While it doesn’t protect from Google’s anti-privacy tactics, the proton Mail app does strip third party tracking from emails, which can be helpful.
Many companies use a single pixel transparent image (or similar) to identify whether a user has opened an email. They can then build a profile on which emails you opened vs left unread even if you didn’t click anything.
Proton as an email frontend tries to prevent that kind of third party tracking. It also prevents Google from knowing things like how many times you open an email, how much time you look at it, etc.
It’s not revolutionary, and it certainly doesn’t remove the harms of staying with Gmail, but it’s not pointless.
Yeah for real. I’ve been thinking about switching to Proton. Now, instead of switching everything all at once (read: change the email associated to all my accounts across various websites), I can switch a few to get started and still have all my email in one place until I feel like doing the rest. That makes the task seem a lot less daunting.
But what’s the point of this?
While it doesn’t protect from Google’s anti-privacy tactics, the proton Mail app does strip third party tracking from emails, which can be helpful.
Many companies use a single pixel transparent image (or similar) to identify whether a user has opened an email. They can then build a profile on which emails you opened vs left unread even if you didn’t click anything.
Proton as an email frontend tries to prevent that kind of third party tracking. It also prevents Google from knowing things like how many times you open an email, how much time you look at it, etc.
It’s not revolutionary, and it certainly doesn’t remove the harms of staying with Gmail, but it’s not pointless.
It helps make the transition smoother for people.
Which the post explains quite well.
Yeah for real. I’ve been thinking about switching to Proton. Now, instead of switching everything all at once (read: change the email associated to all my accounts across various websites), I can switch a few to get started and still have all my email in one place until I feel like doing the rest. That makes the task seem a lot less daunting.
To be frank, it also pauses the transition. The gmail address will remain the façade because no one even sees the proton address this way.
I fins the University email use case mentioned above a better one.