Is the Proton (Mail, VPN, Password Manager) ecosystem any good?
Is the Proton (Mail, VPN, Password Manager) ecosystem any good?
Due to the recent announcement of Proton moving to a non-profit structure (although not becoming fully non-profit) I've decided to take another look at them and really, Proton Unlimited is an enticing offer. However, the fact of everything from mail, to accounts, to storage being in one place is somewhat disconcerting. Also I recall them being decent, but not particularly outstanding at refusing to provide data to outside sources, there was a situation a while back where they handed over information of a climate activist.
To be fair, mail is insecure by default and if you're going so far as to write to another Protonmail user you might as well use something actually secure and I am not exactly planning on breaking the law so I'm not too worried about data being handed over to authorities, yet it still leaves a bitter taste in my mouth and with the state of politics where I live there certainly is a concern that, being queer, I should also be a bit weary of governing bodies as well, as laws may change in the future.
Basically, by switching to Proton I'd be putting a lot of trust in them, instead of splitting it up between things like Mullvad, Bitwarden, etc. and besides a password manager (and to some extent my email provider), while dramatic, a single failure at any point wouldn't be a total disaster. Are they trustworthy enough for the convenience benefits to be worth it to any of you?
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You don't have to use all services. I have the Unlimited plan and use mail with custom domains (+ the included SimpleLogin account) and VPN mostly, and Drive for backup (no Linux client yet makes it a no-go for daily use, but I have my own Nextcloud server that serves my purpose fine). Pass I have not tried (I use another manager), and Calendar I also don't use.
I still feel I am getting my money's worth.
https://flathub.org/apps/com.hunterwittenborn.Celeste
Pass is awesome
Calendar is good but can't speak caldav which makes it useless for android and linux.
Nice, didn't know about Celeste. Will check it out :)
Use it but don't rely on it. Celeste uses rclone. The rclone support was temporarily disabled from Proton's end a while back and also, the rclone backend still has a bunch of bugs and the developer seems to have gone missing
Wait, it doesn't support caldav? That really kills the appeal of the convenience they provide as a one-stop-shop, as I'd have to deal with hosting my calendars in another way. I guess at that point I could just get SimpleLogin and use the rest as I have it, even if that gets close to proton unlimited price-wise...
Yes. I host my own nextcloud, I don't need their calendar. But that also means I don't need their drive. I only need the VPN and the mail and simplelogin is a nice bonus.
I'm pretty much in the same boat, you think it's worth subscribing only for the vpn and email?
Tough question, but I guess yes. It's 10 bucks a motnh iirc, and I don't pay for streaming services
Yeah I suppose that's not too expensive, although it feels like a waste when I'm not using all the services provided
They're changing their business structure (or just changed it). I guess you could say now that it's also a donation to the whole system itself. Like donations to EEF or so. The more (financial) power proton has the better compared to other services.
Yeah that's totally true and worth a bit extra for me too
Why does the lack of CalDAV make it useless for Android? The app works just the same as Google Calendar on my phone.
They're referring to the quality of integrations with third-party systems, like the built-in CalDAV support basically every OS has. For some people, using just the calendar app is fine, but others want that deeper integration so they don't have to rely entirely on Proton to provide features in their frontends that OS apps might already handle.
For example, on Android I might want to let other apps access information from my calendar (e.g. my launcher so it can show me events from within its built-in schedule widget). Same goes for my Thunderbird client on Linux, it'd be nice to have the calendar events be integrated there too. Unfortunately, they currently only support a mail bridge, but the official Proton account on Reddit has made a few comments stating that they're "looking into" adding CalDAV support to Bridge, but there's no official timeline on when or if that'll actually happen. I'm willing to bet it eventually will, but I'll say I'd definitely appreciate it if they did.
It doesn't integrate with android or linux. You are vendor locked in. You can only use proton's app. Usually carddav and caldav go together, my tasks (and now kanban board. thank you jtx) and my calendar are very well integrated.