this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2024
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I just now created a Proton mail account just minutes before seeing this. I think I'm glad I did.
I've been thinking about de-googling myself for some time now. After being with them since they created the Gmail service in the early 2000s, I practically have my whole adult life on Google. I've been using drive and photos as well for as long as it has existed. It's going to be a lot of work to sort through all of this data and start over on a new service.
I don't trust Google anymore over anything. Whether it's privacy (though I was pretty naive to think I had any in the first place) or their ability to keep a service up long enough for anyone to commit.
It's a shame because they started as a really nice company with their do no evil motto with great services and then everything went to shit. Even their killer feature, the search engine, has become complete shit.
I agree, but just a counterpoint...
Back in the day, after Hotmail and Yahoo! email but before Gmail, people started becoming really skeptical of emails from @xyz.net and started treating anything that didn't come from a major email provider as "spam."
I've kept my old gmail accounts around for "spam" and "work" respectively because despite people (finally) waking up to the privacy issues of Gmail, I cannot trust that emails with a @protonmail.com address won't be viewed skeptically by people recieving the email. Especially in regards to jobs. Unless you're in Cybersecurity and taking privacy seriously is your professional obligation, you're not going to run into tons of people who view ProtonMail very favorably.
De-googling is good, but don't leave yourself stranded and ignored by people because you had the audacity to use a different fucking service.
I'd wager most people who don't think about cyber security even look at the sender email address these days.
Based on kb4 metrics I've seen at past jobs, you'd win that bet
I don’t think that’s really much of a concern. I can’t imagine any world where a proton.me email will cause you any issues. I’ve had mine for years now, in fact on my resume and job applications I used my own domain’s email addresses and I’ve never experienced a problem. What you’re saying isn’t entirely impossible but it’s definitely not a problem you’re very likely to run into. You’re not likely to run into a single person that cares about your proton email much less one that views it disfavorably.
*Indian government: hold my lassie
https://techcrunch.com/2024/02/16/india-may-block-proton-mail/?guccounter=1
All it takes is that some services you use have mail hosted in India, and your emails might never reach.
They’re not blocking ProtonMail due to it being “not gmail” or any other recognizable domain or having a poor reputation, they’re blocking it because ProtonMail is doing what they promised to do and not divulging customer information to Indian authorities.
I suppose if OP lives in India then yeah that might be an issue but otherwise they’re still totally fine.
I guess it speaks more to the idea that there's definitely people out there who look skeptically on a ProtonMail address. There's a lot of people who know what it is and also hold a "If you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" mindset and immediately assume the worst about the person with the ProtonMail address. Because of course, in their minds, if you have such an address, you surely must be unsavory and have things to hide. It's not just autocratic governments who don't like it.
On the contrary, I think it’s autocratic governments specifically that don’t like it. Which is more or less the point, in the same way that any service that uses encryption and doesn’t give up user info is something they won’t like. Otherwise everyone with a Mac, IPad or IPhone would be considered shady, which as we know isn’t the case.
The people who hold the view you mentioned more than likely don’t even know what ProtonMail is.
I don't necessarily disagree, but I have personally met a few people who did know what it was and also thought it was very sketchy and didn't trust it.
However, at the same time, I know how worthless a personal anecdote is in the bigger scheme of things, so you're probably right that most people that hold that attitude don't know wtf it is.
I just feel like there isn’t a big enough crossover of people who both A.) know what it is and how it’s different from any other email provider and B.) don’t trust it simply because it’s encrypted.
The only thing ProtonMail does differently, functionally, is encrypt your data at rest, which while somewhat rare for an email provider to do, is extremely common for any other website or communication service to do.
Like somebody has to know what ProtonMail is and what it does enough so to not trust it, but somehow also not distrust iMessage, or WhatsApp, their banking site, etc.
Then you take that group of people, and cross them again with group C.) people who are responsible for the cybersecurity of any given website.
Like law of large numbers says that it’s plausible that this person exists out there, but is it enough for you to actually worry about using ProtonMail? So far at least, no.
I largely agree, but I've also seen the sheer capability of large conspiracy networks in the USA to propagate misinformation, and their predilection for assuming there's a giant cabal of child-abusing elite satanists controlling the world. These are largely people of the mind "if you have nothing to hide, you have nothing to fear" and love the police while also feeling like they cannot trust the US government (or at least those satanist jewish LIBRULS), as if those aren't inherently contradictory positions. I guess the point I'm making is that a lot of people already have conspiracies about this kind of thing, and all they see is "encryption" and think "this must be what child abusers use." There's a lot of people (here in the USA at least) who aren't playing with a full deck and aren't coming to these conclusions from any sort of coherent reasoning other than "rules for thee, not for me" (considering it's okay for them to use encryption to organize their Proud Boys meeting or whatever).
Because otherwise, your logical conclusion makes sense, but we're officially dealing with millions of people who aren't approaching anything logically or coherently anymore, while being exposed to propaganda networks that can put those kind of ideas in their heads.
Good counterpoint, and to add, Gmail itself is more than happy to throw any email into spam if it isn't from a major provider. I had this happen with my own domain email, and even after telling Gmail the email is legit, it still spam filters it.
Plus, guess what email provider HR often uses but shouldn't... That domain isn't Gmail but you better believe their boss paid the 6 dollars a head to get them a gsuite portal with Gmail Spam filters.
Use a custom domain to hide which email provider you use. Plus it let's you move to another provider without having to inform all your contacts of a new address.
Does proton mail allow me to use custom domain names?
It's a paid option afaik
I've never had a problem with that. My simplelogin aliases on the other hand, they're much more weird. But for email I share to people, it's a protonmail.com address. Even my parents use it, it's fine.
Good for you. I degoogled in 2019. It’s been fine.