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I use protonmail (protonmail.com). It's encrypted email developed by the scientists at CERN. The data is hosted in Switzerland and therefore subject to Swiss pr

I use protonmail (protonmail.com). It's encrypted email developed by the scientists at CERN. The data is hosted in Switzerland and therefore subject to Swiss privacy laws. There are app for iPhone and Android. They just came out with a VPN product, too.

wheresvic1 9y ago
The free plan is only limited to 500 Mb though.
- LeoPanthera 9y ago
  Pay for your email or you are the product.
- ocdtrekkie 9y ago
  Email is the most important thing you have online, why wouldn't you pay for it?
lyonlim 9y ago
I've been testing ProtonMail for a couple months now in search of a Gmail alternative. What's keeping me from fully switching is support for contacts and calendar syncing as well... That's where I started looking at FastMail.
wprapido 9y ago
ahappy protonmail user here, too
- reacharavindh 9y ago
  Do they support inline images in Email now? Last time I was using it(long ago), neither the web UI, nor the email apps supported drag & drop of images into the compose window..
  - wprapido 9y ago
    unfortunately, they don't. their UI/UX is rather basic
mtmail 9y ago
That means subject to Swiss surveillance laws as well. Not worse than other western countries but Switzerland isn't a safe haven for privacy. "All Internet service providers must retain the following data for six months: type of the connections [...] and if known login data, address information of the origin (MAC-address, telephone number), name, address and occupation of the user and duration of the connection from beginning to end time of the transmission or reception of an email, header information according to the SMTP-protocol and the IP adresses of the sending and receiving email application" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_data_retention#Switzerland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_data_retent...
- Veratyr 9y ago
  These laws don't apply to Protonmail: https://protonmail.com/blog/swiss-surveillance-law/ https://protonmail.com/blog/swiss-surveillance-law/ > As a participant in these discussions, we can confirm unequivocally that upon implementation, the provisions regarding data retention introduced by the BÜPF will exempt companies like ProtonMail and ProtonVPN which are not major telecommunications operators.
Watabou 9y ago
Note that ProtonMail paid $6000 ransom to hackers: https://arstechnica.com/security/2015/11/crypto-e-mail-service-pays-6000-ransom-gets-taken-out-by-ddos-anyway/ https://arstechnica.com/security/2015/11/crypto-e-mail-servi... I applaud their privacy stance, but paying ranson money to hackers is a deal-breaker for me.
- marcopol 9y ago
  They were hit by a DDoS that was so big it's suspected to be a nation state. Under those circumstances, their ISP and hosting provider didn't really give then a choice and basically forced them to pay the ransom, which you can read about here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2015/11/05/protonmail-pays-to-stop-ddos/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2015/11/05/proto... The magnitude of the attack would have killed most services, but ProtonMail managed to mitigate the attack and went as far as becoming their own ISP to prevent getting in this situation in the future. My two cents on this making them a pretty rare company.
  - raverbashing 9y ago
    That's an interesting take, but why would a nation state settle for $6k?
idlewords 9y ago
The protonmail encryption is useless, since it's done in the browser. Don't use it (or any email service) for sensitive data.

wheresvic1 9y ago

The free plan is only limited to 500 Mb though.

LeoPanthera 9y ago
Pay for your email or you are the product.
ocdtrekkie 9y ago
Email is the most important thing you have online, why wouldn't you pay for it?

lyonlim 9y ago

I've been testing ProtonMail for a couple months now in search of a Gmail alternative. What's keeping me from fully switching is support for contacts and calendar syncing as well... That's where I started looking at FastMail.

wprapido 9y ago

ahappy protonmail user here, too

reacharavindh 9y ago
Do they support inline images in Email now? Last time I was using it(long ago), neither the web UI, nor the email apps supported drag & drop of images into the compose window..
- wprapido 9y ago
  unfortunately, they don't. their UI/UX is rather basic

mtmail 9y ago

That means subject to Swiss surveillance laws as well. Not worse than other western countries but Switzerland isn't a safe haven for privacy. "All Internet service providers must retain the following data for six months: type of the connections [...] and if known login data, address information of the origin (MAC-address, telephone number), name, address and occupation of the user and duration of the connection from beginning to end time of the transmission or reception of an email, header information according to the SMTP-protocol and the IP adresses of the sending and receiving email application" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_data_retention#Switzerland https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telecommunications_data_retent...

Veratyr 9y ago
These laws don't apply to Protonmail: https://protonmail.com/blog/swiss-surveillance-law/ https://protonmail.com/blog/swiss-surveillance-law/ > As a participant in these discussions, we can confirm unequivocally that upon implementation, the provisions regarding data retention introduced by the BÜPF will exempt companies like ProtonMail and ProtonVPN which are not major telecommunications operators.

Watabou 9y ago

Note that ProtonMail paid $6000 ransom to hackers: https://arstechnica.com/security/2015/11/crypto-e-mail-service-pays-6000-ransom-gets-taken-out-by-ddos-anyway/ https://arstechnica.com/security/2015/11/crypto-e-mail-servi... I applaud their privacy stance, but paying ranson money to hackers is a deal-breaker for me.

marcopol 9y ago
They were hit by a DDoS that was so big it's suspected to be a nation state. Under those circumstances, their ISP and hosting provider didn't really give then a choice and basically forced them to pay the ransom, which you can read about here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2015/11/05/protonmail-pays-to-stop-ddos/ https://www.forbes.com/sites/thomasbrewster/2015/11/05/proto... The magnitude of the attack would have killed most services, but ProtonMail managed to mitigate the attack and went as far as becoming their own ISP to prevent getting in this situation in the future. My two cents on this making them a pretty rare company.
- raverbashing 9y ago
  That's an interesting take, but why would a nation state settle for $6k?

idlewords 9y ago

The protonmail encryption is useless, since it's done in the browser. Don't use it (or any email service) for sensitive data.