Did you know that hackers can email you and by simply opening the email the hacker gets your IP address? And we all know the security risks when an unauthorized person like a hacker accesses your IP address. He or she may steal your identity and access your location and personal files,It takes only one click of a button. But someone may still argue that email providers should protect their users from such attacks. and yes that is true.

However, not all email providers provide extra security features to their users. There are various secure email providers eg. Tutanota, Cock. li or even Hushmail, but we are particularly going to look to only one email provider and that is Protonmail. If the name sounds familiar it’s because of the famous ProtonVPN service that mainly focuses on securing your online presence by redirecting traffic to a proton server based in Geneva, Switzerland.

So if you were to get hacked the hacker would not be able to retrieve your IP address because of the proton mail strong encryption. So if you are a person who values his or her data. or maybe looking for a secure way to send your data online, this article is for you.

What is Proton Mail?

Protonmail is a secure email service that offers users security features such as end-to-end data encryption. and when I say end-to-end data encryption it simply means that neither a hacker nor proton mail workers can sneakily access your data. Since the only person who has the key to open the data sent is you the receiver or the sender proton mail goes even further by not collecting its user data even when registering new users.

But of course, when signing you will be asked for your email and password and a recovery email which is optional for that matter but highly recommended. Proton mail is browser-based, but you can still download the Android or iOS app by simply visiting the main proton mail website and clicking the download button and a QR code will appear Now you can go ahead and scan the QR code to be redirected to the download site.

Is Proton Mail safe?

Being on the list of the most secure email providers and competing with big companies like Gmail or outlook for Microsoft I must say is not a joke, but this is because of how transparent and open Protonmail is to their services. And since we are already talking about transparency, Protonmail is open source; therefore if you are a developer go check out the source code at GitHub or even install it on your server, one advantage of Protonmail being open source is that everyone can access the code and look for security flaws or even improve the code. even though this poses some challenges. like security risks to the company. But on top of that proton mail also adds multifactor verification which is basically like the one offered by Google.

How does it work?

To enable multifactor verification navigate to your browser of choice click settings then click password & recovery and click multifactor authentication or two steps verification you will be required to scan a QR code to add proton mail to your authenticator and just like that you will be issued with a security key which you need to keep safe since its one-time password

There you can be secure that messages will be safe and sound even if you lose your phone since you can still use the computer to access your account or vice versa. The same also applies in case you get hacked. The hacker must verify using the two devices, unlike other security features where if I have your password I can potentially harm you in any way. But with proton mail, you can be assured of data being secure and encrypted every time.

Still not convinced

If you want even more security you can still add a hardware security key. which of course is not compatible with all devices, therefore you need to enable TOTP authentication which will enable you to register by simply inserting it into a USB port and touching it. you can even go ahead and register your phone storage as the security key but of course, you need to have a data transmission cable connected.

After granting the required permissions you can now enjoy the cool feature of simply inserting your phone or USB and just like that you are logged in. you are also not limited to registering multiple keys you can do this by using different USB drives in case you lose one another feature is end-to-end encryption which I talked about what’s even more shocking is that you can enable full encrypted communication.

Using PGP which means (pretty good Privacy). which technically sounds dumb to be true but yeah that’s what it means. The best use case of PGP is when you want to send very sensitive information to your friend. Therefore, you write your top secret message and then under the menu option, you will see an option that will require you to attach your public key to the message.

For the recipient to be able to read the information he will be required to enter the private key which of course will be decoded by the PGP-aware email system inside proton mail.

Proton mail expiration

When writing your message just below the subject line you will see an icon like an hourglass that lets you set the expiration date for your message. If you want to lock the message there is a lock icon in which you write your password but remember this feature is only available to proton mail users. For nonproton mail users the messages will expire after 28 days by default. Though you are not limited to reducing the period which is actually counted in days and hours.

When the recipient receives the email a link will be issued to view the message contents he or she will be required to enter a password which for that matter will be issued by the sender may be using a different secure messaging app. On top of the message, a nice UI banner counts the expiration time for the message.

Proton mail Pricing

Proton mail is quite fair when it comes to the pricing since you can still get a free version of proton mail which I highly recommend for people who only want to test the waters but one thing to keep in mind is that the free version is limited to storage and the numbers of messages you can receive per day with the free plan you get 500mbs of storage, 150 messages per day and 1 email address.

However, if you want to extend this limitation you can go ahead and choose either a monthly plan which goes for $4 per month and of course $48 per year. But I know it will take time to introduce people to this culture where you pay to send emails because we are used to the free email service offered by Google.

Why pay for Email when I have a free one🤷‍♂️?

Yeah yeah, that’s true since I am a Gmail user myself, but if you value privacy over anything else, Protonmail might be what you need. I suggest you watch the video below for better insights into the best email provider to use between Email and Gmail.

Wait, so you are implying that Gmail isn’t safe?

A small portion of that question is true but if we want to have a better understanding, let us dive even deeper. So it’s known that Gmail uses secure TLS (transport layer security) to transmit data across the internet.

Well, it’s good, it’s safe, it’s the one which has been used for ages. But the problem is it gets decoded once it reaches the target mail server. And that means even if the unintended person gets the phone or the computer he or she can simply read all the data, but you do realize that with proton mail which uses end-to-end encryption despite the email being sent to the client side, you still require the secret private key to unlock the encrypted message.

Also, proton mail does not access the emails I send so in case of a data breach the attackers will not find any data about me in proton servers remember no data like personal names or birthdates were collected during sign-up. But Gmail is the very opposite of that since Gmail uses Ai technology to read your emails and give you personalized ads according to what you like, what you search for, or the links you click. like no kidding everything you do is being monitored and recorded

Actually, that’s how Gmail makes its money. Who said it was free If you still don’t believe me. what about the promotions tab in your Gmail user interface which brings you personalized information about the sites you visited or even might want to visit How do you think google knows this (the answer is by making Gmail available and free to all)

Advantages of using Proton mail over Gmail

• The messages sent over proton mail are end-to-end encrypted
• Proton mail can securely protect messages to nonproton mail users.
• Proton mail offers messages expiration
• secure calendar and file storage
• a free plan is available
• An additional layer of PGP which is inbuilt
• Nice to use user interface
• two-step verification
• You can add custom labels and arrangement of files in Protonmail
• a free domain
• No personal data collected

Cons

• Does not work with existing emails
• importing or transferring existing emails to proton mail is tedious and takes time
• Even after purchasing the premium plan, you are still limited in the number of emails you can send daily.