Can You REALLY Trust Proton Mail?

Proton Mail claims to be private and secure. But can you really trust them? Maybe you've heard some news stories about they logging your data and handing it over to the government. So why do I still think that ProtonMail is one of the best mail services out there? Should you even trust ANY email provider? Find out in this video...

0:00 ProtonMail bad
2:20 Email was never meant to be private
4:43 Email gets encrypted with PGP
8:26 Proton brings PGP to the masses
9:11 Trust issues
10:45 Why use "private" email?
11:16 What happens when the glowies come knocking?
13:20 What's your threat model?
14:47 Can you trust Proton?
15:54 Should you use Proton?

[techvishnuyt]

you guys use e-mail services? pfff i always count on my pigeon george. trust me he never speaks a thing about me

[joaomaria]

ProtonMail is just a better alternative to gmail. That is it.
It isn't the holy savior of the mail privacy.

[cenewton]

Email in general cannot ever be truly secure. If one needs that level of total privacy there are other tools for said communication. With email, at best it's the equivalent of locking our doors at night - enough to keep honest people honest, that's about it. Determined people, either individuals or government agents, will find a way to crack emails.

[AnalyticMinded]

Exactly. I don't fully trust in any e-mail service precisely for the reason you mentioned: the protocol itself. If you have something sensitive to share to anyone, e-mail is not the right medium.

[Sunrise-di]

the only privacy i care about is being sold for ads, i knew from the start they have to give up info for warrants which is fully justified. i just don't want random workers and ad companys in my emails. proton is perfect for daily use.

[marcogenovesi]

As a fellow glowing fed I approve this message

[mazzysmainframe]

I have no illusions about Proton being a beacon of inviolable privacy against the evil forces of the world, I just like the service they provide. Not just the email but the entire ecosystem of services. It works really well for me in my situation.

[jagildown]

The people that don't care about pivacy at all "I have nothing to hide" should think what could happen if uncle adolf was in command with access to all this data.

[___gg]

If your hiding from the government you need to be using more secure communication anyways, if you just don’t want your email scanned and data sold then proton is pretty good

[MrBelles]

I switched to it after your email video, and I’ll use it because although they have shown they aren’t perfect, it is absolutely safer than Google Mail so switching to Proton was a net positive.

[guesswhoscoming]

Protonmail is good for what it is. Even hosting your own mailserver isn't 'fully secure' and if you are sharing sensitive data there are better protocols.

Will people understand that Proton is a company under juridictions, using old protocol email. They don't log by default

[ducksies]

PGP is actually easy to use, but it's a pain to maintain a list of public keys for all your friends

[xymaryai]

honestly this was the best Ad for Proton Mail, sensibly discussing the technology and history, flaws and benefits. i hope they pay you, because they probably got a few subscriptions bc of this video.

[orionx]

As a CIA Agent I love Proton Mail, makes over throwing democratically elected governments the world over a breeze. All my friends, family and global espionage network connected in one place

[danielrobinson]

PGP isn't really confusing, it's just kinda a pain adding extra steps

[GameCyborgCh]

this is actually a good reminder for me to go through my multiple emails and do some house cleaning, delete mails from services i am no longer using, delete emails that are a decade old and most importantly unsubscribe from all the email newsletters

[jorgepenaloza]

I agree, but I will also add that the person who wants to be invisible has to not only stop using email, but also reduce social connections to almost zero.

Facebook was capable years ago of creating panthom profiles of people not on facebook, just by all the info he had on your friends and family. So if you have communications with people who are leaking data everywhere, they can still pin point you.

[MushmouthJoe]

I appreciate this explanation. I was completely unaware that Proton Mail was so divisive. No wonder I get weird looks when I give out my email address. I have nothing more than a standard account & I'm not sponsored in any way. But I've been quite happy with it. 👍🏻☕️

[jacksoncremean]

one thing you forgot to mention that even emails encrypted with TLS are not safe from a MITM, you can trivially downgrade to plaintext or even just straight out not present a valid certificate. The only way to have authenticated TLS connections safe from a MITM is to use a service that supports MTA-STS and DANE, which sadly isn't very widespread.