Proton Mail
902 likes
Proton Mail provides secure email services with end-to-end encryption, ensuring data protection. Swiss-based and outside US jurisdiction, it offers a free version to champion privacy as a human right. Fully accessible on any device.
License model
- Freemium • Open Source
Application types
Platforms
- Mac
- Windows
- Linux
- Online
- Android
- iPhone
- iPad
- Tor
Features
Proton Mail News & Activities
Highlights • All activities
Recent News
- Fla published news article about Proton VPN
Proton adds FIDO2 for enhanced 2FA to mobile appsProton has announced that all of its mobile apps now support FIDO2 for two-factor authentication (2...
- POX published news article about Proton Mail
Proton expands privacy-focused writing assistant Proton Scribe to Family and Duo plansProton has expanded the availability of its privacy-first writing assistant, Proton Scribe, to subs...
- Maoholguin published news article about Proton VPN
Proton launches cost-effective 'Proton Duo' sub tier for couples with encrypted servicesProton has introduced a new plan called "Proton Duo," specifically designed for couples. This plan ...
Recent activities
- ver liked Proton Mail
UniqueGo added Proton Mail as alternative to Swissmail- erikvanluxzenburg liked Proton Mail
- bobbyhiltz does not think Privacy focused is a important feature of Proton Mail
- zilinux rated Proton Mail
- zilinux liked Proton Mail
What is Proton Mail?
Proton Mail information
AlternativeTo Categories
Security & Privacy, Office & Productivity, Social & Communications, Online Services, Bitcoin & CryptocurrencyApple AppStore
- Updated Jan 9, 2025
- 4.72 avg rating
Comments and Reviews
No ads, appears to be truly privacy-focused, and constantly improving web UI. Integration with email clients can be somewhat tedious but only because Proton actually encrypts the email transmissions until they reach your device (unlike traditional IMAP/POP) so needs a "bridge" application that runs locally and acts as the "server" your email client connects to.
Web UI can be a bit clunky and annoying for some things, but they have a user forum for feature requests and even have a voting system set up for them (last I checked). Calendar is available but probably _not_ production-ready, though it's also actively being developed. They also offer file storage à la gooogle "Drive". (And a purportedly privacy-focused VPN service, the paid version of which can be bundled with Protonmail.)
With a fairly reasonably-priced paid account you can add additional email addresses on any of the Proton domains, as well as manage emails for your own custom domain (i.e. if you have your own domain Proton can be set up to act as your email server and your emails are delivered to your inbox along with your Proton emails).
Emails between Proton accounts are, according to Proton, always encrypted, but it's also fairly easy to set up PGP for your Proton addresses so you can send encrypted emails to non-Proton addresses.
I try as much than I can't to avoid big corp like GAFAM and at the same time looking for open source and great product. I leave in Switzerland, which is a great country for individual privacy. Just for you info, Phil Zimmermann, the inventor of PGP, move from US to Switzerland to be more able protect his privacy.
I have few account with ProtonMail but, never use them on my smart device simply because I don't have Google Play on these device and when I download the ProtonMail APK it won't let's me login because it don't recognize my "GooglePlay" Account, which I think it's just wack to propose an alternative, claiming being secure and working for the privacy than forcing their user to have a Google Account after all.
Since than; I decide to go with Tutanota, which are in Germany, which still great for privacy and even if I still have to download the APK than install it, at least they don't force me to being authenticated by Google to use their App. O their also cheaper and the support is nicer.
Funny fact; en 2017; ProtonMail was victim of severals DDOS, which insane when you think about it because they are hosted at the CERN.
Tutanota have several major advantages over Protonmail:
Fewer DDoS attacks,
they developed search of encrypted email text via a local index file. Basically this means you can search the text of your emails, which is not possible in Protonmail unless you first download your email via their Bridge app,
Yubikey support (this is a limited advantage as they only support Yubikeys in Chrome (Google = yuck!) and Opera (based on Chrome and not open source). Support for Yubikey puts them ahead of Protonmail for 2-factor authentication (and therefore security) but it does not go far enough. Competitors (E.g. Fastmail (not encrypted) offer Yubikey support for all browsers).
Whichever plan you are paying for, you can always ask for more storage. In Protonmail, their Professional plan requires you to add users if you want to go beyond 5GB of storage -- a ridiculous requirement. Protonmail have not through through through their pricing strategy. I am a small business owner and I need something like 8GB for me as the only user, but I also need catch-all addresses. That means I either pay for the Professional package and don't get the storage, or I pay for Visionary, and pay through the nose for what should be stanard.
In the future, Protonmail's muscle, popularity, exposure and expertise will mean that they will win. They will become - in fact, they already have become - the default service for encrypted emailing. But they are also chronically distracted by mission creep. They have developed VPNs and ways of accessing email via the .onion network... and that's all fine. For example, charity workers in privacy-hostile environments, and human rights campaigners and journalists will be better off because of Protonmail, for sure. But if the mission is to move people from services like Gmail, Protonmail aren't doing nearly enough. Where is the search? Where is the calendaring? Where is the search by multiple labels?
Reply written Jul 7, 2018
Proton offers a good quality alternative to the Google ecosystem, and it is on track to offer a great one. Proton Mail offers quite robust privacy features and all the functionality I could want from an email provider. I've had a very solid experience so far.
Privacy, secure, freedom and human right protection.
Proton is one of my favorite Privacy company in the world
Everything is fine, the application is cool! it would be even cooler if in an android application it would be possible to change and create filters!
Better than gmail definitely!