There is an oft-used phrase when it comes to the “free” services companies like Google and Facebook provide: If you are not paying for the product, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT. While this may come across as more tech paranoia, the behavior of these companies throughout the years proves this maxim again and again. Google’s Gmail product, for example, gives users a free email account with essentially unlimited storage. Both the cost and the storage help to lock the user into using Gmail for the long term. Google, however, is able to scan the contents of your Gmail account, purportedly to give you targeted ads in your Gmail interface, but the only way you can say no to this is to say no to Gmail as a whole.
I have started to say no by starting to move my email services away from Gmail.
I wanted to find an email service I could use which fit my criteria for mimizing my Big Tech reliance. Fortunately, email services are already platform agnostic, but I wanted to support a service which was open source and privacy focused. The solution I chose is ProtonMail.
ProtonMail’s security and privacy focus is their top priority. The service is encrypted end-to-end where possible, is hosted in Switzerland, which is much more privacy friendly than countries like the US. While the company does offer a free service tier, I opted to pay for ProtonMail so I could use my own medi-nerd.com domain and get more storage on my account, currently 18 GB. I also have access to other services Proton offers, such as their own calendar, file storage, and VPN services, though I have not put those to use just yet. I also use ProtonMail in my role as Drum Corps Planet Managing News Editor for receiving press releases and communicating with drum corps journalists and communications teams.
Since migrating to ProtonMail in May of 2020, I have slowly cut my reliance on my Gmail account, either moving things over to my ProtonMail address as needed or simply unsubscribing or deleting services and accounts which connected to Gmail but I no longer needed. I find that my email usage is much more focused on what I need it for, while I also enjoy the piece of mind which a secure and private email service gives me. Top that with having email for my domain, and ProtonMail gives me everything I want and need at a price that matches the value I receive.
If you’re interested in checking out ProtonMail, they offer a referral program. Just click the link below to try Proton’s Mail Plus service free for a month. If you like it and subscribe to a plan, I will get credit towards my subscription. Even if you just switch to the free tier once your month is up, I think you’ll find that you’ll enjoy using ProtonMail and appreciate what they offer.
ProtonMail Refer A Friend Link – https://pr.tn/ref/8H9W5ADH1WPG
