Privacy Pinpoint: ProtonMail

ProtonMail is an easy to use secure email service with built-in end-to-end encryption and state of the art security features. It is built by a team of scientists, engineers, and developers lead by computer scientist Andy Yen. The company is based in Switzerland (outside of the boundaries of the 14 eyes), which is a country with relatively great privacy laws when compared to many other countries. This company is bringing end-to-end encryption to the masses in a super user-friendly and intuitive way, and they are doing it fast! Even better, since this product is end-to-end encrypted, ProtonMail (unlike Google's Gmail and Microsoft's Outlook) cannot scan your emails and documents. Your emails and data are safely tucked away and only you have access to them. If you send from ProtonMail to ProtonMail, keys are automatically handed off and encryption is handled for you. However we all need to be aware that if you send from ProtonMail to another email provider, it's likely that the third-party provider does not generate PGP (encryption) keys and share them meaning that your emails are not encrypted in this case.

The company is also working on many other features which seem to be purpose-built to replace Google products with a more secure and privacy friendly software suite. Some of the upcoming features are ProtonContacts, ProtonCalendar, and ProtonDrive - all of which are end-to-end encrypted and in beta at time of writing. They also offer 1GB space extensions on the anniversary of any paid user signups for the life of the account (or until the account goes unpaid in which case it is reset)! They offer both personal and business accounts, and here at Nottingham Nerds, we utilize both options every single day!

Gone are the days that we need to bother generating our own encryption keys and sending them back in forth so we can communicate securely, ProtonMail does that all for us now. All we have to do is sign up and use it! And if that doesn't mean anything you, today is the day that it doesn't matter because ProtonMail has automated a very in depth process that requires security knowledge and know-how so that the masses can utilize end-to-end encryption just like the techies! Go check them out!