Hello Domme Lynx

I have never used Protonmail but I feel your pain in dealing with unreliable email. I started having issues with the major ones (Gmail and Yahoo and Outlook - yes I have had them all over the years) so I searched for a private provider and was willing to pay for it. Email is important and worth a few bucks a month to make sure it works. I've been using a company called Luxsci for about 3 years - well before the FOSTA/SESTA mess.

https://luxsci.com/

It took a little getting used to and it's not perfect but it is reliable and they have amazing customer support - most issues are dealt with within minutes.

Anyway, hope this helps.

If you don't like the interface, just use your own email client.

Proton supports POP/IMAP. If you don't know what that is, it basically is a protocol that allows a mail server to talk to your computer. This allows you to use whatever email client you wish, such as Outlook or Thunderbird. As long as you can configure it to talk to Proton's servers, and you download their "interpreter" Bridge (necessary because of the encryption), it will download all your mail to your computer and then you can configure it to your heart's content. This includes custom domains.

I strongly prefer encryption because, unlike Google, Yahoo, and the like, they can't read your emails. This is a risk for you and your clients.

I have been using Proton for my business email for a few years now and the only "complaint" I have is that the Bridge can be a little slow -- especially with attachments. But this is to be expected because it's encrypting/decrypting a lot of data. I find it acceptable because, again, the trade-off is very much worth it for me.

This is a totally valid concern. However, Proton uses end-to-end encryption. This means that unless you have the "key" to decrypt the message, it can't be read. (Proton says they do not have access to it.) So anyone intercepting any messages will just see gobbledygook.

So, even if the US govt went to Proton and demanded aLL tEh wHoREz eMaiLZ, Proton would probably shrug their shoulders and go "here you go" and it would look like something from the Matrix.

I really hate the way Protonmail is laid out, and to be honest I equally hate the way clients like Thunderbird and Outlook are laid out as well.

I still use Protonmail because I think privacy is above all else, I just complain about it a lot.

Aha! Thanks for reminding me of why I didn't dive deep into ProtonMail. The first thing I tried when I signed up for it was configuring Thunderbird to talk to the Proton server and discovered that I needed that bridge program, and it only worked for the paid version of the service. Maybe they opened that up to the freeloaders now - I haven't checked.

I decided that since I didn't see using ProtonMail for my routine communication and daily spam, I'd put up with the web-based version. But thanks for the reminder. I just opened up the Proton app on my phone and was greeted with the too-often-occurring-with-everything "Your version no longer works and you need to update." Damn, that's annoying. Can't they leave these things alone?

Do you use a mail client? I look around for a replacement for Thunderbird every few months and whatever I find wants to take over my whole life. I just want to read and write e-mail, thank you!

I don't use a mail client because I have hated every one I've tried. I'll just stick with the simplicity of logging into Protonmail in My browser if I'm going to hate it regardless, hah.