9 votes

You can now use your Gmail account in Proton Mail

9 comments

  1. [4]
    smores
    Link
    I think this is fascinating. The biggest argument against encrypted email providers like Proton is that it's barely a half measure — sure, Proton can't read the email contents in your inbox, but...

    When your friends and family use Proton Mail too, messages exchanged between Gmail addresses connected to Proton become end-to-end encrypted, so Google will not be able to read your data anymore. That’s why it’s worth inviting the people you email most to join Proton and connect their Gmail accounts.

    I think this is fascinating. The biggest argument against encrypted email providers like Proton is that it's barely a half measure — sure, Proton can't read the email contents in your inbox, but literally everyone you send an email to is using Gmail, so Google is still reading all of your emails.

    But if Proton is able to detect when the recipient is using Proton as their mail client and automatically encrypt emails sent to them, then even without switching email providers, suddenly it's a lot more feasible to get some of the people you email the most to be using encryption when you email them.

    7 votes
    1. [2]
      skybrian
      Link Parent
      It sounds like it would be a nicer transition for people who use email a lot, who are probably the target audience for this. Nowadays most of my communication with people has moved to chat and...

      It sounds like it would be a nicer transition for people who use email a lot, who are probably the target audience for this.

      Nowadays most of my communication with people has moved to chat and email is largely messages from businesses or things like account signups, and I doubt any of them use Proton.

      2 votes
      1. vord
        Link Parent
        TBH businesses should start sending public PGP keys. Proton would integrate seamlessly and it would help tremendously against phishing attempts.

        TBH businesses should start sending public PGP keys. Proton would integrate seamlessly and it would help tremendously against phishing attempts.

    2. vord
      Link Parent
      Proton uses PGP under the hood. You can already configure Proton to automatically attach your public key to every email, though it is not enabled by default. So it looks like this is an expansion...

      Proton uses PGP under the hood. You can already configure Proton to automatically attach your public key to every email, though it is not enabled by default.

      So it looks like this is an expansion of the existing Gmail integration, a welcome one as it kills my need to hop back to the gmail client to send a reply.

      So to venture how it's working, they just internally attach your public key to linked gmail addresses, and then does the key exchange any time they send from another linked gmail.

      The downside is that this could potentially be used to publicly tie gmail accounts to proton accounts, if the public keys are not unique.

  2. [5]
    chocobean
    Link
    As a subscriber, one of the most exciting thing about this feature is not having to continue to use the now extremely broken Gmail search. I deleted my Gmail app immediately off my phone. Well,...

    As a subscriber, one of the most exciting thing about this feature is not having to continue to use the now extremely broken Gmail search.

    I deleted my Gmail app immediately off my phone. Well, disabled anyway, it's a pixel.

    1 vote
    1. [4]
      skybrian
      Link Parent
      It seems like encryption would limit how good Proton’s search can be? Is it all done client side?

      It seems like encryption would limit how good Proton’s search can be? Is it all done client side?

      1 vote
      1. [3]
        smores
        Link Parent
        You can tell the Proton client to index all of your emails client side and use that for search, yes!

        You can tell the Proton client to index all of your emails client side and use that for search, yes!

        3 votes
        1. [2]
          EsteeBestee
          Link Parent
          I didn’t know that! The search is my main complaint with proton, as it really only searches subjects and senders for me. I’ll have to look for that indexing option!

          I didn’t know that! The search is my main complaint with proton, as it really only searches subjects and senders for me. I’ll have to look for that indexing option!

          1 vote
          1. vord
            Link Parent
            Yea it does that by default for security reasons.

            Yea it does that by default for security reasons.