ProtonMail review: Secure Email Service Provider from Switzerland

As the Dungeon Master has said, “Privacy on email is a myth, my friend!”. This is exactly what ProtonMail has to say for your email provider. So, you do not want to trust anyone with your emails because there is pretty much a lot running inside them. Let me introduce you to ProtonMail, a Switzerland-based secure email provider. Switzerland has always been known for its strict privacy laws. And the email company is in complete compliance with them. Using ProtonMail, you can setup a secure and encrypted email account in just minutes.

ProtonMail Email Service Provider

ProtonMail offers great security features like End-to-End encryption and Anonymous accounts. While creating an account, you do not need to enter any of your personal details. No names, no date of birth and no phone number. Moreover, you can even skip the recovery email part so that your account is completely irrecoverable later.

The company utilizes the best security practices to ensure that you do not lose your data and your privacy is respected. Not just software security, the company has got some real physical security as well. According to the company’s website, the data centers are located in one of the most secure locations under 1000 meters of solid rock and with best security practices. For more security information, I would like to quote something from ProtonMail’s website:

All user data is protected by the Swiss Federal Data Protection Act (DPA) and the Swiss Federal Data Protection Ordinance (DPO) which offers some of the strongest privacy protection in the world for both individuals and corporations. As ProtonMail is outside of US and EU jurisdiction, only a court order from the Cantonal Court of Geneva or the Swiss Federal Supreme Court can compel us to release the extremely limited user information we have.

Now talking about the actual email client, you can access it using any web browser, or you can download the app available for Android and iOS devices. There are a few plans available; the free plan lets you send 150 emails daily and gives you 500 MB of storage space. You can switch to premium plans to increase this limit or if you want to add custom domains.

The email is similar to what we have been familiar with. Where all the folders and options are available on the left menu, the actual inbox is lying right to it. From here, you can send emails to any other email account in the world. The program guarantees the security of the email sent to another ProtonMail user. Moreover, any emails sent to non-ProtonMail users can be encrypted with a password, and the other person will receive a link to open that email in a browser window.

The email client covers all the essential features and its very simple to use. The best part is that client does not display or support any kind of external advertisements. If you are on the free plan, all your emails will end with a small ‘ProtonMail’ signature. You can upgrade to remove that signature. Other than that, you get access to most of the features including two-factor authentication, multi-user support, and other security features. You can even customize the appearance and layout of the client.

ProtonMail supports PGP services, and you can download your PGP key to use it with other compatible services. It offers ProtonMail Contacts, the world’s first contact manager with both zero-access encryption and digital signature verification.

ProtonMail is a great service if you are concerned about your privacy and the security of your email. The free package is sufficient for an average user, but you can scale it up for your company or office employees. Click here to go to ProtonMail.

You can also integrate ProtonMail with your email client with ProtonMail Bridge.