<Edit> Whoa, didn't mean to spark this level of heated comments. To be clear, I use Proton Mail as my daily email and really enjoy it.
Apparently the popular sentiment is that Proton Mail is a perfectly respectable and trustworthy service. I have no hard evidence to the contrary.
I suppose the intent of my comment was: don't do illegal/immoral things, but especially don't expect Proton Mail to protect you if you are doing illegal things.
Based on popular sentiment, it seems I'd be best just deleting this comment, but in the interest of ensuring complete records, I'll leave it up. Lol, bring on the downvotes.
</Edit>
Don't have any real evidence to substantiate this, but I've heard there's some indicators that Proton is a honey pot for the feds. You can find the occasional youtuber talking about it.
That said, I use Proton Mail to escape the corporate data collection apparatus and really like it. No experience with Tutanota to give a proper comparison.
“I have no evidence, but let me make an unsubstantiated claim and mention there’s YouTube videos about it and then recommend the very thing I said might be problematic”
Bulls*t. What the random YouTubers claim without evidence is also nonsense.
It’s remarkable to allege that an open source and audited app is a honeypot. Well, find it guys, it’s open source.
I didn't watch the video, because I don't have 15 minutes to listen to what sounds like a conspiracy theory, but the source link for his info he put in description is dead, so that doesn't inspire confidence...
Anyway, how would a Swiss company be a honey pot for the feds?
I do think this video lays out a clear case that Proton is not as open and anonymity focused as it could be. While going from those facts to a postulation that it's a fed honey pot is probably a stretch, to use this as grounds to say "Proton isn't as trustworthy as they claim to be" seems reasonable.
Proton's trustworthiness requires framing the service properly. First, they only guarantee E2EE for stored data and data between Proton users. Data passing into the general email stream is not protected after it leaves. Second, they don't claim to be anonymous, but "secure and private." You should absolutely expect that you're not anon.
Yeah, I think that's a reasonable expectation from the service. The notion that it's an end-all-to-beat-all service is foolish, but when properly incorporated into an otherwise robust personal protection plan, it can probably help with security.