A Review of Proton Products

VPN: A

I think Proton’s VPN is excellent. It works well for me, and you’d be hard-pressed to find a better provider. If you’re looking for a VPN solution that provides secure, unrestricted, high-speed access to the internet, you can’t go wrong with Proton.

Mail: B+

Proton Mail is very good; I wish it was great. It’s not as flawless as Gmail. Yesterday, for instance, the Android app notified me of a new email message. I clicked the notification, and the app displayed an error message saying it couldn’t retrieve the message. Ultimately, I was able to read the message, but I wish the service was more reliable. I’ve had other hiccups like that, so I’d recommend approaching Proton Mail expecting it to be okay for a personal email account - but it doesn’t feel reliable enough for business.

So, why am I using Proton Mail?

1. Privacy. “Proton Mail is a secure email service that’s powered by our community, not surveillance capitalism.” I don’t want my email provider reading my emails.

2. Great support for custom domains. Send a message to andrew@andrewmarder.net, and it will end up in my Proton Mailbox. I’ve been very happy with their custom domain support. If Proton ever does something I don’t like, or a new email provider does something awesome, I can keep my email address and move it to a new provider.

Calendar: F

My employer uses Microsoft Outlook for calendars. When I’m on my phone, I want to see my work and personal calendars in a unified view. If I manage my personal calendar with Proton, there’s no way to do this. This is a dealbreaker for me. I’m still managing my personal calendar with Google.

Contacts: F

When I receive a phone call, I want to see the name of the person calling me. Storing my contacts with Google gives me seamless integration with my phone. Moving my contacts to Proton loses that valuable integration. This is a dealbreaker for me, so I’m still managing my contacts with Google.

Password Manager: B

My impression is that Proton Pass is a pretty solid password manager. Personally, I think Bitwarden is slightly better. I’m happy to stick with Bitwarden for now.

Storage: C

Imagine Dropbox, but the provider can’t read your files - this could be pretty nice. Unfortunately, there’s no official Linux client at the moment; users have created an unofficial client using rclone. I prefer encrypting my files with rclone or restic and storing them in Backblaze B2 Cloud Storage. In general, Proton Drive doesn’t offer anything valuable for me right now.

Photos: D

Proton’s support for photos would have been cool if the photos were saved directly to Proton Drive and the files could be manipulated there. That would have worked beautifully with digiKam. After some tinkering, I decided self-hosting Immich would be the best photo solution for me.

Bundle: C

In November 2025, I decided to buy two years of Proton Unlimited. I have two domains I’m using for email, so the bundle was a reasonable choice (Mail Plus supports only one email domain, Proton Unlimited supports three). Overall, I’m using VPN and Mail, and nothing else. Like many Proton users, I wish Proton focused more energy on Mail and less on trying to be a full Google replacement.

Conclusion

• If you’re looking for a VPN, I wholeheartedly endorse Proton VPN. I think it’s great.

• If you’re looking for an email provider committed to your privacy, I think Proton Mail is the least bad option out there.

If after that rousing sales pitch you’re still interested in trying Proton products, feel free to use my referral link.

When you refer a friend, they’ll get a two-week free trial to explore any one of these premium Proton plans:

• VPN Plus
• Mail Plus
• Pass Plus
• Drive Plus
• Proton Unlimited

If they subscribe to a paid plan before their free trial ends, you’ll both get 20 USD in Proton credits.

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