Greetings, I’m new around these parts and have been thinking of kicking iCloud/Gmail to the curb as far as email, calendar and contacts go. I currently use both services, but I’m getting tired of being the product, the flood of advertising and the stress that relying on multinational tech companies brings into my life. I’ve considered switching to either Proton or Tuta for these services, but I’m not sure of what advantages and disadvantages each one brings to the table. My requirements are fairly simple:
- The service I choose must use end-to-end encryption by default
- The service I choose must work on iOS, Linux and the web
- The service I choose must not make it difficult for those contacts of mine not using the chosen service to read any messages I send to them
- The service I choose must offer a free option so I can get used to using the chosen service
- The service I choose must offer an option to use a custom domain name if I choose to subscribe to a paid plan as I might want to use the chosen service for any personal domains I own
- Any applications the chosen service provides must be fully accessible to screen reader users as I am blind and rely on a screen reader to use my devices
What I’d like to know is what are the benefits and drawbacks of both Proton’s and Tuta’s services, how affordable each option is and what other people’s experiences are with each service. Any insight the community can offer would be helpful to me in making this decision.
Thanks in advance for reading this and offering your feedback.
I got Tutanota on Christmas for €36 for a year, its nothing special but i dont mind paying €3 /month to not have my emails data mined and custom domain support. Some things to note:
- You can log into your account using any of your email aliases(None custom) and you cannot delete email aliases you can only disable them.
- The email domains do not look very good in English speaking countries.
- You cannot use it with Thunderbird.
- The web client ui isn’t very good
- 500gb of email storage is useless.
- While Tutanota does offer end-to-end encryption you should rather use pgp to encrypt your email’s contents instead, there’s a great program called kleopatra that makes this simple.
- You can use a already logged in device to approve the 2fa request.
First of all: You don’t need end-to-end encryption for e-mail. Don’t choose something like Proton or Tuta just because of that (I highly recommend reading the linked reviews).
Disroot seems to be the only e-mail service which fits your criteria (though screen reader support will depend on what e-mail client you use I guess, not sure about Disroot’s webmail in this case but since it allows free accounts you can test it out for yourself.)
Both are yucky lock-in providers. Just diversify your service needs across multiple companies. Putting all your eggs in one basket will always nonconsensually fuck you in the ass in the long run.
This is why you use a custom domain, you can just switch providers at any point.
I also hate convenience
This kind of thinking is what got us into the mess that is Google, Apple and Microsoft. Foolish and short sighted.
Your pitch is to diversify email, contacts, and calendar.
That is ridiculously inconvenient, and since those three things are inextricably linked, you can easily move between services.
I use Proton because they have a suite of privacy products. Tuta just has mail. Many people prefer that, and that’s fine too.
Tuta is bs
Oh?
Long story
Are you gonna tell us or are you just shittalking because you want to?
Cool, thanks for sharing
I don’t have any advice to contribute directly, but there is a similar thread from yesterday in !opensource@lemmy.ml where the OP asked specifically about Tuta, which generated discussion around other email providers besides just Tuta. You might find some nuggets in that other thread.
As email, both are fine. I like the Proton email web ui and mobile apps more. I don’t push either hard, just feels more responsive to me. Visually I like it more. In terms of security, my expectations for email are incredibly low so it’s more me wanting to move away from gmail than proton mail being encrypted. I’ve had no troubles sending and receiving emails.
I subscribe because I wanted the VPN and Drive storage. And since then, I’ve found the unlimited email aliases in Proton Pass to be incredibly nice to have. Those have a nonsense to read address but in Proton mail subscribed, I get 15 email aliases that are just like any other proton email address. Didn’t subscribe for it but now use it. I barely use it as a password manager. I still mostly use a local keepassxc and manage backups myself but it is a value add for those that want to store their passwords in a streamlined format. So Proton Pass became a surprise like of mine. VPN no complaints other than I guess the Windows app looks a lot nicer compared to the Linux one. Drive, good enough to store stuff in I want to backup but not using it for sharing files.
Drive isn’t as good as Google Drive and there’s no Linux application yet but at least my data isn’t being used for Google Gemini. Their docs/sheets aren’t as good as Google and not as good as Collabora Online but good enough for me for writing infrequent drafts of things when I need. It’s a start. Calendar, I’m basic. Good enough for me.
Proton purchased Standard Notes but it’s not a part of proton unlimited. I expect someday we’ll be getting a Proton Notes so I can fully get away from google notes. It probably won’t be as good and that will make many angry but my usage is basic. I’ve been pretty pleased with the additional services that Proton keeps adding even if I don’t use them and them not being as good as google. Got to start somewhere and iterate
Yeah I’d love to see a drive client for proton even better if it has proper file manager integration
Drag has a long subscription to Proton VPN and doesn’t like them. Their client sucks on Linux, the connection is super buggy and slow. And they’re MAGA, too.
I did this switch last year and went from iCloud to Proton.
Watch out with your contacts, on that front Proton is a mess. You can easily export from iCloud, but Proton has a few issues importing them accurately. Also no dedicated Contacts App, as they are just in the Mail App. Double check things, after a few tries it eventually worked for me using the Proton Mail App on Linux. For safety, I recommend creating some local copies of your contacts as well. If you keep your iPhone then you can keep a local copy there, but I don’t think there is a sync option between Proton and devices yet.
Proton has done some great work in the past year with their Drive App. This is the way to get your pictures from your iPhone to their cloud. To get this working smoothly I had to set iCloud Settings so that full quality pictures were on my phone. There is a toogle called ‘optimise iPhone storage’ or similar.
Ultimately I’m happy with Proton, a few things could be smoother but there has been noticeable progress in the last 12 months. Good luck!
I switched from Google to Proton Unlimited or whatever, it’s a great value and easy switch.
I switched from american tech in January 2025 when the orange buffoon announced the annexation of Canada. Proton has everything i need. I killed google, amazon, netflix and icloud. Never looked back. The only response i get is from apple who keep telling me icloud is full so they can’t coordinate syncing mail, photos on different devices. Not something i need anymore.
Proton is best drop in replacement for the Google suite.
There is no good mail protocol that works. Even self hosting you’ll get filed as spam for not being a major email client.
Proton leadership supported the Republican party in the US and in order to operate has to submit to requests from law enforcement so what good is the encryption for?
The world has you by the balls if you want secure email.
…has to submit to requests from law enforcement so what good is the encryption for?
This part is half true. They do have to follow their country’s laws, as do every email operator, but they can’t decrypt your emails. That doesn’t mean they can’t figure out what’s in an email by other means (such as seizing an unencrypted inbox for a person you wrote emails to), but they can’t get that content from Proton directly.
The world has you by the balls if you want secure email.
It’s certainly more difficult to have an E2EE email exchange, and if someone requires that level of security, they should know better than to use email in the first place.
I’m a security novice, who was trying to de-google and have something like e2ee email myself about a month ago, and that’s the only reason why I have the opinion I do on it.
After doing the research it just seemed like a fools game. Better off training a carrier pigeon.
Yeah, it should really only be thought of as “encrypted email storage.” Until there’s a broad adoption of an encrypted standard for email, that’s about all it will be.
And to be clear, that can still be a very good thing. You might not be able to have fully private conversations with a lot of people and services, but using an encrypted email service (or your own) also means Google, Microsoft, Apple, etc. can’t datamine your inbox. If your goal is to combat surveillance capitalism, it’s an effective tool.
