Went from Google to Proton and have since moved on from Proton. If there's one thing I wish I would've thought of before switching it would've been not using a single provider for everything.

At the end of the day it got me off Google, but with more or less the same situation I started with. Everything I was using was housed by one company. If they go under or turn evil you're scrambling to replace all your online services at once all over again. That isn't something I'm comfortable with so I split my service selection up and moved to multiple companies for the services I actually use.

Having everything in one place is super convenient until something happens that makes you want or need to move again. I'm happier now and ended up paying a bit less overall which is cool.

Proton works fine for me. Email client works as you’d expect in iOS and the webmail is the same as any other. I don’t use the calendar though so can’t comment there. I DO use the vpn heavily. I don’t understand the issues people have with it because it’s always been good for me. I use it on my phone and multiple computers - even Linux (the unofficial flatpak also works well).

The thing I wish I realized earlier (keep in mind that I started using it like 10 years ago) is that it’s impossible to degoogle your life. Yay I use proton - but everyone else still uses Gmail so google gets it all anyway. Not everything, but you get the idea.

I went from Google to Proton and then switched out for another provider. No offline mode/IMAP support allowing me to use an email client on my phone was bothersome as I need to monitor multiple inboxes. Email was fine but sluggish (in part due to decryption so partially understandable I guess). Still use the VPN which I think is their most mature product. Drive is basic but I didn't need much more.

I was willing to put up with the annoyances when I really believed in what they were doing. But after the GOP comments, the crypto/AI stuff, and leaving Mastodon it just all became a bit much. I like that they are nonprofit, FOSS, and independently audited of course, but their messaging/priorities have been mixed to say the least. Wouldn't blame someone for staying, wouldn't blame them for leaving at this point.

On desktop skip the ProtonVPN app and just use the official WireGuard app with the ProtonVPN config files which you can easily download from proton's website. If you're on Linux with gnome you don't even need the wireguard app. You can just use the GUI network manager app to connect with the config files.

Edit: stupid autocorrect

For me its not realizing that my email aliases will stop working if I stop paying. Wish I would have just went with simplelogin

Get a custom domain so that your new email address isn't tied to Proton. If Proton goes to shit it will be much easier to just take mail@mulcahey.com with you to your new email provider. I wish I had done this with Gmail so that it would've been easier to move to Proton.

I’m in the process of switching to Proton too. I just opened the account; haven’t taken additional steps of switching login emails associated with all of my other accounts, yet. I’ll probably start with giving the new account to local grassroots organizations, first.

I’d like to learn more about what people have to say too!

You can always manually share .ics files in emails to share calendar events. I've never used Proton, but I'd be shocked if their calendar can't ics export. I think that's literally how Outlook actually implements that, so it should "just work."

I wish I had know both how painless it was AND how happy (even proud) I'd be about it!

Honestly the 1 thing that matters is : having your data backed-up. Everything else is secondary. Sure, you will have some UX hiccups, the UI will be new, some tools won't behave exactly like you are used to, so what? Live and learn the same way you did with Google products. We have been absolutely brainwashed (and I do mean "we", I don't mean "you") to believe that whenever there is a big bright BigTech logo, it's safe and easy. It's not! We are just used to it and when we genuinely think back, we did learn where everything is. When things change we assume we're at fault.

Anyway... if you are genuinely nervous, just try for a month and rollback or, IMHO better, switch to another provider. I've been a paying Proton customer for years (all services) and I like it but it's not perfect either. If Proton goes to shit, I'll switch.

The one thibg I'd wish I'd known when moving from google that self-hosting is bliss. For everything else there is tuta and nextcloud.

For me it is nothing. I don’t use the VPN and I own my domain, so I keep that if I ever change providers. The calendar works fine.

Ethically I have accepted that a comment was made by someone that should not have been shared, but I also accept that there is not a single company in the world where there are zero people with whom I agree 100%. The only difference is they don’t tweet about it. I am only fooling myself if I think changing providers will make any difference. Maybe the CEO of the next provider is a racist wifebeater…

Their service has been excellent, it’s European which I aim to support and their security is heavily scriutinzed as it’s open source. I sleep well giving them money for an great service.

• The Android widget (not app just the widget) does not have a monthly view.
• There is no office suite (I don't know why this surprised me but it did).

Generally it's been an overall positive experience.

I feel like the Android client for ProtonMail is really slow. Switching folders is painful.

I also tried sharing calendars with my wife who is still on Gmail and didn't have great luck there. I decided I'll just forward invites to events to her, though I haven't had a chance to test that.

I looked to see if I could get by replacing Photos with Drive in Proton. Whilst I can upload stuff. Videos greater than 100mb need to be downloaded to be watched. I guess because Google process videos to allow them to be streamed. Sadly a deal breaker for me :(

ProtonMail works great, and ProtonDrive functions well on both the web and Android. However, keep in mind that upload speeds are slow, at around 4 MB/s, and there is no 'export all' function. The photo backup feature in the Android app works fine for me. As far as I know, the non-profit that owns the majority of the company has three owners. One of them is Andy the CEO. I don't know the political views of the others. The ProtonDrive UI feels sluggish because the decryption process. But all in all, I am satisfied.

I only ever used Proton for a few secondary email accounts (compartmentalizing between personal and online) and I started transitioning shortly before they got in the news for statements.

My main problem was that I realized that I couldn't use email forwarding (or at least without paying for a plan, I forget), and I couldn't manually handle it with a third-party client without paying for their bridge, so unless I wanted to have to open and log in to an old email address for the rest of my life, I basically had to pay to deprecate an email address or move to another provider without risking any future emails to the protonmail address being lost, and I wasn't in a position where paying was an option for those addresses. Now I only register single-use throwaways on Protonmail (despite their efforts to detect and stop it).

I use Proton mail for a mailing list that's hosted and managed by a local linux users group. The messages from the mailing list arrive as .eml files, with each message as an attachment. the native web browser cannot read the attachments. I have to download each message, either individually or all of them as a single zipped file. It might be the fault of the admin of the mailing list and not Proton's fault. I'm not sure. It's not very active so I never bothered to look into the issue. it's a hassle but not a problem. I thought .eml was a standard email format so it seemed odd that the web client could not read it.

i also occasionally use proton drive to back up my plaintext journal every 3-6 months. i backup to mega as well. proton drive has 2 gb of storage on the free plan. mega has 20gb. my journal is 6.9 MiB across 166 files. i have plenty of storage for my use case. i do not store anything sensitive. so that's not a concern.

I use posteo.de/en for email and we use the calender as a shared family calender with my wife.

Works fine for me, but we don't really use the calender to share events with others, so I am not sure how well that works.

Switching to Proton from all the other shit accounts was one of the best online services thing I ever did in my life. I got a discount back then and to be honest, I would even pay double the price, if I had to. It's just worth it.

As to what you need to know... There is not much to know, except, just do it. Do not hang onto the obsolete accounts. Migrate everything to Proton, then keep the old accounts for 6-12 months, just to make absolutely sure, you did not miss some rare account you barely ever use and is still connected to the old e-mail address. Finally, just never log into the old one ever again and stay with Proton. Proton is king.

If I remember correctly, Proton even offers migrations features, which let you migrate from Google to Proton in some mouse clicks.