What Is ProtonMail, and Why Is It More Private Than Gmail?

ProtonMail is a secure email service designed to protect your inbox and identity. So how exactly is ProtonMail different from a “regular” email provider like Gmail? And, more importantly: Is it time to make the switch?

What Is ProtonMail?
While all major email services claim to respect your privacy, ProtonMail goes further than most in a bid to protect you. That’s what makes it different from the big email providers like Google’s Gmail and Microsoft’s Outlook.com.

ProtonMail is one of a handful of so-called secure email providers that shun the traditional webmail route of plentiful free storage and integrated services in favor of heightened privacy and security features. Unlike with Gmail, you’ll have to pay to unlock many of these additional bells and whistles. Google profits off its free Gmail service by showing you ads, while ProtonMail doesn’t have any ads.

Google and Microsoft use standard good security practices like two-factor authentication and securing the connection between your browser and their servers. ProtonMail goes further still by not logging identifying information, storing data on the server in a manner that’s useless to third parties, and better facilitating private conversations between users.

While ProtonMail sounds like an upgrade over Gmail, it does come with some caveats. The free plan is limited—for example, it only offers 500 MB of storage. Many of the features that make Gmail so useful aren’t possible in ProtonMail due to the emphasis on privacy and security. For example, it won’t automatically crawl through your email and add events to your calendar.

Deciding between a traditional provider like Google and a secure provider like ProtonMail is a case of weighing up convenience and privacy. If you want an email service with all the conveniences of Gmail, ProtonMail isn’t it.