I am a Proton visionary user with a heavy time investment attempting to transfer myself and my SO fully into the ecosystem. Scores are based on my own perception of usability, and the best possible score is (5/5).
Proton Drive app for iOS (0/5)
- UI is lagging and freezing when scrolling through a folder containing many items.
- The issue persists after re-installing the app.
- In the past, I’ve had items disappear after tapping to open. Advice from support was “try reinstalling the app”. I am honestly afraid to use this app due to data loss concerns.
Proton Drive app for Windows (2/5)
- Works reasonably well with Microsoft Office
- Lacks important features such as selected folder download, share from desktop, additional security layer, etc.
- Proton Docs is not useful to me yet
- Make backups regularly as this app does not feel stable.
- I experienced severe lag when using the app with all items available locally. Lag is not a problem when most items are set to cloud-only.
Proton Drive app for Linux (NA)
- WHEN?
Proton Drive in Firefox (1/5)
- Very slow
- This is the only way to share items. Sharing cannot be done from the desktop app.
Proton Calendar app for iOS (1/5)
- Works reasonably well for an individual user
- I cannot edit the calendar shared with me by my SO. I can only view it. Multi-account login is not possible and is not a workaround.
Proton Calendar app for PC (5/5)
- Works great in Firefox.
- I am able to edit the calendar shared with me by my SO.
- Search speed is limited due to local indexing (you won’t be able to easily search for keywords within your emails if you regularly clear your cookies/cache)
Proton VPN app for Windows (4/5)
- Occasionally glitchy UI but generally satisfactory
- Stealth mode was consistently performant in a high-censorship environment where most other VPNs were blocked!
Proton VPN for Linux (0/5)
- Attempted to use in Debian, lag is very bad, causes problems
- Stay far away from this app, I cannot believe it was released like this.
Proton Mail Bridge for Windows (4/5)
- Works consistently
- Complex. My SO would struggle to configure this if something were to happen to me.
Proton Mail for iOS (5/5)
- Works consistently
- Multi-account support
Proton Mail for Firefox (5/5)
- Works consistently
- Multi-account support
- Custom domain setup process was seamless for multiple domains.
Proton Mail app for Windows (4/5)
- Works consistently
- Offers little value over usage in a browser
- Feels like a cheap clone somehow
Standard Notes
- Login with Proton WHEN? My SO and I are still stuck using Google Keep.
Proton Pass iOS, Windows, Firefox (3/5)
- Works consistently but not intuitive enough
- Emergency access on a timer is needed, because all people carry some risk of being involved in a sudden accident, and not everyone wants to share their passwords ahead of time.
- Integration with SimpleLogin is lacking
- Recent prompts to sync a random number of out-of-sync aliases with SimpleLogin don’t make sense, and the number keeps changing. At first it was reporting 100+ aliases out of sync. Now it is saying 5 aliases are out of sync. I’m just ignoring for now, since everything seems to be working
Summary: I cannot generally recommend the Proton ecosystem. Too many of the apps lack essential features and feel unstable.
I am concerned about certain unusable apps getting pushed to production. Proton VPN for Linux is not at all acceptable.
Overall, the high price is barely justifiable… BUT I will keep my subscription active for now, because I support the fundamental mission of Proton. However, I’m only moderately satisfied with their services at this time, and I’m wondering when the philosophical equity will be outweighed by all the daily frustrations. Proton, we want to love you, please communicate with us better and release only stable software.
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Edit: I intended to title this post as “All Proton Apps *I’ve Tried*, Scored by Usability”. Please pardon the error. My goal was to share my personal experience diving into this ecosystem, not to comprehensively review every app currently available.