this post was submitted on 12 Mar 2025
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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.

(page 2) 24 comments
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[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago (8 children)

For me its not realizing that my email aliases will stop working if I stop paying. Wish I would have just went with simplelogin

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

Duckduckgo has 1 alias for each device

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[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 days ago

I’m in the process of switching to Proton too. I just opened the account; haven’t taken additional steps of switching login emails associated with all of my other accounts, yet. I’ll probably start with giving the new account to local grassroots organizations, first.

I’d like to learn more about what people have to say too!

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago
  • The Android widget (not app just the widget) does not have a monthly view.
  • There is no office suite (I don't know why this surprised me but it did).

Generally it's been an overall positive experience.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago (1 children)

You can always manually share .ics files in emails to share calendar events. I've never used Proton, but I'd be shocked if their calendar can't ics export. I think that's literally how Outlook actually implements that, so it should "just work."

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

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), and I couldn't manually handle it with a third-party client without paying for their bridge, so unless I wanted to have to open and log in to an old email address for the rest of my life, 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).

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[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

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. The ProtonDrive UI feels sluggish because the decryption process. But all in all, I am satisfied.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (3 children)

I looked to see if I could get by replacing Photos with Drive in Proton. Whilst I can upload stuff. Videos greater than 100mb need to be downloaded to be watched. I guess because Google process videos to allow them to be streamed. Sadly a deal breaker for me :(

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (2 children)

I feel like the Android client for ProtonMail is really slow. Switching folders is painful.

I also tried sharing calendars with my wife who is still on Gmail and didn't have great luck there. I decided I'll just forward invites to events to her, though I haven't had a chance to test that.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

Not sure about the Mail app, but the Calendar app was definitely slow, though I believe that's because it didn't have offline caching and just fetched from the site every time you opened it up. Terrible, lazy design IMO.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

I wanted to test sharing my calendar with my wife (we use Google which is currently how we share) but you have to have a paid account to share your proton calendar. I'm happy to pay but want to make sure it works before I do!

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

It does. I use Proton (paid) and she uses Google. Guide here

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (2 children)

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?

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[–] [email protected] -2 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Proton bridge is scam - it only pretends that it works. I have been trying to get a support that it doesn't sync & delete e-mails correctly for 2 years and the only "help" was to clean the cache and wait 2 hours for resyncing...

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