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Comment by teekert | Hacker News Reader

I've been very happy with Protonmail, you can even use your old Gmail address from within Protonmail [0]. Although arguable doing that is counter productive, you want receive gmails but reply with you new address -> Yes this is the time to buy a domain and own an address for the rest of your life, so you can move again with little pain in the future ;)

[0] https://proton.me/blog/proton-mail-connect-gmail

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My problem with protonmail (and telegram) is that in my country, only scammers use those two services. So when I encounter these, I immediately distrust the person I'm interacting with and assume the worst. Even my one neighbor uses it and I distrust him immensely as he is not tech savvy yet he uses proton... its strange. How does he even know about it? He and his wife are not forth coming about what they do for a living, they seem to be nice people, but they both use proton. In our country its a huge red flag.

When people are suspicious of anyone not wanting to be surveiled and spied upon, it says more about the state of the social group that it says about the privacy-minded individual.

And it means it's even more important to move away from that surveilance because it shapes opinions to sustain itself.

Proton isn't used only by scammers.

    site:onlyfans.com "proton"

OH.

>How does he even know about it?

Maybe google locked their account.

I do get that, but that is what you get when you offer strong privacy, it's probably similar with GrapheneOS, and Signal (though there it's much less visible). When I see someone using Proton it's a signal they align with my values regarding privacy. To me it's a good sign, actually, one of the (friend) relations I have, started with "Hey you are also on Proton." Turns out she's a frequenter of hacker festivals etc.

I use Telegram for bots btw, nothing beats the ease of the Botfather.

I temporarily moved from Fastmail to Proton Mail, but found several downsides:

* Loading mails (especially when going quickly through them) has quite some latency. Possibly due to decrypting.

* Search is pretty bad compared to Fastmail.

* The keyboard shortcuts seem to never work correctly.

So I went back to Fastmail for mail (we still use Proton Drive, which has its own set of warts).

I changed from Gmail to proton many years ago.

The only pain point I have is the search. Understandable, the emails are encrypted and search has to be done on the client. That works when using the web hi as you have the option to index all emails.

I do not find this option in the iOS app :(

Agreed, there are quirks, and there is also an AI writer, though it never disturbed me and hope it never will.

But generally the UI is clean and they align with my values.

There is a bridge software that bridges Proton and imap so you can use any client. Never used it though, I find the apps pretty good. The latest generation is focussing on off-line use which will hopefully drive down down some of the latency, especially that of the calendar app is pretty bad atm.

My father somehow loves the search, but I myself am also unimpressed tbh. I do like the tagging system.

+ I'll add the obligatory complaint about the lack of Linux Protondrive client.

Yes, I really hope that they'll fill the Linux client gap soon.

My notes say: No IMAP or other way to export emails, they're trapped in the service. CEO is a Trump supporter.

You can export mails, but only if you're on a paid plan.

Then you can install Proton Mail Bridge (which exposes a fake IMAP server to your machine) and a mail client (e.g. Thunderbird). Then you move all your mail from Proton to your new service by drag-n-dropping inside of your mail client.

I did it in order to move to Mailbox.org (great service), exactly because I don't want to give money to a company run by a Trump supporter.

Also, get ready to receive replies in which they tell you "Ackchyually he's not a trump supporter!!!1"

> You can export mails, but only if you're on a paid plan.

GDPR to the rescue: You have the right to data portability. All UK/EU email providers offer this (and any that don't may need a polite reminder for them to play ball).

https://ico.org.uk/for-organisations/uk-gdpr-guidance-and-re...

I thought protonmail supports imap. Or was it discontinued?

There is a local bridge which transparently communicates between Proton’s encrypted servers and offers imap locally. Only on non-mobile OSs afaik. [0]

[0] https://proton.me/mail/bridge

That's exactly what I wrote in my comment above. You need to install Proton Mail Bridge. But it only works if you're on a paid plan.

I'll be the "Ackchyually" person for those who don't know. Proton tweeted support for a _single_ thing the Trump administration did, on a subject that mattered to Proton. Otherwise, they have a strict neutrality position, and their CEO responded to the accusations on Reddit.

https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonMail/comments/1i2nz9v/on_poli...

Do you have any proof or are you still referring to that one tweet from very long ago, where he did not praise Trump but some action Trump took that was actually good (I know, when you're polarized enough it's hard to think in such terms).

  > Yes this is the time to buy a domain and own an address for the rest of your life

As someone who does use their own domain to receive mail, I am acutely aware of how diligent I must be to never lose that domain. The chances of someone acquiring access to my Gmail account are far lower than me losing the dotancohen.com domain, especially with the cyber attacks against Israeli assets that have been ongoing incessantly since 2023. One's email is often the gateway to every other online service, via reset password features - losing access is problematic and an attacker getting access is nigh unrecoverable.

Anything can be taken from you at any time. Google can also just delete your account for no obvious reason. I guess that a domain can also be taken away but maybe not that easy. At least you can switch mail providers easily without having to change all your accounts that are based on your mail address.

Google can just block your account for no obvious reason and ask for KYC, which could easily leave you without access to your email for a week.

Hope that's not your case, but seeing how irresponsible Google is in its actions, I couldn't tolerate such risks.

Google can just block your account for no obvious reason and no asking.

I'm less worried about losing access, and more worried about somebody else gaining access.

Yes, but the likelihood of them giving your email address to another person is low. Not so if somebody gets my domain out from under me.

Change your password from 123456 to correct horse battery staple and you will be safe from cyberattacks. And use noscript.

There exist no-hacking methods of coersing a domain away.

correct horse battery staple is very good. But for more variation you could ask an LLM

I use a .nl domain for my country, luckily it is governed by a trustworthy party and there are strict rules and convenient systems to move domainnames between providers. Agreed that some tlds may indeed be less ideal in that respect.

I agree. I would never host my mail on those new fancy domains which are controlled by a private company. Only use geographic TLDs run by a trustworthy government.

I use a .com.

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