103 lines
5.5 KiB
Markdown
103 lines
5.5 KiB
Markdown
---
|
|
draft: false
|
|
date: 2022-05-29T16:10:46+02:00
|
|
title: Why I Switched From Proton Mail
|
|
description: This blog post explains why I chose to switch away from Proton Mail.
|
|
authors:
|
|
- Sam Al-Sapti
|
|
tags:
|
|
- cryptography
|
|
- decentralization
|
|
- email
|
|
- pgp
|
|
series: []
|
|
---
|
|
|
|
I wanted to write this blog post (and by the way, this is my first) to shed
|
|
some light on my recent choice of email provider. You see, Proton Mail is a
|
|
great email service, and I've used them for years, but it just doesn't fit my
|
|
needs anymore. This is due to a number of reasons, but it's primarily due to
|
|
some issues with external PGP handling (I'll talk more about this later on) and
|
|
their recent change of direction.
|
|
|
|
## Centralization and Proton's new direction
|
|
|
|
One of the main reasons I chose to switch, is the new direction Proton is going
|
|
in. Recently, they've revamped all of their products and their website, to make
|
|
it more clear that both Proton Mail, Proton VPN, Proton Calendar and Proton
|
|
Drive is under the same family/suite (notice how there's a space now in their
|
|
product names, that's one of the changes). All of this is great for many
|
|
reasons, now it actually feels like an alternative all-in-one solution to
|
|
something like Google's, and I'm sure this will benefit them in the long run
|
|
and appeal to more people. A lot of people like these kinds of ecosystems,
|
|
because it usually increases ease of use and convenience. In fact, this change
|
|
now allows Proton to better integrate their products together. For example, you
|
|
can now easily send large attachments via email, by letting Proton Mail
|
|
automatically upload the file to Proton Drive and send a share link in the
|
|
email, instead of attaching it in the email itself. All of the changes are
|
|
outlined in [this article](https://proton.me/news/updated-proton) by Proton's
|
|
CEO, Andy Yen.
|
|
|
|
Personally though, this does not appeal to me. I'm not a fan of ecosystems and
|
|
having all my eggs in one basket, and I'm a huge fan of self-hosting. You see,
|
|
I'm a big proponent of decentralization. One aspect of decentralization is to
|
|
not have everything in one place, when you don't control that place. For
|
|
example, I wouldn't have both my email, calendar, contacts and cloud storage
|
|
with Google, and neither would I with Proton. Instead, I self-host my cloud
|
|
storage, calendar, contacts, to-do lists, and notes with the help of
|
|
[Nextcloud](https://nextcloud.com) at home on a Raspberry Pi. This way, even
|
|
though it's all in one place, I'm the one in control of the server hosting it
|
|
and what happens with it.
|
|
|
|
I can definitely see why Proton chose to go in this direction, and I fully
|
|
support them. But they should also expect, and I'm sure they did, that some of
|
|
their customers wouldn't want this change of direction. I have nothing against
|
|
Proton as a company, but having my digital life centralized with one company is
|
|
just not my cup of tea.
|
|
|
|
## The way Proton Mail handles PGP
|
|
|
|
Proton Mail offers zero-access encryption of your inbox, meaning all of your
|
|
emails are encrypted, and only you have access to read them after unlocking
|
|
them with your password. Behind the scenes, this works by each customer having
|
|
a PGP key pair stored on their servers, with the private key being encrypted by
|
|
the customer's password. This means that not even Proton themselves can read
|
|
your emails, and this is great for privacy.
|
|
|
|
PGP has been a standard for email encryption for many years, and it's widely
|
|
used for sensitive communication via email. Proton has taken PGP and integrated
|
|
it into their email service, automatically providing end-to-end encrypted
|
|
emails between Proton Mail users (it also works with other email providers, but
|
|
it requires some setup by the communicating parties). The thing is though, that
|
|
you're not in control of the private PGP key when using Proton Mail's PGP
|
|
integration. Even though it is encrypted on their servers, and only I can
|
|
decrypt it, I want to be in control of my private key myself. This also relates
|
|
to the centralization problem I described above. By using Proton Mail, I
|
|
entrust my email security with a central entity.
|
|
|
|
This one is more on the technical side of things. I've had some not so great
|
|
experiences when trying to use my own PGP key on top of Proton Mail's
|
|
encryption. For example, my signatures wouldn't be recognized by the
|
|
recipient's email client, due to the second layer of encryption that is Proton
|
|
Mail's PGP integration. Because I want to use my own PGP key, that I'm in
|
|
control of myself, this doesn't work for me.
|
|
|
|
## Conclusion
|
|
|
|
With all that said, I want to end this blog post by saying this: Don't go ahead
|
|
and delete your Proton account solely based on what I'm saying. This is my own
|
|
personal opinion. If you're someone who's not very technical and/or are
|
|
satisfied with what Proton is offering, then stay. I'm not here to trash talk
|
|
Proton and tell everyone to abandon them. I think Proton offers some great
|
|
privacy preserving services and their line of products is perfectly suitable
|
|
for a lot of people, and their work is important in the privacy world. I'm just
|
|
someone who's a bit more technical than the average person, and because of
|
|
that, Proton Mail is just not a fit for me personally. For the average person,
|
|
Proton is fantastic, and I can only recommend them if you're wondering which
|
|
email, VPN, calendar or cloud storage provider to use.
|
|
|
|
You might be asking, what am I using now then? I'm now a happy customer over at
|
|
[mailbox.org](https://mailbox.org), and if you're like me, you should totally
|
|
check them out. If not, go ahead and keep your Proton account (you have one,
|
|
right?).
|