How do you all deal with the garbage that is ProtonMail?

I've been using protonmail for a while and I hate it. I hate it's interface, I can't search via keywords, I can't tell easily when I've responded to an email... It's just terrible compared to other email providers. I have to buy more storage but I can't justify spending money on a service I dislike so much.

I know it's "more secure", but boy does it need works. What do you ladies use? Is anyone else having these issues?

Hi DommeLynx, I've been asking myself the same question. Now I'm hearing inbound mail is not getting through.

Had this issue today, luckily I checked with the person but their email never went through.

Oh gosh.

The search function is really lacking, if it's not in the subject line of the email or name is not exactly right then forget it.

I hadn't heard about the incoming mail issue! That might explain why I stopped getting C4S sales notifications though they are still happening...grr! Not a good feeling to think we could be missing potential inquiries.

I've never used Protonmail, so I'm not familiar with its features, or as it sounds, lack thereof. There is a similiar secure email product out there - Tutanota. You may already know about it, but it's supposed to be comparable to protonmail's encryption and security, and cheaper.

Hi,

One of the main selling points of this client was that is was NOT hosted in the United States, and subject to only Swiss (and EU) law. The only problem is that Switzerland has recently folded like cheap suit as regards to maintaining the privacy, in the face of American Bullying, of those banking and doing other business within their country.

po

I was never quite certain what the big migration to Protonmail was supposed to accomplish.

I mean, if the government presented you with a search warrant, and told you to turn over your email, you'd have to do it. If you didn't, they'd put you in jail for contempt.

And if the government took a hard stance that professional domination was illegal, I think most women would leave the business. I mean, I can't imagine many people going underground.

We all walk around with phones that track our physical location 24/7. We leave a trail online that lets companies figure out everything about us. We don't have any privacy at all.

I mean, I've been interested in crypto for a long time, since the 90s. And there are lots of people who fetisize it, who imagine in makes them invulnerable.

The state has so much power, and so many avenues of attack, that if they want you they're going to get you. That's reality.

People who think otherwise are like the folks who hoard guns and think they'll be able to hold off the black helipcopters.

That is actually part of the security design of Protonmail... To be able to index and search they would have to have the ability to decrypt and read the actual content rather than just the header (which has the subject in it).

Probably more than you care about, but just wanted to get across that it is not something they will be able to correct without basically destroying the construct.

I know you were looking for Domme inout because they have the same business needs but I arrogantly think my own use may help.

Personally, I only use my Protonmail accounts for financial transactions (such as emailing a giftcard number) or the kind of discrete discussions about rates / services that occur prior to seeing someone for the furst time, but I use my old AOL account for normal emails with Dommes. That way, I get the security when I need it, but the convenience of a better overall platform for "normal" communication (not that AOL is great).

I have both apps on my phone and get notified when emails come in to either account so I don't have to check both accounts constantly (but again, your volume is probably much higher than mine).

IMAO, pre-FOSTA panic and it beoming the "thing to do" to protect yourself from thibgs like mass data gathering was the reason.

I think the reality of FOSTA has set in and most of the negative impacts actually are based on how people and companies acted in the pre-FOSTA panic days than anyone actually being prosecuted or sued under the law.

Asp

(IMAO - In my arrogant opinion)

I use ProtonMail for my (ahem!) "dirty work," but that's a very small volume of e-mail. Sometimes I go two months or more without sending or receiving a message at that address. If I had the volume of mail in ProtonMail that I get on my "real person" account, I'd have a hard time keeping up with all the deletions, junk and spam.

My solution of "don't receive or send a lot of e-mail" works for me, but I can see where it wouldn't work as a business account. I don't know if the paid version gives you the flexibility of multiple folders and self-sorting. I was disappointed that it (the free version) didn't have that feature, but like I say, I don't have enough traffic to warrant the conveniences of my regular mail client.

By the way, I use Thunderbird for my regular e-mail and it works great when it works, but it crashes every few days. As far as I know it hasn't lost any of my mail, but I can't be sure.

And here I thought that meant In my amateur opinion.

I think it was a SESTA/FOSTA reaction.

And the crypto algorithms really are good -- they can't break them. But when you send a message, there are so many links in the chain, and many of the other links are weak. There's your computer or your phone, the operating system, your internet provider, the backbone carriers who route the traffic through the internet, etc.

I mean, as dumb as it sounds, if someone with protonmail is corresponding with a gmail person, they can just serve google with a subpoena for the other person's account.

Google is very secure, although they will comply with the law and honor warrants.

But in the real world a derranged sub or ex is probably more of a threat to a domme than the government, and a gmail account protected by a yubikey is almost certainly more secure than a protonmail account.

I think about Reality Winner a lot. In the time after Snowden made his leaks and was lionized, lots of reporters were setting up secure drops, telling people to use GPG, etc. They told people that if they used those tools they'd be safe. Reality Winner trusted those promises, and she went to jail.

If there's something that's going to put you in jail, or end your marriage, don't do it. If you really feel you must do it, be fucking careful, and don't put blind trust in comptuer security.

We see banks, big companies, governments, political campaigns, getting hacked all the time. Security is hard, and almost no one is very good at it. I'm certainly not.

My understanding (which could be totally wrong) is that if you set the email to be encrypted then it doesn't actually get stored in gmail in a way that gmail can read it either so warrant to them doesn't hurt.

It usually is... But, it was me and I am a professional baby!!!

Oh! That actually makes a lot of sense. Good to know.


And yes, FOSTA/SESTA really did a number on everyone. The fact that they offer a combo with VPN may have been part of the appeal as well.

Or a ProtonMail Account with two-factor (YubiKey or other).

Yes, the encryption uses the password/passphrase, and even if and especially if you reset it you will still not be able to access the data.

However I suspect they insert intentional flaws/back doors, much like has been long suspected for Microsoft's Drive Encryption in order to protect themselves in a worst case scenario.

po

Old School, fat mail client ? I typically prefer cloud now and only use the thick client for work (office 365) Thunderbird to do data migration when I'm moving emails around.

po

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.