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Why ProtonMail is more secure than Gmail

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Re: Why ProtonMail is more secure than Gmail

#231

Post by adjkant »

matt_wulfeck wrote: post #153
adjkant wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Gmail isn't floating around any brochures on security though - it's pitch to the majority of its users is "It's Google and Mail and where most people have their emails. You don't want to be that one weirdo at @yahoo.com do you?" and that just about does it. ProtonMail is trying to recruit users with the brochure. That said, even though the argument is a bit flawed here, I think most attracted by it would still prefer…

Do you really believe people use gmail because of its brand? I don't know about any security brochure, but I know I can setup 2FA to use push notifications (not an insecure SMS number), and can check where all of my logins are from, and have "suspicious" logins blocked automatically, etc, etc. I can also create single-use passwords for insecure devices (such as a youtube password just for my apple TV). Not to mention…

Yes, absolutely. I would guess at least 90% of the users are simply there by defaulting to it. The tech community is not the target market for Gmail. I never said they had bad security, simply that they were not advertising and trying to attract users from it.

Re: Why ProtonMail is more secure than Gmail

#232

Post by the_stc »

LeifCarrotson wrote: post #161
datawarrior wrote: post #63

I gave up on ProtonMail. The lack of a calendar means you often need to go back to using Google Calendar or Outlook.com Calendar, kind of negating the privacy benefits if you're a heavy calendar user. Secondly, its been years and you still can't store more than a single email address for a contact. This is so incredibly ridiculous that I have an extremely hard time understanding how they get away with charging what t…

Why would you expect an email provider to also provide a calendar? There are many business, coordination, and communication tools that could be in my mail client (I do a lot of billing over email, is an email provider unusable if it doesn't integrate Quickbooks-like functionality too? What about shipping/receiving, project management, phone, SMS, mapping, etc, all things related to my use of email?), but I don't thin…

>Why would you expect an email provider to also provide a calendar?

Because calendar has become a key part of a productivity suite and Email is the keystone. We use Protonmail right now to avoid Google or Fastmail or someone serving up all our emails in a warrant. We keep sensitive stuff off Protonmail of course but every bit helps LE build their case against us.

Protonmail should have calendaring, wiki, and on and on. An encrypted replacement for Exchange eventually. We disable all audiovideo hardware for core members but I can see even secure voice being useful for our contractors to use.

Re: Why ProtonMail is more secure than Gmail

#233

Post by tmalsburg2 »

fergbrain wrote: post #219
datawarrior wrote: post #63

I gave up on ProtonMail. The lack of a calendar means you often need to go back to using Google Calendar or Outlook.com Calendar, kind of negating the privacy benefits if you're a heavy calendar user. Secondly, its been years and you still can't store more than a single email address for a contact. This is so incredibly ridiculous that I have an extremely hard time understanding how they get away with charging what t…

Why not FastMail?

Also: Posteo.de

Re: Why ProtonMail is more secure than Gmail

#234

Post by jstanley »

datawarrior wrote: post #220
tony101 wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hmm... Could you provide a source? I don't think they do this. At least not for paid accounts with a long history.

Can start here: https://twitter.com/protonmail/status/900097982212845570 There are a lot of cases but I'm at work and can't spend too much time collecting much. The gist however is that they are bound by Swiss speech laws, which are very ambiguous. "Inciting violence" is one such example, but of course, they can't see what you are supposedly inciting, so they suspend you.

That's not a very compelling example.

Re: Why ProtonMail is more secure than Gmail

#236

Post by JumpCrisscross »

linkregister wrote: post #89
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> the support of Google seems to be limited to sending info via forms in the hope of a future human interaction People underestimate the power of a calm, deliberate letter sent by post with an elected representative or two copied.

Why include the elected representatives? Is that an implied threat of “reinstate my email or these legislators will regulate you into being a public utility”?

> Why include the elected representatives?

It shows you're serious. Most people complain to blow off steam. This is what customer service handles. If you want something done at the corporate policy level, e.g. to have policy changed or have a decision made per policy reversed, you attack at higher levels.

The traditional form of leverage is legal. Have a lawyer pen a letter gets you out of customer service. It is as effective as it is expensive. Next best is a regulator (you can think of these as narrowly-scoped, publicly-funded lawyers). Unfortunately, nobody regulates Google.

So your final threat is getting a lawmaker pissed off with you. This is less about passing legislation (it's hard to pass legislation; everyone knows that) than creating an official, reliably-corroborated paper trail which could go public, causing PR damage, and/or damage relationships the company may want to lean on in the future.

More practically, I don't want to sit around writing and responding to letters. Having someone else do the back and forth with me Cc'd is more pleasant.

Disclaimer: I am not a lawyer. This is not legal advice. If you need legal advice, contact a lawyer.

Re: Why ProtonMail is more secure than Gmail

#237

Post by KGIII »

josefresco wrote: post #157

So this is ProtonMail vs Free Gmail correct? Not G Suite? Why would you compare a free service with a paid one?

Proton has a free tier, if that helps make it more clear. Though I'm not sure that free vs. paid is such a distinguishing characteristic that makes it impossible to compare.

If I give you some blueberries and you buy some from the store, you're still able to compare and contrast the two and the paid blueberries may actually be inferior to the free berries.

Re: Why ProtonMail is more secure than Gmail

#238

Post by KGIII »

tankered wrote: post #138

Protonmail is not email, and should stop misrepresenting itself as email. My favorite 'feature' of protonmail is that you can't access your messages via imap or pop, and their suggestion regarding exporting messages is: "At this time, you are able to save individual emails by using the "Print" function found inside each email in your account." Protonmail had a very weird role in campaigning against the new sigint-law…

Refresh the thread. They are working on something they call Bridge. They have an employee here, in the thread, posting links and answering questions.

Re: Why ProtonMail is more secure than Gmail

#239

Post by KGIII »

rowyourboat wrote: post #222
KGIII wrote: post #218

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To add to the above post, the headers have to be unencrypted, else they'd have no method to actually send the email. If it were encrypted, they'd have no idea what the address was, or who to bounce it to if the address doesn't exist. Email headers contain a lot of information. It has the various email addresses, servers involved, ip addresses, time stamps, subject, priority, and things like that. The body of the emai…

You are conflating the SMTP envelope and the mail headers. The SMTP envelope is necessary for delivery, the mail headers are not (the addressee information is duplicated)

Thanks for the correction. I had originally typed 'meta data' but thought headers were the same thing. Thanks!

Re: Why ProtonMail is more secure than Gmail

#240

Post by criddell »

Fnoord wrote: post #226
criddell wrote: post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Protonmail says they have no access to user data and so I guess that means they offer zero protection from spam and emailed threats. One could argue that Google's filtering of spam and potentially harmful mail is a point in favor of Google.

Whatever happened to filtering client side?

Not much. It's as bad now as it was a decade ago.
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