Mostly out of curiosity, but also somewhat related to Proton’s recent political involvement, I’m curious about alternatives to using their services, open to suggestions for:
- Proton Mail: anything that can support custom domain, email aliases, and email scheduling?
- Proton Drive: not the most important, but interested in privacy first, encrypted hosting services
- Proton Pass: anything I should take a look at besides Bitwarden and Keepass?
- Proton VPN: that one’s the hardest, it was really good, I think Mullvlad is the one most often recommended?
- Proton Calendar: didn’t really care about that one, but it was nice that it connected to Mail
My Unlimited plan renewed in December so I’ll probably keep it for a year, it was nice having only one subsctiption to keep in mind, but I’m thinking of exploring other options
Why does everyone just say use Mullvad now, I always got taught if they are advertising, you should not use them, has this stance changed?
How would a company (even a good one) let people know they exist without some sort of advertising?
Just start a company and sit there hoping people accidentally find you, then tell their friends?
Advertising has to happen on some level.
Mullvad VPN
Mail and calendar: i think mailbox and posteo should work well, they both support IMAP for mail and CalDAV for calendar, just get a nice client(surprisingly not many for calendar standard protocol. thunderbird on desktop and etar/fossify calendar on android. stock one on ios)
VPN: MullVAD is the best
Drive: Check filen, it’s cheaper and better, and has powerful CLI tools
Pass: Maybe unofficial self hosted version of bitwarden. It’s called vaultwarden, and don’t be afraid of selfhost, basically all you need to do is docker compose.
If you must:
- Proton Mail/Calendar ➡️ Posteo, Tutanota, Mailbox.org
- Proton Drive ➡️ Tresorit, Nextcloud, Filen, Syncthing, MEGA
- Proton Pass ➡️ KeePass
- Proton VPN ➡️ Mullvad VPN, IVPN, Windscribe
- Proton Wallet ➡️ Cake Wallet, Electrum
Some of these don’t have first-party mobile or desktop clients, so here are some apps to use them with:
- Posteo & Mailbox.org - Thunderbird (desktop, Android), FairEmail (Android), Evolution (Unix-like), Geary (Unix-like), Claws Mail (desktop), Fossify Calendar + DAVx5 (Android)
- KeePass: KeePassXC (desktop), KeePassDX (Android), KeePassium (iOS)
One really nice advantage for Posteo is even if you stop paying, they’ll never delete your account unless you specifically delete it yourself(preventing address recycling, unlike mailbox.org) and you can still access your account and recieve emails, you just can’t send any until you pay again. They won’t even delete it from inactivity.
That’s a rather unique feature in the email world now.
Seconding Tutanota. Started using it this week and it is so…simple! There are 2 apps on Android, but actually only the Tutamail one is needed.
I also use Nextcloud through a private cloud implementation, and it is not refined in the UI, but good enough.
I’ll just add:
- Proton drive => Seafile (selfhosted)
- protonpass => bitwarden
I stopped using Bitwarden. Unless I’m mistaken, they were about to start doing some closed-source stuff.
I agree with many recommendations
but as someone who has tried many VPN providers I can say Windscribe is really bad (for servers in the EU at least).
Slow, few servers, unreliable, and blocked on many websitessurprisingly I see it recommended all the time
related to Proton’s recent political involvement
You should probably check the political leanings of the directors of each of the alternatives you are considering as well.
Yeah, don’t just drop whoever opens their mouth to speak…
There is absolutely a point to shaming and boycotting everyone who acts negatively in public. Of course beeing a secret scumbag is also bad but it doesn’t promote scumbaggery to other. A quiet ass does less damage than a loud one.
The Proton CEO explicitly used Proton’s official accounts and declared them as the company’s official stance.
I don’t mind people having political views I disagree with. The lines were crossed when his absurd personal views were published :
- using company accounts
- as official statements
edit: I was asked to provide sources so please find them here: https://feddit.uk/post/23386970/14888441
May I trouble you to kindly provide sources for your statements? Your use of plurals indicates that there’s more than one tweet, and I am fascinated to learn more.
That’s such a strange way to phrase it but I’m going to opt to believe you’re human and asking in good faith.
This is what the CEO posting as u/Proton_Team stated in a response on r/ProtonMail:
Here is our official response, also available on the Mastodon post in the screenshot:
Corporate capture of Dems is real. In 2022, we campaigned extensively in the US for anti-trust legislation.
Two bills were ready, with bipartisan support. Chuck Schumer (who coincidently has two daughters working as big tech lobbyists) refused to bring the bills for a vote.
At a 2024 event covering antitrust remedies, out of all the invited senators, just a single one showed up - JD Vance.
By working on the front lines of many policy issues, we have seen the shift between Dems and Republicans over the past decade first hand.
Dems had a choice between the progressive wing (Bernie Sanders, etc), versus corporate Dems, but in the end money won and constituents lost.
Until corporate Dems are thrown out, the reality is that Republicans remain more likely to tackle Big Tech abuses.
Source: https://archive.ph/quYyb
To call out the import bits:
- He refers to it as the “official response”
- Indicates that JD Vance is on their side just because he attended an event that other invited senators didn’t
- Rattles on about “corporate Dems” with incredible bias
- States “Republicans remain more likely to tackle Big Tech abuses” which is immediately refuted.
That was posted in ther/ProtonMail sub where the majority of the event took place: https://old.reddit.com/r/ProtonMail/comments/1i1zjgn/so_that_happened/m7ahrlm/
However be aware that the CEO posting as u/Proton_Team kept editing his comments so I wouldn’t trust the current state of it. Plus the proton team/subreddit mods deleted a ton of discussion they didn’t like. Therefore this archive link captured the day after might show more but not all: https://web.archive.org/web/20250116060727/https://old.reddit.com/r/ProtonMail/comments/1i1zjgn/so_that_happened/m7ahrlm/
Some statements were made on Mastodon but these are subsequently deleted, but they’re capture by an archive link: https://web.archive.org/web/20250115165213/https://mastodon.social/@protonprivacy/113833073219145503
I learned about it from an r/privacy thread but true to their reputation the mods there also went on a deletion spree and removed the entire post: https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/1i210jg/protonmail_supporting_the_party_that_killed/
This archive link might show more but I’ve not checked: https://web.archive.org/web/20250115193443/https://old.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/1i210jg/protonmail_supporting_the_party_that_killed/
There’s also this lemmy discussion from the day after but by that point the Proton team had fully kicked in their censorship so I don’t know how much people were aware of (apologies I don’t know how to make a generic lemmy link) https://feddit.uk/post/22741653
I know its a strange way to phrase the request, but I wanted to make it explicit that it wasn’t an attack but a good faith request, as you correctly and kindly assumed.
Online discourse is a minefield these days, it’s nice when someone notices the effort you put in to not start a fight!
This is interesting stuff. When I get back to my computer I will do more research; I believe there are sites that show removed/revised reddit posts
I will, but that’s not the most important point of this post
- For Mail, I’d recommend Tuta (which comes with 15-30 aliases depending on the plan) and a third-party aliasing service like Addy if you need more than that. If you want a different aliasing service and are searching around, and trying to avoid giving money to Proton, avoid SimpleLogin, since they are owned by Proton. I don’t believe Tuta has email scheduling, though.
- For Drive, either use Tresorit, or use Cryptomator if you’re okay with paying for OneDrive/Dropbox/Google Drive. (Cryptomator encrypts uploaded files & names so the cloud provider itself can’t view the contents)
- For Pass, I personally would recommend Bitwarden or Keepass simply depending on whichever one you prefer more. Both are good options.
- For VPN, definitely use Mullvad. Simple, unchanging monthly price, you can pay via numerous different ways if you want to keep your identity more private from them (e.g. paying with cash by mail, XMR, etc) and you’ll get an account number rather than needing to actually give them any information like an email to create an account. Do be aware it has much less locations than Proton, and most other VPN providers, although it’s still quite fast and usable for most cases.
- For Calendar, Tuta also has a calendar feature built-in.
I’d highly recommend checking out Privacy Guides by the way, since they tend to have good lists of alternatives for any other services you may want to switch from also.
Thank you for the detailed response!! I’ll study all the options ❤️
Tuta is an excellent alternative.
Fastmail is what I use for my day to day mail. If you’re concerned about it being subject to Australian privacy laws, check out Startmail.
Mailbox.org is very good but some may find it overly complex.
Migadu is also a very good option, have been using it for the past 2 years after leaving Proton. Very cheap compared to other plans.
I didn’t know about them. Their about us page is interesting. If I understand correctly you must provide your own domain, is that correct?
I was already considering tuta as my “main” email for degoogling purposes, I’ll consider their options for the paid plan, it looks like the strongest competitor to Proton
Mullvad is great. Also for drive, if you just need e2ee photo storage, check out ente.
ente
Thanks, first time hearing about them. I’ll check them out.
They have a great authenticator app too.
Do you know if it has easy backup and restore features for switching to a new phone?
It does. I’d like to send a screenshot of them but I can’t for sECuriTy PoLiCy reasons, so the skinny is encrypted, plain text and plain HTML.
Fastmail.com has been great here.
I just moved to Proton before this while debacle and it definitely put me properly back on edge about who to trust in tech!
I’ll probably stick with their email and calendar for now. (Though I’m curious what hosted calendars might be out there I could use alternatives for arranging events with friends.)
I had started on Keepass before, briefly tried Proton Pass, and now have completed moving to Keepass. I keep my database in my syncthing folder and have it on all my devices. With browser plug-ins and the KeepassDX app on Android, the experience is basically identical, except entirely private and self-hosted. A win all around, I’m real happy with this.
For VPN I’m using surfshark right now and haven’t had any real issues. Not sure what the prevailing sentiment about them is though. I do sometimes find their endpoints blocked by various sites (catbox.moe is oddly very picky about this).
For drive, I’ll probably end up getting a seedbox and a lot more hardrives in the near future anyway, so that’ll be a problem/solution for me then.
For password management I moved to bitwarden as proton pass was not there yet. I like bitwardens’s zero knowledge emergency access. I can have emergency contacts access my account in the event I am no longer able to.
how does this work?
Emergency access uses public key exchange and encryption/decryption to allow users to give a trusted emergency contact permission to access vault data in a zero knowledge encryption environment:
See documentation here: https://bitwarden.com/help/emergency-access/#%3A~%3Atext=Emergency+access+uses+public+key%2Cemergency+contact+(the+grantee).
- Mail and calendar: Tuta seems the only alternative for mail and calendar if you want custom domain support and encryption by default that Tuta (probably) can’t access even if legally compelled to. Doesn’t have a desktop bridge like Proton does, rather it has a full Linux app for both email and calendar. Which will be a pro for some people and a con for others. And I’m struggling to run it on my nixOS system, for the three people on earth that would matter for.
- Drive: I have a Synology NAS which handles this need very well for me, especially with my own managed wireguard VPN for access away from home
- Pass: Bitwarden
- VPN: Mullvad
There was a recent post on [email protected]
VPS with nextcloud et al
Generally, I’d recommend having different services for everything anyway just for situations like this where if one’s bad, you don’t have to change everything else. Pick what services you really need the premium for and find free tiers that match your needs on others. For VPN, I still use PIA since their reputation is still holding up. I know you said you don’t want to hear it but Bitwarden for password manager and for the rare time I need cloud storage, I use Mega since they offer 20GB on their free tier. Oh, and Disroot for email bit that doesn’t have everything you’re looking for so I can’t recommend it even if it’s been great for my use case.
Yeah that’s something that hovered in my mind for a time, not putting all my eggs in the same basket
I was thinking about subbing to Proton and researched a few other alternatives but ended up coming to the conclusion that it is kinda useless for me and most people. Unless the other person(s) you email are also using Proton or a similar service then you’re still compromised. I guess it makes sense for some people like journalists or politicians, but only if you know your peers are also using it. I ended up moving everything to iCloud which does most of what you’re looking for.
Personally I switched to a private email just so it would be one less avenue to harvest my data and habits for advertisers.
