Calvin Wankhede / Android Authority
Privateness appears to turn out to be an even bigger deal yearly as an rising variety of individuals aren’t cool with their knowledge turning into a commodity. Proton Mail purports to supply extra privateness than Gmail — not like Google, even the Proton crew can’t check out your inbox. As such, privacy-conscious customers ought to wish to flock to Proton Mail, proper? We had been thinking about discovering out, so we polled our readers.
For Android Authority‘s Calvin Wankhede, it wasn’t that easy. He tried switching from Gmail to Proton Mail for higher privateness however discovered the trade-offs too irritating. Proton’s end-to-end encryption solely works if each events use it, which continues to be comparatively unusual. The Android app additionally lacks customary options like formatting and swipe navigation. With simply 1GB of free storage and key options locked behind a paywall, Calvin determined it wasn’t well worth the trouble. He’s now again to utilizing Gmail.
Calvin included our ballot in his article, so let’s discover out for those who agreed with him.
Would you employ Proton Mail as a substitute of Gmail?
The chart above suggests that you simply’d be extra accepting of the trade-offs than Calvin. Round 73% of you mentioned you’ll use Proton Mail as a substitute of Gmail, with greater than half of these individuals saying that they’d even pay for it. Lower than 27% of you mentioned you had been proud of Gmail.
One actually fascinating factor about these outcomes is that when considered one of our crew members gives their opinion on a services or products after which provides a ballot, our readers hardly ever disagree within the general response. It reveals what a hot-button challenge privateness is in 2025, and Google may wish to take observe.
Google may wish to take observe.
For full context, we additionally included the ballot in a extra impartial article on the problem. Nevertheless, in Calvin’s piece, a number of individuals pushed again within the feedback part. One recurring theme was frustration with what readers noticed as a misunderstanding of end-to-end encryption. Barry identified, “You complain that each events want Proton… then say (you employ) Sign or WhatsApp,” which additionally requires each events to make use of the identical app for encryption.
In Calvin’s protection, a major distinction is that you could’t ship a Sign or WhatsApp message to a different messaging service, so you understand something you ship is to somebody with the identical encryption protocols. That’s not the case with e-mail.
Different commenters highlighted sensible causes for sticking with Proton. One consumer mentioned their $3.99/month Proton bundle over 30 months secured them for e-mail, VPN, and cloud storage, which they felt was a “fairly aggressive value.” One other described the Proton suite as a sensible enterprise funding, particularly when consolidating a number of privateness companies into one subscription. Nonetheless, a couple of agreed with the article’s conclusions, citing comparable frustrations or restricted use instances for encrypted e-mail.
