Proton.me

Protonmail's been rebranded as Proton, and their non-mail services promoted. This comes with an updated site, flashy graphics and smart font choices. Their web client is styled with Tailwind and written in TypeScript. It's very nice, and it works well—but I'm not going to use it.

The main reason is that I'm very happy hosting my email with Migadu: the service they provide is simple, powerful, & no-nonsense.

But beyond that, Proton's always seemed a little pushy with the marketing. They claim to provide end-to-end encryption but fail to mention that this only works between Proton accounts (there's no practical way to automatically provide e2e encryption w/, say, Gmail, outside of tools like GPG). Email is built on the transmission of plaintext, so promises about encrypted email tend to ring a little hollow. Proton also don't use open standards like IMAP under the hood—so not only is your email not portable, but you can't bring your own client without using their Proton Bridge application.

Don't get me wrong: if you've been using some megacorp email (Gmail, Outlook, Yahoo) since forever and are looking for a service that won't turn your private data into microtargeted advertisements, Proton is a great option. But buying your own domain and managing email yourself is vastly better.