Proton Mail
Encrypted email from a Swiss company, with a free plan and paid upgrades.
Instead of Gmail
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Proton Mail comes from Proton AG in Geneva. It says it is the largest end-to-end encrypted email service, uses zero-access encryption so it cannot read your inbox, and keeps a free plan with 1 GB of space. Paid plans add storage and custom domains, and Proton says subscribers pay for it, not advertisers or your data. It also says all its services are open source and independently audited.
That makes it a reasonable swap for Gmail if you want privacy without running anything yourself. The limits are that it is one company's service, so your address lives there, the free plan is small, and using ordinary mail apps needs a separate bridge program that we could not describe from its site. Check the price when you sign up.
- Zero-access encryption, so Proton says it can't read your inbox
- A free plan with 1 GB, and paid plans from $3.99 a month
- Open-source apps from a Swiss company
What stands out
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For comparison, we also reviewed Gmail (16/30) as a benchmark.
