I’ve been using Express and had a great experience so far, but I may want to try a Proton subscription for cloud space and more emails. It also comes with a VPN service but I’m a little leary on trying something new. Any thoughts on Proton VPN?

  • Dave@lemmy.nz
    5·
    3 months ago

    I’ve used it, but haven’t used others so can’t compare!

    What did you want to know?

    I’ve recently signed up for Proton Unlimited, and have been playing with things. If you’re interested in the drive space, note there’s no Linux sync client (it’s Lemmy so I feel obligated to let you know), only the web client. There’s a windows client though.

    The VPN is pretty easy. Log in, quick connect. Or manually select a server.

    Needing bridge software for IMAP and having to use their email app on mobile is a bit annoying but it’s good enough that it’s fine.

    I’ve found their help guides pretty good.

    • loopy@lemm.eeOP
      5·
      3 months ago

      I guess if the VPN speeds were fine, if there were drops in connection, and whether you can manually choose a location.

      Have you used the cloud service for photo backup? I currently have an iPhone and it sounds neat to switch to bundling Proton and dropping the iCloud subscription.

      I’d probably just use Proton’s mail app on mobile. It’s actually pretty snappy and intuitive, and it has always had the basic features I need.

      • Dave@lemmy.nz
        4·
        3 months ago

        Oh speeds are great! Hundreds of Mbps. Depends on what you’re after. Not sure if they go into the Gbps, but I feel like I remember some locations do. My internet is only 300Mbps so can’t test higher. VPN speeds from a random local server are normally about 280Mbps. Not sure if that would be higher if my internet was faster.

        I haven’t had any connection drops, and you can choose the location. Their guides also explain which locations work for streaming services if you want to check out the catalog from other countries. And they have specific servers that have P2P enabled if you want to use bittorrent.

        I haven’t used Proton Drive for photos. It’s worth noting Proton Drive is a relatively new offering. The lack of Linux client is also a show stopper for me, as I don’t have a Windows computer to run it on. I’m keen to use it though when they get a client going.

        The proton mail mobile app is fine, I use it and don’t have complaints. But I don’t like that I can’t use a different app if I want to 😆. It also doesn’t let you add other third party accounts into the app with IMAP so I have two apps while I transition.

        • Ghoelian@lemmy.dbzer0.com
          5·
          3 months ago

          Proton drive has a photo backup option in the app, but their gallery thing is still lacking in features. You can’t edit or crop photos, and you can’t create albums and stuff like that. It’s really just a list of photos and nothing more.

          • Dave@lemmy.nz
            1·
            3 months ago

            Haha, you never know if you’re talking to the Europeans that thing 1Gbps is slow, or the Americans that think 10Mbps is fast 😆

      • maruudn@lemm.ee
        3·
        3 months ago

        I’ve used Proton for a few years now. I’m very happy with the service and will continue to use them going forward.

        Proton VPN is in my experience fast, I’ve never experienced any drops in connection. It’s fine for sailing the seas, and they have dedicated servers for Tor, P2P, support for split tunneling, as well as their “Secure core” which routes your traffic through an additional location for extra security. They also offer “NetShield” for ad and malware blocking through the VPN.

        Proton Drive is also great for my use. It’s not as polished as Google Drive and Google Photos, but functionality wise it’s good imo. The photo backup feature is pretty new, so there’s no fancy features there yet - it just backs up your photos. The main thing I miss from G Photos is the timeline UI on the web interface for quickly scrolling to a day/month/year. Their document editing feature is also relatively new and kind of bare bones compared to the offerings of Google and Microsoft, but personally I don’t use it a ton so for my use case it’s fine.

        Proton Mail is, you guessed it, also great. The UI in both the web interface and the Android app is nice and intuitive, like you said. They’ve actually improved it quite a bit since I switched to Proton. No complaints there. Big plus for supporting custom domains and hide-my-email aliases through Proton Pass.

        I’ve also made the switch from Bitwarden to Proton Pass, the main reason for switching for me was the aforementioned aliases. They acquired SimpleLogin a while back, which was a service I was already looking into, so when Proton introduced it through Pass the switch was pretty obvious for me. They mostly have feature parity with Bitwarden. The only thing I miss is the ability to fill passwords from the Firefox extension window, instead of from the input field you’re filling out.

        Proton Calendar: it’s fine, it’s a calendar. No bells and whistles really, but once again it works for me.

        Proton Wallet: haven’t used it so can’t comment on it.

      • OmanMkII@aussie.zone
        2·
        3 months ago

        While it’s a pretty good vpn all round that’s super easy to set and forget, I’ve been having issues the last ~6 months in Australia with the CIDR ranges getting blocked by Google, Reddit, and the like. It’s annoying to have it run fine for a few days, then suddenly have every second thing I do needing to solve a captcha for it.

        Try the freemium tier for a while and see if it works for you - I may be wrong and you’ll run a whole month with nothing, but never hurts to verify.