8 ms·

how practical is it to drop GMail for these guys? I'm tied fairly heavily to the Google ecosystem (Chome, Play, Finance, etc etc). They already have a mountain

by Wonnk13 10y ago

how practical is it to drop GMail for these guys? I'm tied fairly heavily to the Google ecosystem (Chome, Play, Finance, etc etc). They already have a mountain of data on me, but I really want to start taking encryption and privacy more seriously.

kromem 10y ago
So I've actually been transitioning my personal communications over to Protonmail (on a custom domain to future proof the address), and keeping Gmail for transactional emails (because of utility in Inbox grouping, Google Now, etc). I've realized that I don't really care about Google having access to my transactional mail (things knowable from third parties anyways), but do want personal communications properly encrypted. Basically, I've only moved over my "priority inbox," and keep using Gmail for junk. Very satisfied with Protonmail though. Especially knowing they are working on fixing their lock-in issues.
- felisml 10y ago
  It's worth noting that "things knowable from third parties" and "an aggregation of all your things knowable from third parties" are very different risk profiles, if that's the deciding factor for anyone.
mvdwoord 10y ago
Currently, for me, lack of a calendar is holding me back. As well as some other features, but I could probably overcome those. Relevant uservoice: https://protonmail.uservoice.com/forums/284483-feedback/suggestions/7187339-calendar-integration https://protonmail.uservoice.com/forums/284483-feedback/sugg...
- Wonnk13 10y ago
  yikes, yea a calendar is pretty important. I suppose org-agenda could substitute but the way Inbox organizes all my travel is worth the fact that Google knows i'm flying to London.
  - johnchristopher 10y ago
    >> They already have a mountain of data on me, but I really want to start taking encryption and privacy more seriously. > I suppose org-agenda could substitute but the way Inbox organizes all my travel is worth the fact that Google knows i'm flying to London. Well.. at some point you have to choose something over the other.
- rethab 10y ago
  Yeah, but it's planned. They also mentioned the calendar coming in a recent blog post. In general, I should say I am pretty happy with protonmail. I've been using it for over a year now, however, in general I'm still pretty dependent on google for calendar, android, etc. When it comes to spam, my feeling is that I do get more now. But as long as it is properly categorized -- which it is -- I don't really mind getting it.
  - nwuensche 10y ago
    Do you also get ads by protonmail itself or does it come from other websites? And is there any unsubscribe feature like in outlook?
    - rethab 10y ago
      No, these are not from protonmail. It's more like p-enlargements, pills etc.. As far as general marketing mails are concerned, no, I never saw an unsubscribe link.
nerdponx 10y ago
You could use Fastmail.
ShinyCyril 10y ago
I didn't miss anything when I left Gmail, but I imagine it depends a lot on how you use email. I switched to Fastmail on my own domain and actually prefer the webmail interface over Gmail. I mainly use IMAP via Mail.app on my laptop and phone, Pantheon Mail (formerly Geary) on my desktop. I use PGP wherever I can. I haven't received any spam at all yet, so I can't comment on how their spam filters compare to Gmail. I maintain a zero inbox – important stuff gets archived, and everything else is deleted. This means that I don't miss Gmail's search feature as hardly keep any emails. Obviously your mileage may vary here. They also support CalDAV and CardDAV – so all of my notes, contacts, calendar items etc. are synced across my devices. I've moved from Google completely, and for the most part, I don't really miss them all that much. - Search -> DuckDuckGo (I do miss Google here – DDG's search results pale in comparison) - Gmail -> Fastmail - Maps -> Citymapper and Apple Maps - Chrome -> Safari on macOS, Firefox on everything else (my experience with FF is a bit 'meh' – it was incredibly laggy on my work laptop, but runs great on my desktop)
- nwuensche 10y ago
  Right now, I also try to keep Google as far away from me as I can. Unfortunately, I don't own a domain myself. Have you tried out ProtonMail yourself? If so, do you think that it is a good alternative to a self-hosted server like Fastmail?
  - dgoujard 10y ago
    Fastmail is not self hosted it's like protonmail a mail provider. I also use fastmail, it's less expensive and more private than gmail
  - ShinyCyril 10y ago
    I have not used ProtonMail myself so I can't help you there I'm afraid. While I use Fastmail with my own domain, it is not self-hosted. My MX records point to Fastmail's servers.
- terraforming 10y ago
  Does Pantheon-Mail support PGP?
drdaeman 10y ago
One downside what totally prevents me from even giving ProtonMail a try is vendor lock-up. You'll be stuck with them with no option to migrate away while keeping historical data. No IMAP, no POP3, not even a proprietary backup format, nothing at all. One could probably automate a browser to log in, iterate mailbox and dump contents, but that certainly won't be fun. (Also, no way to use your own pre-existing key, only somehow generating a new one somewhere - not sure how exactly it's implemented and whenever I can trust it all...)
- vabmit 10y ago
  IMAP support is coming very soon. Engineers are working on the code, now. It's a more difficult task than people would imagine because the implementations of the IMAP standards by some clients (like Outlook) is a bit... "interesting".
  - hobarrera 10y ago
    How would this IMAP implementation work? Some kind of local proxy that does the decryption on-the-fly?
    - LeoPanthera 10y ago
      Since they use GPG internally I would imagine it simply presents GPG-encrypted mail to you and relies on the client having GPG support.
    - vabmit 10y ago
      Yes, exactly. The client is able to install and run a local proxy/translator application on their machine (currently, it's called a "bridge"). Their IMAP client connects to it and it interacts with ProtonMail's APIs over HTTPS. Since the bridge runs locally, the private key is locally decrypted with the client's password. The password is never sent to the server. The decryption takes place locally in the bridge software running on the client's computer.
mtgx 10y ago
What you'll want is to forward your Gmail to ProtonMail as soon as possible, because otherwise you'll always visit Gmail first. So forward Gmail and then just keep a pinned ProtonMail tab open, and get rid of whatever Gmail notification extensions you may have. Also disconnect the Gmail mobile app and set-up ProtonMail on mobile. https://protonmail.com/support/knowledge-base/transitioning-from-gmail-to-protonmail/ https://protonmail.com/support/knowledge-base/transitioning-... What may give you a push is that Google seems to be trying to make Gmail a more proprietary and less of an interoperable standardized email service. Eventually it may not be as easy to get out of that "lock-in" as it is now (even though it seems hard, but it's mostly a matter of habit and will to change to a new service).
binaryanomaly 10y ago
No caldav and carddav implementation are available yet. So if you heavily depend on these it might not yet be ready for you yet. For occasional mailing I find protonmail pretty good - browser and apps.
sleepingeights 10y ago
If you use any US based services, and likely any five-eyes services (maybe +Germany, Japan, SK, and much of EU, UK), everything is fed into some sophisticated networks. For example, just because DuckDuckGo doesn't track you doesn't mean they don't feed their search results into their networks. The benefit is reducing the footprint in other networks, like advertisement profiling, and the third-party data in the commercial data brokerage sectors.

by Wonnk13 10y ago

kromem 10y ago

So I've actually been transitioning my personal communications over to Protonmail (on a custom domain to future proof the address), and keeping Gmail for transactional emails (because of utility in Inbox grouping, Google Now, etc). I've realized that I don't really care about Google having access to my transactional mail (things knowable from third parties anyways), but do want personal communications properly encrypted. Basically, I've only moved over my "priority inbox," and keep using Gmail for junk. Very satisfied with Protonmail though. Especially knowing they are working on fixing their lock-in issues.

felisml 10y ago
It's worth noting that "things knowable from third parties" and "an aggregation of all your things knowable from third parties" are very different risk profiles, if that's the deciding factor for anyone.

mvdwoord 10y ago

Currently, for me, lack of a calendar is holding me back. As well as some other features, but I could probably overcome those. Relevant uservoice: https://protonmail.uservoice.com/forums/284483-feedback/suggestions/7187339-calendar-integration https://protonmail.uservoice.com/forums/284483-feedback/sugg...

Wonnk13 10y ago
yikes, yea a calendar is pretty important. I suppose org-agenda could substitute but the way Inbox organizes all my travel is worth the fact that Google knows i'm flying to London.
- johnchristopher 10y ago
  >> They already have a mountain of data on me, but I really want to start taking encryption and privacy more seriously. > I suppose org-agenda could substitute but the way Inbox organizes all my travel is worth the fact that Google knows i'm flying to London. Well.. at some point you have to choose something over the other.
rethab 10y ago
Yeah, but it's planned. They also mentioned the calendar coming in a recent blog post. In general, I should say I am pretty happy with protonmail. I've been using it for over a year now, however, in general I'm still pretty dependent on google for calendar, android, etc. When it comes to spam, my feeling is that I do get more now. But as long as it is properly categorized -- which it is -- I don't really mind getting it.
- nwuensche 10y ago
  Do you also get ads by protonmail itself or does it come from other websites? And is there any unsubscribe feature like in outlook?
  - rethab 10y ago
    No, these are not from protonmail. It's more like p-enlargements, pills etc.. As far as general marketing mails are concerned, no, I never saw an unsubscribe link.

nerdponx 10y ago

You could use Fastmail.

ShinyCyril 10y ago

I didn't miss anything when I left Gmail, but I imagine it depends a lot on how you use email. I switched to Fastmail on my own domain and actually prefer the webmail interface over Gmail. I mainly use IMAP via Mail.app on my laptop and phone, Pantheon Mail (formerly Geary) on my desktop. I use PGP wherever I can. I haven't received any spam at all yet, so I can't comment on how their spam filters compare to Gmail. I maintain a zero inbox – important stuff gets archived, and everything else is deleted. This means that I don't miss Gmail's search feature as hardly keep any emails. Obviously your mileage may vary here. They also support CalDAV and CardDAV – so all of my notes, contacts, calendar items etc. are synced across my devices. I've moved from Google completely, and for the most part, I don't really miss them all that much. - Search -> DuckDuckGo (I do miss Google here – DDG's search results pale in comparison) - Gmail -> Fastmail - Maps -> Citymapper and Apple Maps - Chrome -> Safari on macOS, Firefox on everything else (my experience with FF is a bit 'meh' – it was incredibly laggy on my work laptop, but runs great on my desktop)

nwuensche 10y ago
Right now, I also try to keep Google as far away from me as I can. Unfortunately, I don't own a domain myself. Have you tried out ProtonMail yourself? If so, do you think that it is a good alternative to a self-hosted server like Fastmail?
- dgoujard 10y ago
  Fastmail is not self hosted it's like protonmail a mail provider. I also use fastmail, it's less expensive and more private than gmail
- ShinyCyril 10y ago
  I have not used ProtonMail myself so I can't help you there I'm afraid. While I use Fastmail with my own domain, it is not self-hosted. My MX records point to Fastmail's servers.
terraforming 10y ago
Does Pantheon-Mail support PGP?

drdaeman 10y ago

One downside what totally prevents me from even giving ProtonMail a try is vendor lock-up. You'll be stuck with them with no option to migrate away while keeping historical data. No IMAP, no POP3, not even a proprietary backup format, nothing at all. One could probably automate a browser to log in, iterate mailbox and dump contents, but that certainly won't be fun. (Also, no way to use your own pre-existing key, only somehow generating a new one somewhere - not sure how exactly it's implemented and whenever I can trust it all...)

vabmit 10y ago
IMAP support is coming very soon. Engineers are working on the code, now. It's a more difficult task than people would imagine because the implementations of the IMAP standards by some clients (like Outlook) is a bit... "interesting".
- hobarrera 10y ago
  How would this IMAP implementation work? Some kind of local proxy that does the decryption on-the-fly?
  - LeoPanthera 10y ago
    Since they use GPG internally I would imagine it simply presents GPG-encrypted mail to you and relies on the client having GPG support.
  - vabmit 10y ago
    Yes, exactly. The client is able to install and run a local proxy/translator application on their machine (currently, it's called a "bridge"). Their IMAP client connects to it and it interacts with ProtonMail's APIs over HTTPS. Since the bridge runs locally, the private key is locally decrypted with the client's password. The password is never sent to the server. The decryption takes place locally in the bridge software running on the client's computer.

mtgx 10y ago

What you'll want is to forward your Gmail to ProtonMail as soon as possible, because otherwise you'll always visit Gmail first. So forward Gmail and then just keep a pinned ProtonMail tab open, and get rid of whatever Gmail notification extensions you may have. Also disconnect the Gmail mobile app and set-up ProtonMail on mobile. https://protonmail.com/support/knowledge-base/transitioning-from-gmail-to-protonmail/ https://protonmail.com/support/knowledge-base/transitioning-... What may give you a push is that Google seems to be trying to make Gmail a more proprietary and less of an interoperable standardized email service. Eventually it may not be as easy to get out of that "lock-in" as it is now (even though it seems hard, but it's mostly a matter of habit and will to change to a new service).

binaryanomaly 10y ago

No caldav and carddav implementation are available yet. So if you heavily depend on these it might not yet be ready for you yet. For occasional mailing I find protonmail pretty good - browser and apps.

sleepingeights 10y ago

If you use any US based services, and likely any five-eyes services (maybe +Germany, Japan, SK, and much of EU, UK), everything is fed into some sophisticated networks. For example, just because DuckDuckGo doesn't track you doesn't mean they don't feed their search results into their networks. The benefit is reducing the footprint in other networks, like advertisement profiling, and the third-party data in the commercial data brokerage sectors.