ProtonMail: What is it and what is it for
When it comes to the internet, privacy, civil rights and general liberties have become a great concern for users in general, with companies that provide user data to third parties and governments for own benefit and profit through their services. Such reality affects all types of online services, even a relevant and personal one as email. ProtonMail is an option that makes email private and secure again.
Now, what is ProtonMail exactly and what is it for? Let´s learn a little bit more about this specialized platform with a specific focus on privacy and security, being fully-featured at the same time.
Description and concept of ProtonMail
Specifically, ProtonMail is an email solution that allows users to send and receive messages and attachments, such as a regular email provider. However, the difference respecting the ProtonMail platform and a more traditional email service is in the approach.
ProtonMail has been designed as a secured, encrypted and private email, so users can have guarantees that their personal information will not be accessed by third parties. In fact, the platform does not have access to the users´ personal information either or their accounts.
Therefore, privacy will not be a concern and users can be assured that their information is not been monitored, tracked or seen by others with concrete motives. The ultimate goal of the platform and its developers is to have a more transparent, anonymous and free internet access and usage.
How does achieve its goal respecting privacy?
ProtonMail is a platform that is designed like no other, from architecture standpoint to even legal and location focus. First, the platform is based on an end-to-end and also a zero-access encryption, meaning that such process is done on the client side, making impossible even for ProtonMail to access the messages.
This makes impossible to decrypt messages without the password, since email format, sending between servers and user´s device and network are all encrypted. Also, users´ information is also safe at a hardware level with secured data centers. online data never goes to the cloud.
Secondly, ProtonMail offers privacy guarantees from the legal and location points of view. The platform and all of its data centers are based in Switzerland, and this means that US and UE have no jurisdiction respecting ProtonMail.
The Swiss Federal Data Protection Act and Swiss Federal Data Protection Ordinance are laws that protect user´s data and ProtonMail in general, respecting third party or government access. For that to occur, only the Court of Geneva and the Swiss Federal Supreme Court have the jurisdiction of requesting data, which is extremely lacking and almost inexistent.
Other features respecting ProtonMail
Among other features, the email platform created in 2013 is open source, easy to use, fully-featured and with a modern inbox design.
Behind the platform, there is a highly skilled and committed team of professionals as scientists, mathematicians, software developers and engineers, starting with Andy Yen and Jason Stockman. These experts work hard to achieve the level of security all users have the right to enjoy.
Right now, ProtonMail is available for free and there are also paid plans for independent professionals and businesses.