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Proton Mail gets a desktop app for encrypted email and calendar

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Re: Proton Mail gets a desktop app for encrypted email and calendar

#51
post #8

Out of curiosity, what makes people prefer desktop apps for mail over just visiting the browser version? The idea of downloading a desktop app for something I can do in the browser makes no sense to me. At least on mobile, the ergonomics of apps tend to make the experience better than the mobile-web version.

In theory performance but modern software has kind of destroyed that argument.

But desktop software SHOULD be more performant.

Regardless of all the work done in browsers, native UI's still feel better in terms of latency and performance.

Re: Proton Mail gets a desktop app for encrypted email and calendar

#52
post #17

I love Proton, I use them for my business. Sure they are missing some things. The calendar is too basic, no widget. Drive does not have a Linux client and no rsync support or anything useful. And now there is no desktop app For Linux (it's not electron?). BUT, I love the webapp and they bring a steady stream of nice improvements, and what currently exists works very well. They are a company with the right values so I…

Tutanota has got a Linux app, and the Android app is available on F-Droid.

I love what both companies are trying to achieve with building private ecosystems, but for me Linux must always come first. Everyone who loves privacy has switched to Linux by now.

Re: Proton Mail gets a desktop app for encrypted email and calendar

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Kind of makes me wish GNU and Apple would do what Microsoft has done, integrate a Chromium-based WebView into the OS and optimize it to the gills. For MacOS, you can almost always get high quality native apps. I don't know why this isn't the case on other platforms. Strangely enough, it is mostly the mega-corps that insist on not making native apps, even though they should have all resources for it: VSCode, Spotify…

>laggy garbage apps if you don't have the latest machine. Does not describe Youtube.com or VSCode in my experience.

If you're on an Intel MacBook, using YouTube Music is a miserable experience. As for YouTube.com itself, it's okay, but FreeTube is significantly more responsive.

VSCode was more laggy than native competitors on my machine. Especially when selecting text. Maybe our tolerance for lag is different? I know a ton of people swear by VSCode, but when an app has bad latency on basic interface functions it just throws me off. People with higher lag/latency tolerance may be right, that it's worth the trade-off to get an otherwise better app. But I will always go for non-lag native apps.

Re: Proton Mail gets a desktop app for encrypted email and calendar

#54
Proton + CLI mail client = Meh.

With Proton Bridge running on macos, mutt could fetch & read mail but mutt's "e" command would not work. My editor would write out the message but the changes would not "stick" at the server: the message was always left unchanged.

Was I doing something wrong ?

Re: Proton Mail gets a desktop app for encrypted email and calendar

#55

Maybe this will turn out to be a very good thing, but with the degraded quality of their mobile app and the languishing state of the web app, I can't help but feel like a desktop app for Proton Mail is a distraction at this point. Granted, there is a rewrite of their mobile app in progress to fix serious performance issues, but that should be finished first before even thinking about a brand new desktop app. At the s…

The teams behind the desktop application and the Android rewrite are probably not the same. I would guess that developing the desktop app didn't impact the development of the mobile app

Re: Proton Mail gets a desktop app for encrypted email and calendar

#56
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I rather their app not be Electron not much would have needed to be done just mostly point it at their website at that point…

On Linux it’s often: it’s electron or you’re left out.

I wonder if anyone tried repackaging electron apps to use alternative runtime, maybe Tauri?

Re: Proton Mail gets a desktop app for encrypted email and calendar

#57
I just bought a few years of Proton Mail and moved my domain there using their Black Friday offer, great timing.

"Proton is restricting access to its paid “Visionary” tier for legacy users at first (though the company is reopening subscriptions to that tier through January 3rd, 2024)" I cannot find any info on how to purchase the Visionary tier.

Re: Proton Mail gets a desktop app for encrypted email and calendar

#59
post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We should ask people who complain about Electron apps if they're willing to pay an extra $20/month to pay for a team of developers to make and maintain a native app for each platform. I'd bet they say no. If they say yes, they're lying.

I'm on Linux and elecron apps are always good news for me, because I know I won't be left out ;)

Unless you're using Evernote. Private Beta for Evernote for Linux and afterwards..... An email saying they are stopping the development of Evernote Linux :)

PS: Electron, AFAIK.

Re: Proton Mail gets a desktop app for encrypted email and calendar

#60
post #15
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Webmail requires an active Internet connection. A desktop client lets me work in more environments/situations, and acts as a kind of local backup/cache of my communications. It also makes focusing on email easier. I dislike having to dive into tab sprawl to read/write email.

webmail works fine without an internet connection, gmail does it. You need to write a PWA.

Gmail also spies on everything you do, whereas desktop clients like Thunderbird do not.
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