12 ms·

ProtonMail iOS app goes open source

231 points by _eigenfoo 7y ago

sschueller 7y ago
What about Android? The one I can actually compile myself and install myself.
- windthrown 7y ago
  Protonmail mentioned in the comments that the Android app is currently undergoing a similar third-party audit and the source code will be released once that is complete.
newscracker 7y ago
Does this mean that the app could be forked to support multiple accounts (which is currently not possible for the free tier users with the official app)?
- nobodyshere 7y ago
  Yes it does. However I'm not quite sure who is going to do that.
  - nothal 7y ago
    Could be you! Context switching accounts doesn't seem like too difficult a task.
    - nobodyshere 7y ago
      Except I’m not using protonmail since I trust my yubikey way more in terms of storing my private keys. Also, it only seems like a simple task. You still have to manage notifications and UI for multiple accounts. Not to mention that I’d probably not do that free of charge.
      - woadwarrior01 7y ago
        And I was wondering if someone could add support for signing/encrypting emails on the ProtonMail iOS client with openPGP keys on my Yubikey? :)
        nobodyshere 7y ago
        I'd rather finance an iOS Thunderbird with GPG support.
- abjurato 7y ago
  This is currently not possible for any users of iOS app, it’s not something behind paywall. This feature is on TODO list in github repo tho
- tinus_hn 7y ago
  Sure, but you need a paid Apple account to put it on the App Store. Chances are none of the cheapskates who ‘believe strongly in freedom’ are going to put their money where their mouth is and spend the $100 so everyone can enjoy that freedom.
  - nexuist 7y ago
    Why would you pay $100 to a dictatorial software distribution platform when your whole thing is, well, free software distribution?
    - tinus_hn 7y ago
      Do you want freedom? Freedom does not come for free.
  - favorited 7y ago
    You can't do that anyway. You can't put GPLv3 apps on the App Store. ProtonMail can put this app on the store, because they own it and can relicense the App Store build at-will. But no one else owns ProtonMail's code, so we can't take it, give it an App Store-compatible license, and publish it.
153791098c 7y ago
The apple store always distribute apps under a proprietary license. So even if the code is open-source, if you install it on your device through the apple store you are still installing proprietary software. They say on their Github page that their app is licensed under GPLv3. Yet they can't publish it under GPLv3 license to the apple store. This means that if you contribute to the project under the GPLv3 license, they can't redistribute your through the apple store. So if you contribute your code it will always have to be licensed under a permissive license. Still can't wait for the F-Droid release though.
- mimsee 7y ago
  How is Blink Shell: Mosh & SSH Client[1] licensed as GPLv3 on the iOS App Store? To my knowledge that's not the only GPLv3 app on the iOS app store. Many of the projects give a special grant for it to be published on to the app store.[2] [1]: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/blink-shell-mosh-ssh-client/id1156707581 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/blink-shell-mosh-ssh-client/id... [2]: https://github.com/blinksh/blink/blob/raw/COPYING#L702 https://github.com/blinksh/blink/blob/raw/COPYING#L702 Edit: formatting, more context, and sources
  - saagarjha 7y ago
    Honestly, I’m not sure the exception is necessary anymore.
  - colejohnson66 7y ago
    I’m not even sure a grant is necessary. As the author, you can relicense your work whenever you want. That includes relicensing for a certain platform. So, release your GPLv3 source code, but release the “proprietary” version on the App Store.
    - greggman2 7y ago
      If you're the sole author yes. If you took any contributions then no unless you got all the contributors to accept your proprietary license for their contribution.
neskiredk 7y ago
Does that mean we can get rid of the “Sent with ProtonMail Secure Email.” Also, Can someone with more experience than me in licensing explain why we couldn't bundle up a fork of the app and release in on ios App store?
- vinay427 7y ago
  You could get rid of that signature before, at least on the Android and Linux desktop apps.
  - neskiredk 7y ago
    Without paying? I'll have to check it out on iOS, perhaps they changed it.
    - shin_lao 7y ago
      I'm a little bit bothered by your comment that seems to be complaining about a service you use for free.
      - wgjordan 7y ago
        If the software is indeed open source, it's entirely reasonable to expect to be able to use it unencumbered- I would be a bit bothered and would also complain if that were not true.
        fnordsensei 7y ago
        ProtonMail, the iOS app, is now open source, but ProtonMail, the service, is still proprietary and (mostly) paid. It's somewhat comparable to using Thunderbird (open source) to connect to GMail (proprietary). GMail might impose some restrictions regardless of the open source status of the client.
        kube-system 7y ago
        There are lots of open source clients for commercial services. You’re not entitled to connect to other people’s hardware for free, even if the software is open source.
jimnotgym 7y ago
Well done Protonmail. I hope this is only the beginning for them and we will see more of their estate open-sourced
- yhoiseth 7y ago
  They have open-sourced other things, like their web app, already.
teekert 7y ago
I love Protonmail, me and my entire family would have already been on it with a nice custom domain if that wouldn't cost me 32 euro's a month (4 mailboxes: me, wife and 2 kids, per year payment reduces it to 25/month). I now pay 6.05 euro's for that at Transip (can go up to 5 addresses + hosting space, 3 addresses is 3 euro's). I like Protonmail more, better, cleaner webUI, focus on privacy, nice app... but it's really really expensive.
- Jonnax 7y ago
  Sometimes a good product costs more money.
  - olah_1 7y ago
    This is a terrible comment. 32 is clearly far above a competitive rate for comparable services.
    - teekert 7y ago
      Indeed and the build up is strange because a one person account is 5 euros (4 paying yearly) a month. But then add a family with (2) kids that hardly do email, use the same domain, may even share the same GBs and for 4 persons it becomes more than 5 times as expensive. All separate accounts is not an option because we share a domain... It's very weird and aimed a single people I think.
- mikece 7y ago
  Think of it the other way around: how much per month is Google making by reading your email (with bots) to generate a marketing profile so companies can buy targeted ads to sell you stuff? Besides, feature-wise, you get a LOT more from ProtonMail than, say, Fastmail, which is the low-feature, no-frills, non-encrypted alternative. If you aren’t paying for the product then you ARE the product.
  - sourcesmith 7y ago
    Google have not scanned emails for the purposes of targeting advertising for a couple of years now.
kylehotchkiss 7y ago
I’ve been so happy with ProtonMail as a strategy to store any email I receive with dollar signs in it (to avoid google’s vacuuming it up into “purchases” and “reservations” dashboards, which I find exceptionally creepy on a paid gsuite account) ProtonMail provides a lot of value for the small dollar amount per month! So happy to see the new mail beta, and now open source for the iOS app! Very excited for protondrive now. Google Drive is usually fine but I never feel comfortable storing scans of IDs or tax documents there.
- sascha_sl 7y ago
  I have a few domains from a time where I could just add more domains to my server config. Getting all of those to work on ProtonMail is quite expensive (I'm on Visionary right now)
  - kube-system 7y ago
    You could save a few bucks by switching to Plus and adding the domains à la carte.
- tyingq 7y ago
  Depending on your use case, Yandex is a good alternative to Gsuite. No charge to use your own domain...it's free. No doubt Russians can scan it all, but maybe they have little interest in a US centric small business for example. Also, I imagine they have little interest in complying with US LEO requests.
  - nobodyshere 7y ago
    They have a famous saying in Russia: Presence of laws is compensated by absence of necessity to follow them. No, I wouldn't trust anything stored there without encryption from my side.
    - tyingq 7y ago
      I agree, but it's conditional. There are many, many, use cases where Russians knowing everything you do is way more palatable than the US knowing everything you do.
Bantros 7y ago
All the app needs is the option to arrange emails into a thread similar to desktop
aphextron 7y ago
Kind of pointless because you're still installing a compiled binary from the app store with zero guarantees that it's even the same source.
- javagram 7y ago
  Couldn’t you compile the code yourself and use your own version of the binary? Then you just have to trust XCode isn’t backdoored :-) Edit: https://developer.apple.com/support/compare-memberships/ https://developer.apple.com/support/compare-memberships/ “ With just an Apple ID, you can access Xcode [. . .] and you can test your apps on devices”
  - otachack 7y ago
    I think you can only provision a compiled app to run on a phone for 7 days before needing to reinstall IF you aren't paying the $99/yr Apple dev account fee. Running on simulators is free, though.
RocketSyntax 7y ago
I LOVE IT! And the VPN! Is there a desktop client for mail coming?
RocketSyntax 7y ago
How do I view the read receipts? It was either not apparent or not working.
hacknat 7y ago
This is awesome! I think they'll actually get a lot of help with this client. I for one am going to change a few things that I'll be they'll mainline.
_bxg1 7y ago
Beyond all the other benefits of this, hopefully it means more general feature updates/bug fixes. There are several (minor) bugs in the app that have existed for some time now, and it doesn't yet support iOS dark mode, for example. I know they don't have a huge team and are focused on the web app and security, but it would be exciting if the iOS app started getting a bit more love.
jammygit 7y ago
One day they will release calendars
gopaz 7y ago
Can someone break down what makes up the 91MB this app weights in at? Since its 94% swift I'm a bit surprised
stockkid 7y ago
I wonder if the ProtonMail server will ever be open source. It'd be pretty cool to see the code and possibly self host, although having source code available might allow spammers to abuse the system.

231 points by _eigenfoo 7y ago

sschueller 7y ago

What about Android? The one I can actually compile myself and install myself.

windthrown 7y ago
Protonmail mentioned in the comments that the Android app is currently undergoing a similar third-party audit and the source code will be released once that is complete.

newscracker 7y ago

Does this mean that the app could be forked to support multiple accounts (which is currently not possible for the free tier users with the official app)?

nobodyshere 7y ago
Yes it does. However I'm not quite sure who is going to do that.
- nothal 7y ago
  Could be you! Context switching accounts doesn't seem like too difficult a task.
  - nobodyshere 7y ago
    Except I’m not using protonmail since I trust my yubikey way more in terms of storing my private keys. Also, it only seems like a simple task. You still have to manage notifications and UI for multiple accounts. Not to mention that I’d probably not do that free of charge.
    - woadwarrior01 7y ago
      And I was wondering if someone could add support for signing/encrypting emails on the ProtonMail iOS client with openPGP keys on my Yubikey? :)
      - nobodyshere 7y ago
        I'd rather finance an iOS Thunderbird with GPG support.
abjurato 7y ago
This is currently not possible for any users of iOS app, it’s not something behind paywall. This feature is on TODO list in github repo tho
tinus_hn 7y ago
Sure, but you need a paid Apple account to put it on the App Store. Chances are none of the cheapskates who ‘believe strongly in freedom’ are going to put their money where their mouth is and spend the $100 so everyone can enjoy that freedom.
- nexuist 7y ago
  Why would you pay $100 to a dictatorial software distribution platform when your whole thing is, well, free software distribution?
  - tinus_hn 7y ago
    Do you want freedom? Freedom does not come for free.
- favorited 7y ago
  You can't do that anyway. You can't put GPLv3 apps on the App Store. ProtonMail can put this app on the store, because they own it and can relicense the App Store build at-will. But no one else owns ProtonMail's code, so we can't take it, give it an App Store-compatible license, and publish it.

153791098c 7y ago

The apple store always distribute apps under a proprietary license. So even if the code is open-source, if you install it on your device through the apple store you are still installing proprietary software. They say on their Github page that their app is licensed under GPLv3. Yet they can't publish it under GPLv3 license to the apple store. This means that if you contribute to the project under the GPLv3 license, they can't redistribute your through the apple store. So if you contribute your code it will always have to be licensed under a permissive license. Still can't wait for the F-Droid release though.

mimsee 7y ago
How is Blink Shell: Mosh & SSH Client[1] licensed as GPLv3 on the iOS App Store? To my knowledge that's not the only GPLv3 app on the iOS app store. Many of the projects give a special grant for it to be published on to the app store.[2] [1]: https://apps.apple.com/us/app/blink-shell-mosh-ssh-client/id1156707581 https://apps.apple.com/us/app/blink-shell-mosh-ssh-client/id... [2]: https://github.com/blinksh/blink/blob/raw/COPYING#L702 https://github.com/blinksh/blink/blob/raw/COPYING#L702 Edit: formatting, more context, and sources
- saagarjha 7y ago
  Honestly, I’m not sure the exception is necessary anymore.
- colejohnson66 7y ago
  I’m not even sure a grant is necessary. As the author, you can relicense your work whenever you want. That includes relicensing for a certain platform. So, release your GPLv3 source code, but release the “proprietary” version on the App Store.
  - greggman2 7y ago
    If you're the sole author yes. If you took any contributions then no unless you got all the contributors to accept your proprietary license for their contribution.

neskiredk 7y ago

Does that mean we can get rid of the “Sent with ProtonMail Secure Email.” Also, Can someone with more experience than me in licensing explain why we couldn't bundle up a fork of the app and release in on ios App store?

vinay427 7y ago
You could get rid of that signature before, at least on the Android and Linux desktop apps.
- neskiredk 7y ago
  Without paying? I'll have to check it out on iOS, perhaps they changed it.
  - shin_lao 7y ago
    I'm a little bit bothered by your comment that seems to be complaining about a service you use for free.
    - wgjordan 7y ago
      If the software is indeed open source, it's entirely reasonable to expect to be able to use it unencumbered- I would be a bit bothered and would also complain if that were not true.
      - fnordsensei 7y ago
        ProtonMail, the iOS app, is now open source, but ProtonMail, the service, is still proprietary and (mostly) paid. It's somewhat comparable to using Thunderbird (open source) to connect to GMail (proprietary). GMail might impose some restrictions regardless of the open source status of the client.
      - kube-system 7y ago
        There are lots of open source clients for commercial services. You’re not entitled to connect to other people’s hardware for free, even if the software is open source.

jimnotgym 7y ago

Well done Protonmail. I hope this is only the beginning for them and we will see more of their estate open-sourced

yhoiseth 7y ago
They have open-sourced other things, like their web app, already.

teekert 7y ago

I love Protonmail, me and my entire family would have already been on it with a nice custom domain if that wouldn't cost me 32 euro's a month (4 mailboxes: me, wife and 2 kids, per year payment reduces it to 25/month). I now pay 6.05 euro's for that at Transip (can go up to 5 addresses + hosting space, 3 addresses is 3 euro's). I like Protonmail more, better, cleaner webUI, focus on privacy, nice app... but it's really really expensive.

Jonnax 7y ago
Sometimes a good product costs more money.
- olah_1 7y ago
  This is a terrible comment. 32 is clearly far above a competitive rate for comparable services.
  - teekert 7y ago
    Indeed and the build up is strange because a one person account is 5 euros (4 paying yearly) a month. But then add a family with (2) kids that hardly do email, use the same domain, may even share the same GBs and for 4 persons it becomes more than 5 times as expensive. All separate accounts is not an option because we share a domain... It's very weird and aimed a single people I think.
mikece 7y ago
Think of it the other way around: how much per month is Google making by reading your email (with bots) to generate a marketing profile so companies can buy targeted ads to sell you stuff? Besides, feature-wise, you get a LOT more from ProtonMail than, say, Fastmail, which is the low-feature, no-frills, non-encrypted alternative. If you aren’t paying for the product then you ARE the product.
- sourcesmith 7y ago
  Google have not scanned emails for the purposes of targeting advertising for a couple of years now.

kylehotchkiss 7y ago

I’ve been so happy with ProtonMail as a strategy to store any email I receive with dollar signs in it (to avoid google’s vacuuming it up into “purchases” and “reservations” dashboards, which I find exceptionally creepy on a paid gsuite account) ProtonMail provides a lot of value for the small dollar amount per month! So happy to see the new mail beta, and now open source for the iOS app! Very excited for protondrive now. Google Drive is usually fine but I never feel comfortable storing scans of IDs or tax documents there.

sascha_sl 7y ago
I have a few domains from a time where I could just add more domains to my server config. Getting all of those to work on ProtonMail is quite expensive (I'm on Visionary right now)
- kube-system 7y ago
  You could save a few bucks by switching to Plus and adding the domains à la carte.
tyingq 7y ago
Depending on your use case, Yandex is a good alternative to Gsuite. No charge to use your own domain...it's free. No doubt Russians can scan it all, but maybe they have little interest in a US centric small business for example. Also, I imagine they have little interest in complying with US LEO requests.
- nobodyshere 7y ago
  They have a famous saying in Russia: Presence of laws is compensated by absence of necessity to follow them. No, I wouldn't trust anything stored there without encryption from my side.
  - tyingq 7y ago
    I agree, but it's conditional. There are many, many, use cases where Russians knowing everything you do is way more palatable than the US knowing everything you do.

Bantros 7y ago

All the app needs is the option to arrange emails into a thread similar to desktop

aphextron 7y ago

Kind of pointless because you're still installing a compiled binary from the app store with zero guarantees that it's even the same source.

javagram 7y ago
Couldn’t you compile the code yourself and use your own version of the binary? Then you just have to trust XCode isn’t backdoored :-) Edit: https://developer.apple.com/support/compare-memberships/ https://developer.apple.com/support/compare-memberships/ “ With just an Apple ID, you can access Xcode [. . .] and you can test your apps on devices”
- otachack 7y ago
  I think you can only provision a compiled app to run on a phone for 7 days before needing to reinstall IF you aren't paying the $99/yr Apple dev account fee. Running on simulators is free, though.

RocketSyntax 7y ago

I LOVE IT! And the VPN! Is there a desktop client for mail coming?

RocketSyntax 7y ago

How do I view the read receipts? It was either not apparent or not working.

hacknat 7y ago

This is awesome! I think they'll actually get a lot of help with this client. I for one am going to change a few things that I'll be they'll mainline.

_bxg1 7y ago

Beyond all the other benefits of this, hopefully it means more general feature updates/bug fixes. There are several (minor) bugs in the app that have existed for some time now, and it doesn't yet support iOS dark mode, for example. I know they don't have a huge team and are focused on the web app and security, but it would be exciting if the iOS app started getting a bit more love.

jammygit 7y ago

One day they will release calendars

gopaz 7y ago

Can someone break down what makes up the 91MB this app weights in at? Since its 94% swift I'm a bit surprised

stockkid 7y ago

I wonder if the ProtonMail server will ever be open source. It'd be pretty cool to see the code and possibly self host, although having source code available might allow spammers to abuse the system.