Calvin Wankhede / Android Authority
Privateness appears to turn into a much bigger deal yearly as an growing variety of individuals aren’t cool with their information turning into a commodity. Proton Mail purports to supply extra privateness than Gmail — in contrast to Google, even the Proton staff can’t check out your inbox. As such, privacy-conscious customers ought to need to flock to Proton Mail, proper? We had been serious about discovering out, so we polled our readers.
For Android Authority‘s Calvin Wankhede, it wasn’t that straightforward. He tried switching from Gmail to Proton Mail for higher privateness however discovered the trade-offs too irritating. Proton’s end-to-end encryption solely works if each events use it, which remains to be comparatively unusual. The Android app additionally lacks customary options like formatting and swipe navigation. With simply 1GB of free storage and key options locked behind a paywall, Calvin determined it wasn’t well worth the problem. He’s now again to utilizing Gmail.
Calvin included our ballot in his article, so let’s discover out should you agreed with him.
Would you employ Proton Mail as a substitute of Gmail?
The chart above suggests that you simply’d be extra accepting of the trade-offs than Calvin. Round 73% of you stated you’ll use Proton Mail as a substitute of Gmail, with greater than half of these individuals saying that they’d even pay for it. Lower than 27% of you stated you had been proud of Gmail.
One actually fascinating factor about these outcomes is that when certainly one of our staff members gives their opinion on a services or products after which provides a ballot, our readers hardly ever disagree within the general response. It exhibits what a hot-button situation privateness is in 2025, and Google would possibly need to take be aware.
Google would possibly need to take be aware.
For full context, we additionally included the ballot in a extra impartial article on the problem. Nonetheless, in Calvin’s piece, a number of individuals pushed again within the feedback part. One recurring theme was frustration with what readers noticed as a misunderstanding of end-to-end encryption. Barry identified, “You complain that each events want Proton… then say [you use] Sign or WhatsApp,” which additionally requires each events to make use of the identical app for encryption.
In Calvin’s protection, a big distinction is which you can’t ship a Sign or WhatsApp message to a different messaging service, so you recognize something you ship is to somebody with the identical encryption protocols. That’s not the case with e-mail.
Different commenters highlighted sensible causes for sticking with Proton. One person stated their $3.99/month Proton bundle over 30 months secured them for e-mail, VPN, and cloud storage, which they felt was a “fairly aggressive worth.” One other described the Proton suite as a wise enterprise funding, particularly when consolidating a number of privateness providers into one subscription. Nonetheless, a couple of agreed with the article’s conclusions, citing comparable frustrations or restricted use instances for encrypted e-mail.
