Proton’s whole server was just down forever 24 hours a couple days ago
Yea I would really take into account the tech savyness of the family members.
My family is on my Office 365 family account and they know how it works. Pretty much everyone can work with the Office suite and Outlook, if I would want them to use Proton apps it would cost me a lot of time to explain it to them and probably more support over the years too.
Proton Mail and VPN are great but the other products can’t they still have way to go
Calendar has a pretty comprehensive set of functions and is easy to use. I would include this on the good app list. The password app I would class as “alright”. It doesn’t integrate into the browser totally seamlessly and you really have to be sure to disable the browser password prompts or you can end up accidentally saving to a less secure system. However after using it for a couple of days it’s fine. The one that really needs development is the drive app. Edit, oh and docs - I forgot that because I don’t often use it!
I recommend checking download performance for individual AND bulk files - download has historically not worked well for me.
My experience with iCloud+ email has been simple and fantastic. They also use E2EE iirc, but not as flexible as ProtonMail. What issues have you experienced with it?
Can I ask how you find Fastmail? I migrated myself over to Proton Mail Plus (and other services) with my domain here…but the lack of genuine e2ee and the astronomical costs of putting the rest of my extended family on my domain just aren’t feasible and I’m looking to ditch them. I can’t justify a kidney each year just so me and my brothers meme email chain isn’t read by an overlord.
I use Proton Mail Plus, but I have been eyeballing Fastmail to replace my Yahoo and Gmails. (Like you, I use Proton for when e2ee makes sense). Just wondering what do you think about the search feature in Fastmail? ~TIA
Edit: After testing I actually resolved the issue I commented about so this comment is void now.
You can opt out of the cost increase fyi. They are sighting the increase is due to new Ai features but if you go to cancel they offer to stay at 139 without the Ai implementation.
Yep, mine is going up in May and I cancelled it. I’ve got an Office365 email as well, using my own domain, which costs about $50 and I’ll probably keep that.
> Nothing comes close to Onenote for me in terms of layout and functionality
Right, I agree 100%. What I don’t like is that I can’t store my notebooks anywhere except on OneDrive.
Good point, same goes for Google. Can Proton see any file contents or photo contents?
“if it’s free, you are the product.” - That is the Truth.
Microsoft 365 is not a free product. Since that is what op mentioned in the post, I’m just going to assume that is what you are talking about as well.
You get all those (except alias emails) with a M365 subscription too:
- Microsoft Authenticator (free)
- Microsoft Defender (mobile VPN) (also, Proton VPN Free isn’t bad in a pinch if you need it)
- Outlook Calendar
“Proton’s whole server” that’s so funny 
My only note on proton pass is make it a different password and no not two passwords to login
Yes, iCloud+ is certainly simple.
I have an iCloud+ email account, too, and it’s perfectly adequate, but I’m now having Fastmail pull from it (and from Outlook.com, for that matter). Fastmail has pretty much perfected the email experience, and I’m an old fart, so email is my main digital communicating medium and therefore the experience really matters to me.
I love the Proton mission, but it’s been almost three years and they still haven’t made the most of the SimpleLogin acquisition, prioritizing building a password manager (which I like and use) over integrating masked emails into the Mail system.
EDIT: iCloud+ mail is not E2EE, just like Outlook, Fastmail, and Proton unless all parties are also Proton users. See: https://support.apple.com/en-us/102651
It’s what I wish Proton Mail would be. Still hoping that Proton will invest more into Mail instead of chasing trying to be a Google competitor with Docs. I have nothing but respect for the company and want them to be the answer, but currently, Proton Mail just falls short. I also want it to be the ultimate solution, since I’m paying for a multi-user subscription because of VPN and Pass, and don’t want to have to pay extra for email.
I use Proton Mail only when I need to share sensitive information with someone I know is on Proton. Kind of like my using Signal instead of other IM tools – so few are on Signal, just about everybody’s on either WhatsApp or Messenger (sigh).
Back to Fastmail. A couple of examples of what i really like (it’s not everything):
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Fastmail allows me to use a custom domain for “masked emails” and share it with people on my plan. The SimpleLogin integration into Proton does not allow me to use SL custom domains for aliases with my Family (or Vision) plan members.
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I can set Fastmail up to sync with Outlook.com and iCloud Mail, so that I have all my email (except Proton) in one place. This means not only that my external mails are forwarded (actually, they are pulled), but that I can send emails from my Outlook.com address from Fastmail.
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I can sync the Fastmail calendar with iCloud, where we have all our events.
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The UI is fast – no delays, everything just comes up right away.
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Integration with Outlook (the old version, of course, the new Outlook is awful) or Thunderbird is straight-forward.
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Customer service is outstanding. Proton’s is really good, too, but Fastmail escalates very quickly to someone who knows what they’re talking about.
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There seems to be fewer problems with Fastmail domains being rejected by various web services. I don’t know if this is because there’s no free tier, so less risk of abuse. In my experience, services that have rejected both SimpleLogin and Proton custom domains (more sophisticated services to MX record lookups), accept the same domain hosted in Fastmail (after migration) without any objections.
Negative 1: the free trial was not a good experience – I had trouble sending email, and such, so I ended up subscribing just to test it out. Since I ended up really liking it, I got over it fairly quickly.
Negative 2: you can use folders **or** labels, not both.
It works well, as one should expect from an email service that’s been around since 1999.
To be fair to Proton, though… I know there’s a lot of complaints about search in Proton Mail, but if you use Proton Bridge with a desktop client like Outlook (classic) or Thunderbird, search works there, too. Search is not why Proton Mail is not my main email service.
Note that Fastmail’s servers are located in the US, so if you have concerns about government access to your data, that’s something to be aware of. Not that it would be any better if they were in Australia, where Fastmail is based – Aussie privacy laws are no better (and possibly worse) than US laws.