Proton Mail: In the present times, there is a lot of growing concern with respect to privacy and safety in the digital sphere. Cyber threats are constantly on the rise, and there is a dire need for quality privacy tools that can be trusted. Proton has come forth with one such highly useful offering – Proton Mail.
- What is Proton Mail?
- Ease of Use and Interface
- It is referred to as ProtonMail more often and has the following main key features:
- End-to-end encryption
- Zero access encryption
- A Strong privacy legal framework
- Open source and audited
- AI Functionality :
- Privacy in Proton Mail
- Ease of managing custom email addresses
- Space and Data Storage
- Performance
- Chat Features
- Should you shift to Proton Mail?
What is Proton Mail?
Proton Mail is a secure email service that is made by Proton AG, which is a Swiss-based company that is more popularly known for its tools that focus on privacy, such as VPN, Calendar, etc.
It is built around the principle of digital privacy and security. It is considered to be one of the strongest data protection frameworks globally.
Ease of Use and Interface
When you log in to ProtonMail through your regular browser, it will look like any other webmail service. It will also allow you to easily switch over to Gmail. However, it is only available on Windows in browser-only mode until the desktop app support comes into the picture.
It is referred to as ProtonMail more often and has the following main key features:
- End-to-end encryption
- Zero access encryption
- A Strong privacy legal framework
- Open source and audited
- AI Functionality
End-to-end encryption
Emails are protected and can be decrypted only by the recipient.
Zero access encryption
Data is stored on its servers; however, even Proton doesn’t have the ability to decrypt.
A Strong privacy legal framework
Since Proton Mail is based in Switzerland, it has a favourable legal environment as it is not a part of any treaty that requires surveillance.
Open source and audited
Anyone can inspect the code, and independent security audits have been done for Proton Mail.
AI Functionality :
Proton Scribe
Proton Mail has ‘Proton Scribe’ which can be run locally in browsers like Chrome, Edge and Safari amongst others or on the desktop app on Mac. It looks like a pink sparkly pen, that gives you prompts once you click on it : like proofreading what you have written, write a whole email from a prompt, expanding or shortening an already written paragraph amongst others.
Lumo
Proton Mail also has ‘Lumo’ which is similar to ChatGPT or Gemini, it is known as the AI that respects your privacy. It is an open source AI, and doesn’t keep a log of the activity. Using Lumo is optional and is not forced into the mail service for its users.
Privacy in Proton Mail
- ProtonMail takes its security very seriously as it has the two factors authentication that is used by most email service provides globally along with its own authenticator app.
- Emails between proton mail users are end to end encrypted. The incoming mails from non proton addresses are stored with zero access. If you want to send an email to someone who uses another email method from your proton mail, you can password protect your mail.
- There is also dark web monitoring in ProtonMail, which lets you know if your password has been included in any data breach.
Ease of managing custom email addresses
- Proton Mail can be used in various ways, even to create email addresses for other domains that you may own. There is a domain management dashboard where you can add the TXT Record to the DNS(Domain name system). It is used to verify domain ownership and enable secure email delivery.
- However, there is a quota of 15 email addresses that you can have. Good news is, custom emails don’t count towards that quota.
- You can also create alias email addresses for different sites.
Space and Data Storage
The mail storage is shared with your Proton Drive space, which means that if you are receiving a lot of attachments in your emails, it may start to fill up pretty quickly. With the Unlimited Subscription of Proton Mail, you get around 500 GB of Proton Drive space and it allows you to run 15 different email addresses through your account.
Performance
It works perfectly well through the web interface and there is a desktop app available for it as well for Windows, Mac and Linux, along with mobile solutions for Android and iOS.
Chat Features
Currently, there is no chat feature in Proton Mail. It is however, under development for the Swiss Company.
Should you shift to Proton Mail?
If you feel that it offers the features that you require out of a mail box, then surely. However, it is a bit on the pricier side as compared to some of the other alternatives that you might currently be using and lacks some features that we all use daily. All the best features of Proton Mail, requires the user to subscribe and get the Proton Drive too, and that can be a little complex to set on a desktop.
