Updated Proton, Unified Protection
proton.me
proton.me
And to be honest, I don't know the best way to avoid UX problems when a service change domains.
I mean, besides that many users will lost access/do the reset pass process because of that, the experience to fix this as a user is: go to the pass manager, copy the credentials from the old domain, go to the new login page and paste it, save it as in the new domain, and delete the old domain saved credentials, because that will be saved there forever with no propose and confusing users with duplicated login information.
I guess more advanced password managers maybe notify about domain changes? But at least Firefox and I suppose Chrome, which is massive, don't have that.
A more frequent problem is where a site will authenticate you against some other domain or URL, so its something Ive had to do before and I think someone using 1pass or similar should be able to do
Mobile app lets you search for an existing login when one isn't found for the new domain. After you give it permission to autofill, it will continue to do so
I'm using the beta app and everything is good but it still doesn't support conversation view.
(I have yet to find any open source android email app which looks as modern as proton's, maybe AOSP email?)
They have also bought [SimpelLogin](https://simplelogin.io), the email aliasing service, and promised that SL would be intgersted in the plus plans when SL Is merged into proton in 2-3 months. I'm hoping that they keep multiple domain support, even though I doubt it will happen.
As for proton calendar, its usability for me is pretty limited until they enable syncing with the OS on mobile and offer a Caldav server with desktop bridge. If they would also offer contact sync that would be super!
Moving my email via IMAP bridge into ProtonMail resulted in many many messages being corrupted (they show HTML as TXT instead of rendering it) and duplicated.
I finally literally gave up a week ago and switched to Fastmail and am already so much happier. It's annoying, I really wanted to love Protonmail but they just do this window dressing nonsense with updated logos and website design instead of making the core product work better. I can't deal with it anymore.
It's very sad to me, I was one of their first customers :-(
just a reminder that Fastmail is based in Australia.
However I would remind you that since Fastmail is based in Australia, its privacy is pretty limited.
> The new law also allows officials to approach specific individuals—such as key employees within a company—with these demands, rather than the institution itself. In practice, they can force the engineer or IT administrator in charge of vetting and pushing out a product's updates to undermine its security. In some situations, the government could even compel the individual or a small group of people to carry this out in secret. Under the Australian law, companies that fail or refuse to comply with these orders will face fines up to about $7.3 million. Individuals who resist could face prison time.
www.reuters.com/article/us-australia-security-data/australia-passes-bill-to-force-tech-firms-to-hand-over-encrypted-data-idUSKBN1O42SR
I really really tried to give them time, but honestly this announcement is insulting for people like me waiting for years for actual features to reach parity. I finally gave up, but I'm not happy about it and would have much rather kept giving ProtonMail money.
> However I would remind you that since Fastmail is based in Australia, its privacy is pretty limited.
And Fastmail’s data centers are in the U.S. I don’t know if they encrypt all data and logs at rest. They/the data centers could be compelled to hand over data to U.S. three-letter-agencies too, with an NSL (gag order).
I think that for most people (or at least me) the attacks that protonmail is good for aren't especially likely and can trivially be rendered useless by the kind of adversaries they would theoretically have worked against.
Disclaimer: not a security expert, just based on my impressions. Sorry if I got any details wrong.
At least fastmail isn't Gmail sending your info to marketers.
Make of that what you will, after so many years and the nth redesign
I can see why they do what they do, it probably prevents a lot of spam accounts and abusive use type accounts from being created. But privacy doesn't mean anonymous. If you want anonymous I don't think Proton is for you.
In the end it's their choice to continue collecting personal data, even after Swiss authorities compelled them to disclose personal data to French authorities: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ProtonMail#Compliance_with_Swi...
And Proton is marketing themselves as anonymity friendly: https://proton.me/news/climate-activist-arrest
Sometimes it feels like people scream security === anonymity === privacy and really don’t understand what they’re even yelling about.
Edit: https://protonmailrmez3lotccipshtkleegetolb73fuirgj7r4o4vfu7...
"If you are only given the option of email or SMS verification and would like to avoid using email or SMS verification, it is possible to do so by upgrading to a paid plan using PayPal or Bitcoin."
Yeah, I would hardly call any of those options anonymous. Pseudonymous at best.
In fact, I just created one to verify. It's still possible. See for yourself:
user: testaccount.forhackernews@protonmail.com
pass: testdonotuseforseriousstuff
All I had to do was to solve a captcha with bicycles in order to prove I was human. And the dialog for recovery e-mail / phone had a "Maybe later" button.
I live in Switzerland, maybe the impossibility of anonymous account creation is a legal issue in some countries ?
The one thing that keeps me from using Proton as my primary email is lack of email/calendar integration. When I get an email with an invite, I would like that to appear auto-magically on my calendar. When I assign my custom domain to Proton and use it heavily for a few months, this is what eventually makes me switch back to Apple/Gmail/FastMail.
I gave up on it because I wasn't sure how to solve potential privacy issues or concerns if I wanted others to be able to use it.
What are the opinions on moving a personal family domain on the GSuite Legacy free over to Proton?
It seems like the cost is reasonable, 9.99€/month for 15 email addresses and 3 custom domains. I have just one domain and 5 email addresses for my family so I don't need much. Curious to what everyone thinks about Proton or if there might be a better alternative. Side note: I know Proton is based in Switzerland but my family and I are based in the US. Not sure if that is something which would be a problem.
The cheapest option is 7$ per user, which is a big jumb from free.
https://proton.me/business/plans
Otherwise, I think they are really the best private email company.
And now with this change, they are the only privacy ecosystem out there, unless you count nextcloud which a different thing and isn't as heavily encrypted as proton.
Be aware that proton doesn't offer standard SMTP connections, you need a bridge which is only available on desktop. The same thing is true with the calendar/contacts there is no cardav/caldav sync.
I hope they are working on integrating a Dav bridge on desktop and syncing from mobile apps.
The lack of CardDav and CalDav are absolute deal breakers for me. If I can't get my contacts and calendars into my preferred apps on my phone there's just no way they'll get adoption from me. I stick with Fastmail because it just works for mail, calendars and contacts across all of my devices and apps.
> The new law also allows officials to approach specific individuals—such as key employees within a company—with these demands, rather than the institution itself. In practice, they can force the engineer or IT administrator in charge of vetting and pushing out a product's updates to undermine its security. In some situations, the government could even compel the individual or a small group of people to carry this out in secret. Under the Australian law, companies that fail or refuse to comply with these orders will face fines up to about $7.3 million. Individuals who resist could face prison time.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-australia-security-data/a...
I don't get the draw of Proton. If I send email to someone else outside of Proton I should assume that email is now in an insecure state.
Fastmail may not advertise privacy, but honestly, I don't think much email in general should ever be considered private, including much of what is sent from Proton.
Its a compelete ecosystem designed with privacy in mind, and encrypting emails is not the only benefit, another ProtonMail benefit is that no one can read the stored emails, only you can do that.
If your concern is a major state-level actor, able to spy on every recipient/sender you're communicating with and generally tap emails being transmitted, yes, Proton offers little protection, and email is insecure. If you're worried about a data breach or targeted attack compromising your stored email in its entirety, however, it does. These are more feasible for smaller-scale attackers, and in getting an entire, potentially complete history of your emails, potentially offer something more than just spying on one email.
I'd speculate that targeted attacks are more often client-side, usually trying to steal credentials from the user, but at least the user can be careful about these. Having all your correspondence stored and readable on a server that isn't under your control means you have to trust the security of the server much more than you would with this type of encryption.
If the recipient has set up Web Key Directory for their key the encryption looks just like for a Proton recipient (transparent key fetch in the background). And WKD is quite common and easy to setup (eg all major Linux distros have it).
If you want separate logins, take a look at Tutanota, it's 1€/month and you can add each family member as a full user.
As to the location, there is no issue, Tutanota is based in Germany, but both options (Switzerland or Germany) are fine for usage from the US. At least I've never heard about anyone complaining.
Edit: Looks like they aren’t allowing anyone new to sign up for Visionary. That’s recent as I was seeing signups available as of a week or two ago if I recall right.
Did Proton redeemed this somehow?
I don’t think anyone actually reads into nuance anymore. The privacy advocates are their own worst enemy. If this bar is too low for you, there’s basically only self hosted GNU software left…
> The privacy advocates are their own worst enemy
Probably, but Privacy is Proton's motto. I'm just pointing at the controversy.
They can't refuse this as it was required by law, and protonVPN is protected from IP logging requirements.
https://proton.me/news/climate-activist-arrest
The have also updated their privacy policy.
> 2.7 IP logging: By default, we do not keep permanent IP logs in relation with your Account. However, IP logs may be kept temporarily to combat abuse and fraud, and your IP address may be retained permanently if you are engaged in activities that breach our terms and conditions (e.g. spamming, DDoS attacks against our infrastructure, brute force attacks). The legal basis of this processing is our legitimate interest to protect our service against nefarious activities. > > If you enable authentication logging for your Account, the record of your login IP addresses is kept for as long as the feature is enabled. This feature is off by default, and all the records are deleted upon deactivation of the feature. The legal basis of this processing is consent, and you are free to opt in or opt out of that processing at any time in the security panel of your Account.
Mind you there was still time in my subscription.
So fuck ProtonMail regardless. Others will recommend Tutanota, Fastmail… I use mailbox.org for business, all much better recommendations.
And so what? For someone to play like that it’s fair to give a refund for the unused period. Otherwise, like I said, fuck ProtonMail.
Also, what is the incentive as a previously paying customer to return? I see none. It does not seem to be loyal customers but current ones. So someone who subscribed last month or a few days ago (for however long) gets more benefit than me a multi year former user. OK, so where is the incentive to make me a returning customer?
Edit: Also in terms of incentives, is there another decent email provider that offers the same suite of services (end-to-end encrypted email that won't data mine you and serve ads to you?). That's still the main draw for me.
Protonmail is proprietary (given the JavaScript served cannot be audited), and because it does not use an open standard.
Both Posteo and Tutanota are alternatives which don't profile you but whether they suit your needs is up to you. Hosted in Germany.
Not sure what that has to do with the number of email aliases.
I've been a VPN subscriber, so haven't really played around with the mail side too much.
I wish ProtonDrive would explain more about their data resilience, whether they maintain custodian keys or any ability to access customer data, how access works when traveling across borders, etc. otherwise iCloud Drive and Boxcryptor are a stronger choice.
A note for anyone recommending ProtonMail as that changes the calculus for many.
With its removal, there is no non-business plan with multiple mailboxes. It also appears that the ability to pay additional fees per item for extra custom domains, addresses, and other features has been removed. As such, if you need more than what the largest plan offers on these (eg, you need what the old Visionary plan offered), this now appears impossible.
What was the price of "Plus" before this change, i think something like €8 or €10 ?
But the last paragraph violates one of my common complaints: using "open source" as a buzz-word:
> Proton will always be open source
Oh really? Where can I download the source code to run my own Protonmail server? Answer: I can't.
Understandably, this is not an ideal solution for everyone -- it works awesome for me! Just a PSA for those not aware.
[1] https://proton.me/mail/bridge [2] https://github.com/emersion/hydroxide [3] https://aerc-mail.org/
however its nothing out of the ordinary to expect from the UAE.