Due to the recent announcement of Proton moving to a non-profit structure (although not becoming fully non-profit) I’ve decided to take another look at them and really, Proton Unlimited is an enticing offer. However, the fact of everything from mail, to accounts, to storage being in one place is somewhat disconcerting. Also I recall them being decent, but not particularly outstanding at refusing to provide data to outside sources, there was a situation a while back where they handed over information of a climate activist.
To be fair, mail is insecure by default and if you’re going so far as to write to another Protonmail user you might as well use something actually secure and I am not exactly planning on breaking the law so I’m not too worried about data being handed over to authorities, yet it still leaves a bitter taste in my mouth and with the state of politics where I live there certainly is a concern that, being queer, I should also be a bit weary of governing bodies as well, as laws may change in the future.
Basically, by switching to Proton I’d be putting a lot of trust in them, instead of splitting it up between things like Mullvad, Bitwarden, etc. and besides a password manager (and to some extent my email provider), while dramatic, a single failure at any point wouldn’t be a total disaster. Are they trustworthy enough for the convenience benefits to be worth it to any of you?
I’ve been using Proton for several years now, and paying for their Mail and VPN features. Proton Mail is definitely better than Gmail, but other than the privacy features, it’s just a basic email service. Their VPN also is just a basic service. If that’s what you need, then by all means, I’ve always had a good experience with them.
That being said, I do run a competing email service called Port87 that (IMHO) has better features for organization and spam protection, so take what I say with the knowledge that I am technically their competitor (although my user base is tiny compared to them). Really, I see them more as an ally against Gmail and MS Exchange, because I’ve never experienced any sort of anti-competitive behavior from them like I have with both Google and Microsoft.
Supporting smaller players in the email space is what keeps email open, so the more people move away from Gmail and Exchange/MS 365, the better.