step setup documentation. As you move up through the premium tiers, you unlock direct email ticketing support, with the top-tier plans granting you priority assistance.
Paid subscribers can also access 24/7 live chat support right through their account dashboard. This is a massive upgrade from Proton’s historic setup, which used to force users to wait several days for email tickets to clear. In our hands-on testing, direct inquiries were handled smoothly, marking a major leap forward for their help desk responsiveness.
Pricing and billing
Since they do not display ads or sell access to your messages to data brokers, Proton Mail relies entirely on subscription fees to fund its privacy network.
| Proton Mail plans | Mail Plus | Proton Unlimited | Proton Duo | Proton Family |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1-month | $4.99/month | $12.99/month | $19.99/month | $29.99/month |
| 1-year | $3.00/month | $9.99/month | $14.99/month | $23.99/month |
Deal: Get the best deal on Proton Mail’s 1-year plans >
- Mail Plus – 15 GB storage, 1 user, 10 email addresses, and support for 1 custom domain.
- Proton Unlimited – 500 GB storage, 1 user, 15 email addresses, 3 custom domains, and full premium access to Proton VPN, Drive, Pass, and Wallet.
- Proton Duo – 2 TB storage shared between 2 users, 30 email addresses, 3 custom domains, the entire premium privacy suite, and Proton Scribe (their AI writing assistant).
While Proton Mail’s premium tiers have historically carried a bit of a price tax compared to basic email options, the value proposition changes significantly when you factor in everything else you get. Upgrading essentially replaces standalone costs for a VPN, a cloud storage service, and a password vault, making it an excellent all-in-one privacy toolkit.
Use our link below to secure the current active promotional discount:
Proton Mail Black Friday Deal is Live:
Get 60% Off Proton Mail (drops the price to $1.99/month) with the coupon below:
(Coupon is applied automatically; 30-day money-back guarantee)
Step-by-step migration guide
Moving your inbox, contacts, and folders to Proton Mail is incredibly straightforward thanks to its built-in automation utilities.
Here is how to switch without losing a single message:
- Sign up for an account – Start on the free plan to test the waters, or jump straight to Proton Unlimited to expand your storage and unlock custom email domains.
- Launch Easy Switch – Use Proton’s automated importer tool to pull your entire history of messages, folders, contacts, and calendar itineraries directly from Gmail, Outlook, or Yahoo.
- Forward incoming mail – Set up simple auto-forwarding inside your old inbox provider so you don’t miss stray messages during your transition.
- Update your main accounts – Change your registered email address on your banking, social media, and subscription accounts.
- Enable security features – Set up two-factor authentication (2FA) and establish an external recovery mailbox right away to keep your profile secure.
The bottom line
Proton Mail is the gold standard for secure email, making it easy to escape data-mining giants like Gmail without sacrificing usability. By bundling encrypted email, cloud storage, a password vault, and a premium VPN into a single login, it delivers unmatched value as an all-in-one privacy suite.
While it is a strong shield against trackers, hackers, and mass corporate snooping, it isn’t a magic cloak. Because it uses classic OpenPGP standards for global network compatibility, message subject lines are left unencrypted and can be handed over if Swiss authorities show up with a valid court order.
If your threat model demands absolute header encryption, Tuta Mail remains a strong alternative approach. But if you want a highly polished, battle-tested privacy engine that secures your daily digital life with zero friction, Proton Mail is a top-tier choice.
Proton Mail FAQs
Yes, for everyday privacy. It uses rock-solid, audited encryption that stops corporations and hackers from reading your mail. However, it cannot encrypt your email subject lines, and no software can fully protect you if you are directly targeted by a powerful government spy agency.
They cannot hand over your message text or attachments because they do not have the keys to decrypt them. However, if served with a valid Swiss court order, they can be legally forced to turn over unencrypted metadata, including subject lines, sender/recipient addresses, and IP connection logs.
Yes, you can swap tiers at any time. Moving back to a free account will never delete your existing emails, but you will instantly lose access to premium perks like extra storage space, custom domains, and the desktop Proton Mail Bridge app.
Yes, but it requires a paid plan. Upgrading to Mail Plus or Proton Unlimited allows you to link your personal or business domain (like yourname@yourdomain.com) directly to your encrypted inbox.
Yes, using password protection. When emailing a non-Proton user, you can set a shared password inside the composer. The recipient gets a secure web link, enters the password, and can read and reply fully encrypted.
Yeah, Proton is weird. I’ve had issues as well trying to log-in to my account using VPN and anti-fingerprinting, anti-workerblocks, and more. Can’t log-in at all unless I go “naked” with my browser.
Interestingly, Proton recently introduced Onion log-in and I’m using that instead.
lumo gave me several times lost connection and empty answer just because I use tor IP as a proxy in firefox. other websites are working… Tuta also block new account registered with tor…
swissinfo news website every now and then publish judge decision against swiss secret service, they break the law in their work, so, swiss privacy is story for children, federal council before several months sent requirement to the parliament to extend the law about mass surveillence of all data traveling through switzerland…
Disroot also require veryfication of email by using code in another email and when I tried to use disposible email to get the code, no chance to accept the code, maybe again I used tor or VPN when I tried to register account, I dont remember….
people need real privacy anonymous email without logs, proton system is based on email and email record IP addresses for ”the sake of protecting accounts”… they offer even integration with gmail and other sites and that’s privacy problem, but hey they are just cern doctors of science who want to profit from selling privacy as a product,, they are not anti surveillence activists…
Business User Proton mail non-negotiable shortcomings. I have used Proton mail for several weeks now. The email display is weird becuse an email with attachments when clicked on doesnt show the attachments in the selected email. You have to individually open each email attachment and then download the attachments one at a time to the appropriate folder. Next, the related emails in a conversation doesnt show the time of the email so you spend waaay too much time searching for specific key words that may be in a en email. When replying to an email you cannot see the email you are replying to so you waste time going back and forth oepning and closing emails. It is not good for business users.
Umm. No. Something about Proton feels very sketchy. Reading about needing to have fingerprint resistance disabled to use their service is definitely a big no for me.
Great breakdown of the pros and cons. The integration with Proton VPN and Drive makes the ecosystem much more appealing than it was a few years ago. Excellent write-up!
If you want TRUE anonymity and privacy, you don’t want Proton. They now use elaborate anti-fingerprinting tech, and you can’t log into your account unless you disable it. BTW, not sure why the comments section is full of VPN comments.
6/10/26 Wednesday. I am having a problem with Proton. I have several emails with them. I live in a criminal hacker community. They hacked my proton account where I use my security system. After days going back & forth with proton they finally send a code to that Email so I could get back in cause they kept saying my Password was wrong when it was correct. I had changed my password on May 29 then changed it again, so they had my previous one I had used on the 29 but would still no let me in. Then they said my other one was over 500 MB but it was not all I had was 45 pages. My other email had 700 so what they stated simply doesn’t make any sense. I have near 800 on one & they say my other with 45 is FULL ! This one they say is FULL I have had for maybe over 5 years & same with Password. Now they say my password is wrong, verified me by phone yet still wont let me into it. Again makes no sense. My neighbor was probably the hacker changed the settings to VERIFY me putting my old phone no so I couldnt get the code. But I had told Proton before that was no longer my phone number cause the phone was destroyed by my new computer, when I tried to upload my phone pics the phone went out & I couldn’t get it to boot up anymore. I took it to Best Buy techs & they didn’t fix it. So I sent Proton so many help me emails but they have been ignoring me. I don’t know how they could say the did Verify me yet wont let me in to my accounts. And I need to know how to unencrypt my emails on my other email. I dont know anything about keys. I dont know what is going on at Proton, maybe there is organized crime there . I do know I didn’t start having problems till that guy that is running the tech dept joined their team. Thanks
Is there a way around any of the information collection in this age of data and forced registration for government services and other sites.. one of the reasons why I’m here on this platform is to make a educated decision about how I can limit the invasion of privacy and protect anything that might not be compromised already. I’m a rookie at this stuff. What is the point in trying to protect my privacy if the government is going to give it away without any notice or permission from me.
I bought a sub to Tuta Mail and I really couldn’t get past their primitive mail format. I tried the Thunderbird plugin and again, I couldn’t get comfortable with it. It looks to me to be Java based, so extremely limited in customising it.
I used Proton for a year before that, using their Bridge system on Linux, with Thunderbird, and Protons app on Android. It’s very good to be fair. Takes a bit of getting used to. I went back to them after trying Tuta.
You like what you like, try Tuta before buying and see what you think.
Proton Mail Aids FBI in Uncovering ‘Stop Cop City’ Protester’s True Identity:
[https://www.gadgetreview.com/privacy-focused-proton-mail-aids-fbi-in-uncovering-stop-cop-city-protesters-true-identity]
Yes, we covered this issue and talked to Proton about the situation here:
https://cyberinsider.com/proton-mail-payment-data-helped-fbi-identify-stop-cop-city-account-holder/
Proton contacts do not sync with Apple or Android. This has been a request for over six years. Tuta can do this and so can everyone else.
Meanwhile, crickets on this site regarding Proton disabling journalist account at the request of Cyber security agency which caused public backlash.
We’re following the situation and may still publish an article on this.
Proton is reportedly moving a lot of their physical infrastructure out of Switzerland.
https://www.swissinfo.ch/eng/ai-governance/proton-does-not-trust-switzerland-to-host-its-ai-servers/89727842
Hey Mike, thanks for sharing this! We’ll likely cover this in a news article tomorrow.
Did anyone ever receive a message from Proton in April last year (2024), with subject “New Inactive Account Policy”? Has anyone ever had their Proton account “deactivated”, due to inactivity?
Protonmail deactivated my free account, without prior warning!! They told me that all data on that account had been deleted and could not be retrieved, despite that the deactivation was obviously done before their “New Inactive Account Policy” was even announced!
Fast forward to this year, I discovered that my proton account appeared to be targeted, as it was the only account to be deactivated. After I realised that I had been fooled, I complained to Proton again, because the “deleted” account happened to hold important evidence related to a criminal matter! Thus the account deletion was obviously a deliberate act, in an attempt to destroy evidence, by malicious actors!! It also raised the serious question of possible corruption within Proton team.
To my dismay, after I complained again, Proton restored my “deleted” account in full. And it turned out that Proton had (secretly) kept all my data and my account active, for years!!!
I am speechless, and I complained about the apparent deceptive conduct and requested investigation, but Proton closed my complaint, claiming to protect the privacy of their internal staff…. Previously, my several complaints to Proton about missing emails and other privavy/security related issues were also closed, under various unconvincing pretexts!
Any suggestion what I can do in this situation to have my complaint investigated? I believe there is definitely something very wrong. It appears to me that certain Proton staff may have connection with organised crime. If true, the public needs to know, as a lot of journalists rely on ProtonMail for secure communications.
The lesson then is that no email provider is safe for truly sensitive information.
Use Standard Notes or Threema/Signal.
What you avoid with ´privacy email clients´ is targeted advertising.
I have all of the Proton apps available. I am having trouble seeing what latest version is being offered so i can check if i am updated on my mac. what version are you describing in your article? Proton does not say what version it has for downloads either. I don’t think some of my apps are updating. Only Proton VPN has an Update option in the menu bar, the rest i just rely on magic and hope it updates itself.. so i find it hard to know if my apps are up to date. Example Proton Mail 1.8 is what i have. can’t seem to find info anywhere online on the most current version. so i downloaded the Mail app again. but that does not even tell me anything until i install it. I don’t want to install anything until i know what version it is
There is no free plan available.
The are advertising it, but it always takes you back to those three payed options.
There is more to Proton than just Protomail (Proton Mail)…. there is a password manager (Proton Pass), a VPN (Proton VPN), and an interet storage drive (Proton Drive).
I’ve use all of these features with my Ubuntu-linux-based computers: I have a Proton Duo account that provides all of them.
Mail works very well. If you care anythiing about email privacy, you must use Mail. Everything you write and receive with gmail, att mail, yahoomail, etc… is info that is the property of your internet provider (gmail, att, etc). By US law, as soon as your email reaches their server, it is their property, and by US law, you do not own it. That data is stored on the huge data centers that are all over the US now. And, that data center repackages your data, accumulating more info as you use gmail, and is is sold world-wide.
You have given away your privacy for free with a gmail (att, yahoo, etc) account.
And, since your free email has a directory of your contacts and friend with all of their info, that data becomes a part of your data center profile and sold to so that buyers know who you associate with.
And, if use an electronic form of payment to make online purchases… all of that data becomes the property of the data center.
Everything you do electronically becomes a part of your profile at the data center.
Proton Mail is essential if there is any shred of your private life that you’d like to remain private.
The biggest problem I have with this provider are all the “Threatening” emails. If you don’t log in every day you get them. No other provider that I use does this. If I keep getting them at some point I will simply delete the app. Very annoying and no way to tell them how much I hate the harassment.
I have Protonmail on the pc and on the phone for years. I have NEVER been prompted to login, especially not daily.
I think what you say about the encryption in this article is wrong.
Here: https://proton.me/support/de/proton-mail-encryption-explained
“Message storage
[…]
Subject lines and recipient/sender email addresses are encrypted but not end-to-end encrypted”
As I understand this, the whole email (body and header incl. subject line) is encrypted at rest.
For emails in transit it depends: with PGP the body (but not the header) is encrypted; without PGP nothing is encrypted. In both cases the transit between the servers is protected by TLS.
The header (without PGP also the body) of every email that arrives at Proton is unencrypted, when they come “out of the TLS tunnle”. Of course Proton instantly encrypts the emails then. But they arrive unencrypted. This however is not a “Proton-thing” but applies to every email provider since emails are not encrypted by design. Emails that arrive at Tuta are also unencrypted.
That means Proton is not any worse than Tuta that is mentioned in this article. It is actually better because it has PGP support while Tuta does not.
Proton claims they don’t throttle speeds for their free tier. Either that’s a lie or their servers are heavily saturated. At the “closest” location, at best I achieve one fifth of my non VPN speeds. And before someone says speeds depend on many factors, the OTHER VPNs I use don’t suffer from this major drop (unless it’s one of the no-name free ones).
I have more than one paid account and a bunch of non-paid accounts. I believe that the servers are indeed “saturated” in the free tier. If you can find a trustworthy free vpn that’s not saturated, please let us know.
(I’m not putting my real name here because Proton wants us to only have one free account. Sorry.)
Why is “free” more important to you than your “freedom” or “privacy?”
If it is, you can get an excellent Proton account for under $4/month. What’s your privacy worth?
Because if I have to give them a credit card #, then it’s not “private” anymore.
My CC is linked to my bank account which has my name, my SSN, my DOB, my spending habits, my physical home address, my phone #, …..
So if an “adversary” wants to gain my proton identity, they don’t need to hack proton. All they need is for proton to hand over the CC number I used to “subscribe” to know who I am and where I am.
People need to realize that anything you pay for with anything other than CASH is not “private”. No matter how much BS proton shovels at you about privacy. They’ve already demonstrated they will hand over your data faster than a fat chick can eat a twinkie when 13 eyes comes a-knocking.
@Old
User 3887 is already supporting the company by purchasing paid accounts.
I understand he wants to go one step further in privacy by using free accounts.
I agree with the vpn speedsz it was fast during the free trial but as soon as I pay for 2 years of subscription it has been slow