Folks who moved from Google to Proton: What do you wish you'd known at the start?
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I've looked at Immich a few times. I don't really like self hosting important data as I don't trust myself to not lose anything!
I can't vouch for them but there are managed solutions for Immich, e.g. https://elest.io/open-source/immich
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Yeah. Tried ProtonVPN before it was blocked, and hoped I'd also have another email address. But no, being unable to use it in my email client with all the other accounts made it unusable for me.
What do you mean by saying that ProtonVPN was blocked?
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What do you mean by saying that ProtonVPN was blocked?
Blocked by the government I mean.
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Blocked by the government I mean.
which government? is it not usable anymore?
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I used it for 2 years...
Okay. I don't understand your point. It may be broken. It may even suck ass. But it's certainly not a scam.
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I'm getting ready to move off of Google (and Private Internet Access), and Proton is looking like the best option. But I'm nervous. Some of the things I worry about:
- Calendar support: I rely really heavily on Google Calendar. How will I share events with others? And what will I do without Google Tasks?
- VPN App Quality: Seeing some mixed reviews on Proton VPN Android app.
- Proton ethics & politics: Look, I really don't want to open up the holy war here. My big stipulation is: I don't want my money to go to a company that will donate its money or services to fascists. To my knowledge, Proton does not do that. I know they made a post that seemed to praise GOP antitrust efforts. I do not believe that that is the same thing as lending material support for fascists. (And, as someone who is very well read-in on antitrust issues, I'll say that -- for a lot of complicated reasons -- there is some truth to Proton's post, but I wish they had framed it as a critique of the corporate wing of the Democratic party and not praise of the GOP.)
- Anything else I haven't thought to ask.
So, folks who have made the switch: What do you wish you had known? What do you wish you had done to make the move easier?
Thank you for your advice.
Switching to Proton from all the other shit accounts was one of the best online services thing I ever did in my life. I got a discount back then and to be honest, I would even pay double the price, if I had to. It's just worth it.
As to what you need to know... There is not much to know, except, just do it. Do not hang onto the obsolete accounts. Migrate everything to Proton, then keep the old accounts for 6-12 months, just to make absolutely sure, you did not miss some rare account you barely ever use and is still connected to the old e-mail address. Finally, just never log into the old one ever again and stay with Proton. Proton is king.
If I remember correctly, Proton even offers migrations features, which let you migrate from Google to Proton in some mouse clicks.
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Went from Google to Proton and have since moved on from Proton. If there's one thing I wish I would've thought of before switching it would've been not using a single provider for everything.
At the end of the day it got me off Google, but with more or less the same situation I started with. Everything I was using was housed by one company. If they go under or turn evil you're scrambling to replace all your online services at once all over again. That isn't something I'm comfortable with so I split my service selection up and moved to multiple companies for the services I actually use.
Having everything in one place is super convenient until something happens that makes you want or need to move again. I'm happier now and ended up paying a bit less overall which is cool.
I don't know if that makes much sense. If you lose, for example, assuming you spread it over three providers, 1/3 of your accounts, wouldn't this already be bad enough? I think, the overhead of using so many different services simultaneously is way bigger and more real, than something bad happening to the single service I settled with. Am also with Proton for many many years (back then, it was only "ProtonMail"...) and nothing bad happened. It only got better & better over the years. It's amazing.
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I only ever used Proton for a few secondary email accounts (compartmentalizing between personal and online) and I started transitioning shortly before they got in the news for statements.
My main problem was that I realized that I couldn't use email forwarding (or at least without paying for a plan, I forget), so I basically had to pay to deprecate an email address or move to another provider without risking any future emails to the protonmail address being lost, and I wasn't in a position where paying was an option for those addresses. Now I only register single-use throwaways on Protonmail (despite their efforts to detect and stop it).
Now I only register single-use throwaways on Protonmail (despite their efforts to detect and stop it).
That kinda sux. There are plenty of other, more suitable, services for that. I would recommend not wasting this great service for such purposes.
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I'm getting ready to move off of Google (and Private Internet Access), and Proton is looking like the best option. But I'm nervous. Some of the things I worry about:
- Calendar support: I rely really heavily on Google Calendar. How will I share events with others? And what will I do without Google Tasks?
- VPN App Quality: Seeing some mixed reviews on Proton VPN Android app.
- Proton ethics & politics: Look, I really don't want to open up the holy war here. My big stipulation is: I don't want my money to go to a company that will donate its money or services to fascists. To my knowledge, Proton does not do that. I know they made a post that seemed to praise GOP antitrust efforts. I do not believe that that is the same thing as lending material support for fascists. (And, as someone who is very well read-in on antitrust issues, I'll say that -- for a lot of complicated reasons -- there is some truth to Proton's post, but I wish they had framed it as a critique of the corporate wing of the Democratic party and not praise of the GOP.)
- Anything else I haven't thought to ask.
So, folks who have made the switch: What do you wish you had known? What do you wish you had done to make the move easier?
Thank you for your advice.
Get a custom domain so that your new email address isn't tied to Proton. If Proton goes to shit it will be much easier to just take [email protected] with you to your new email provider. I wish I had done this with Gmail so that it would've been easier to move to Proton.
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If you can only get Service B by paying for Service A, then Service B isn't really free; it's just added value.
A nitpick, yes, but I feel it's an important one.
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ProtonMail works great, and ProtonDrive functions well on both the web and Android. However, keep in mind that upload speeds are slow, at around 4 MB/s, and there is no 'export all' function. The photo backup feature in the Android app works fine for me. As far as I know, the non-profit that owns the majority of the company has three owners. One of them is Andy the CEO. I don't know the political views of the others.
That's correct. You get better export tools with Google compared to Proton. Because of this alone I'd recommend not storing your important data with Proton
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I don't know if that makes much sense. If you lose, for example, assuming you spread it over three providers, 1/3 of your accounts, wouldn't this already be bad enough? I think, the overhead of using so many different services simultaneously is way bigger and more real, than something bad happening to the single service I settled with. Am also with Proton for many many years (back then, it was only "ProtonMail"...) and nothing bad happened. It only got better & better over the years. It's amazing.
I'm not sure what you mean. The "overhead" is putting your different logins into a password manager, no?
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which government? is it not usable anymore?
I mean of course you can use mail and other services. Just that I only wanted the VPN, and that is indeed unusable.
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I mean of course you can use mail and other services. Just that I only wanted the VPN, and that is indeed unusable.
thanks for the info. I wanted to purchase it. I guess I'll go with Mullvad then
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thanks for the info. I wanted to purchase it. I guess I'll go with Mullvad then
I mean depends on your location. Chances are it is fine for you.
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Yeah. Tried ProtonVPN before it was blocked, and hoped I'd also have another email address. But no, being unable to use it in my email client with all the other accounts made it unusable for me.
Not sure sure if you know about this but they reason they don't allow it in other clients is the encrypted portion. However, they built a bridge recently that allows you to use it within other clients on Linux (not sure what other OS but looks like windows too) and I've been running it on the Evolution client since.
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Not sure sure if you know about this but they reason they don't allow it in other clients is the encrypted portion. However, they built a bridge recently that allows you to use it within other clients on Linux (not sure what other OS but looks like windows too) and I've been running it on the Evolution client since.
Yeah, I am very much aware of this. However, I prefer not to trust the encryption that happens on their servers instead of my client, so I'd consider the non-e2e mail as fully open. As for bridge - indeed it solves the problem, but it's exclusive to paid plans, which is not what I had experience with.
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Thanks for the confirmation! I did a search after posting and found that article.
Do you have any downsides to Proton Calendar? So for your wife's calendar have you added that into Proton and you can add/modify events?
That I don’t know.
I subscribe to hers and she to mine, but we just made them the same color so the one who ads stuff first is the one that stays, if that makes sense.
No downsides for me, really. It does what it’s supposed to do and it’s not Google.
If your still on the fence, then I can test editing both ways tomorow. Just let me know. Had a busy day today.
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it’s European which I aim to support
Indeed, to be clear it's in Europe but not in a EU country "Proton services are operated by Proton AG, a Swiss corporation whose primary shareholder is the non-profit Proton Foundation based in Geneva, Switzerland." but they are still GDPR (data protection law from the EU) compliant, cf https://proton.me/support/is-proton-mail-gdpr-compliant
Yeah I’m Norwegian so only an EEA member as well. I consider Europe as one, regardless of EU membership.
We’re still brothers even though we haven’t joined yet.
Let us keep some control over our coastline to avoid over fishing and I would strugle to find good arguments not to join in the future. We already follow most directives anyways. -
Now I only register single-use throwaways on Protonmail (despite their efforts to detect and stop it).
That kinda sux. There are plenty of other, more suitable, services for that. I would recommend not wasting this great service for such purposes.
The more suitable ones are often blocked, unfortunately.
