I’ve hosted my Mail with them for over a year, still have them as my backup. I wouldn’t really recommend them, as they don’t adhere to the standard protocols which infuriates me. As a result, you can only use a proper email client on PC with the back they call bridge, you cannot use a proper client on phones, forget syncing of calendar and contacts.
There is more, especially for the non-mail products.
To what standards protocols do you refer? (I’m honestly asking; I’m not very knowledgeable about email architectures.)
As a result, you can only use a proper email client on PC with the back they call bridge
I thought that is kind of required simply due to the nature of their email service being end-to-end encrypted and with the decryption key being stored locally only.
I meant IMAP, SMTP, POP3. It’s true that they do some encryption shenanigans, but firstly I don’t really see the benefit over just using encrypted SMTP and encrypted IMAP, and secondly we already have PGP for that, IMO it would be better if they made that more accessible.
Some people might not be bothered by this, but it bothers me a lot. Which is why I left. The reduction of usability is not tolerable.
Besides that, they also don’t support CalDAV and CardDAV (syncing of contacts and calendar), which is something that groupware absolutely needs to be viable for me.
You might disagree or not care, if so, good for you, there is definitely much worse than proton.
To call it “shenanigans” IMO doesn’t give it due credit.
As for the PGP thing, I’ve been with ProtonMail since they were in beta way back in 2013-ish and one of their founding goals was to provide encryption that was accessible to even casual users.
And like it or not, PGP is a thing that is quite confusing to most people, assuming they even know what it is.
Besides that, they also don’t support CalDAV and CardDAV (syncing of contacts and calendar), which is something that groupware absolutely needs to be viable for me.
Couldn’t agree more. They really need to extend Bridge to support calendar sync.
If bridge could have the DAVs and we could host it on a non localhost IP, it would be a compromise I could live with. As it is now, you’d have to install it in any VM you have, and of course it also doesn’t run on phones.
I’ve hosted my Mail with them for over a year, still have them as my backup. I wouldn’t really recommend them, as they don’t adhere to the standard protocols which infuriates me. As a result, you can only use a proper email client on PC with the back they call bridge, you cannot use a proper client on phones, forget syncing of calendar and contacts.
There is more, especially for the non-mail products.
To what standards protocols do you refer? (I’m honestly asking; I’m not very knowledgeable about email architectures.)
I thought that is kind of required simply due to the nature of their email service being end-to-end encrypted and with the decryption key being stored locally only.
Am I misunderstanding something?
You’re not. The whole point is encryption so the bridge is a must.
I meant IMAP, SMTP, POP3. It’s true that they do some encryption shenanigans, but firstly I don’t really see the benefit over just using encrypted SMTP and encrypted IMAP, and secondly we already have PGP for that, IMO it would be better if they made that more accessible.
Some people might not be bothered by this, but it bothers me a lot. Which is why I left. The reduction of usability is not tolerable.
Besides that, they also don’t support CalDAV and CardDAV (syncing of contacts and calendar), which is something that groupware absolutely needs to be viable for me.
You might disagree or not care, if so, good for you, there is definitely much worse than proton.
To call it “shenanigans” IMO doesn’t give it due credit.
As for the PGP thing, I’ve been with ProtonMail since they were in beta way back in 2013-ish and one of their founding goals was to provide encryption that was accessible to even casual users.
And like it or not, PGP is a thing that is quite confusing to most people, assuming they even know what it is.
Couldn’t agree more. They really need to extend Bridge to support calendar sync.
If bridge could have the DAVs and we could host it on a non localhost IP, it would be a compromise I could live with. As it is now, you’d have to install it in any VM you have, and of course it also doesn’t run on phones.
👍