What is Proton?
Proton AG, hereby referred to as Proton, is a Swiss tech company focused on online privacy and open-source software. They offer several different encrypted services including email, calendar, cloud storage, password manager, and VPN. They offer a free account to try these services, and different paid subscription options if you decide you like it well enough to pay. They may not offer quite the level of convenience as Google Workspace, they do provide a solid software environment that won't steal your data and sell it to the highest bidder. As a matter of fact, it's their mission to do the opposite. I've been using their free VPN service for years. When I used to work nights that was the easiest way to get my phones tethered internet to my laptop so I could play Civilization 5 online with my friends. Proton's services are offered online at proton.me as well as in the iOS App Store and Google Play Store.
I was excited when I found out that Proton offered other privacy focused services outside of the VPN, moreso once I learned they were utilizing open-source technology to provide these services. I've been using a Proton environment for my work with the blog. I predominantly use Proton Mail and Proton Drive with the LTS blog, but I've tried the other tools as well. The calendar functions as expected, this seems more like an expected part of the email service rather than it's own app. The VPN is probably the best free VPN service I've experienced thus far. The password manager seems promising, I've not spent much time using it yet. I've been a BitWarden user for over a year now. If I hadn't already been using BitWarden as my preferred password manager then I wouldn't have any trouble using the Proton Password Manager. The ability to keep all of these services housed under a single account is very convenient.
Proton Mail and Proton Drive are the main services used in my LTS workflow. The mail client is exactly what I expect a mail service to be. Sure it's not quite as advanced or convenient as Outlook or Gmail, but that doesn't bother me. The value they provide my peace of mind by protecting my privacy and not supporting huge corporations that steal our data are worth the mild inconvenience of less robust features. The email doesn't automatically sort out your spam and preferred emails into different categories like Gmail. The cloud storage doesn't provide productivity features, just a secure space to store files. None of these are deal breakers and it's possible new features will be added in later. If you value your privacy and want an easy to use suite of tools to protect your information online then Proton is certainly worth a look.
