Privacy @lemmy.ml mulcahey @lemm.ee 2d ago

Folks who moved from Google to Proton: What do you wish you'd known at the start?

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.

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77 comments

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).
- 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.

77 comments