Background

At the end of July, I joined a Proton Family Plan group share, each person paying $48 annually—a bit pricey. Writing a review for friends who want to subscribe later.

Proton VPN

Without a frontend proxy, Proton VPN may not connect. Without using a frontend proxy, I can successfully connect to Hong Kong, Japan, etc., but can’t guarantee direct connection to other regions.

Recommended to use through soft router frontend connection, or Proton VPN supported region Windows VPS.

The impressive point about the Android App is its custom app icon. Disguised icons are interesting.

Proton VPN isn’t necessarily paid to use—there’s a free version. Paid version has more features than free.

Friends with streaming needs should note—Proton VPN paid version unlocks streaming.

Paid version has 6000+ VPN nodes—dazzling.

Briefly tried some US IPs. The best was US New Jersey Proton VPN access point. The image below shows what can only be called pseudo-residential. My IP purity requirements: prioritize native IP > broadcast IP, then consider residential IP > datacenter IP if possible.

Group share users say using Proton VPN for AI service landing is very stable. Their usage experience can be referenced.

Proton Mail

For email, the entire family group can have 3 custom domains. Group share users urgently needed them, plus I already have MXroute custom domain email, so I didn’t take one—left it for users who need it.

My Proton email addresses are two: one with proton.me suffix [[email protected]], another with pm.me suffix [[email protected]], welcome to ‘bother’ me 😂.

Two is enough for me. Adding new email addresses requires admin operation—can’t add from your own email settings unless the group owner sets you as admin. [15 email addresses per person, 6 people total have 90 email addresses]

Adding this email to Thunderbird requires downloading Proton Mail Bridge. It adds end-to-end encryption for Thunderbird.

Proton Pass

Seems they had a free 1-year event at the end of last year—registered a new account to freeload then. But barely stored any passwords. I store passwords in self-hosted Vaultwarden, not planning to migrate to Proton Pass. Vaultwarden + Google Authenticator is enough.

Proton Drive

Default 500GB storage per person. 6 people evenly split 3TB plan storage.

Can’t think of what to store inside. After all, Google Drive, OneDrive, TG private channel, NextCloud, high-storage VPS, etc., are enough for me.

Privacy-focused cloud storage feels less reassuring than local storage.

This 500GB will probably gather dust. Maybe someday I’ll feel like throwing some stuff in. 😄

Proton Calendar && Proton Wallet

Won’t review these. Calendar and wallet are basically useless to me.

Conclusion

Proton.me’s products focus on privacy. Sometimes I reflect on whether I actually care about my privacy. Seems I don’t—if I did, I wouldn’t have named my website after Ruan Yifeng’s web journal.

Baidu CEO Robin Li once said: “Chinese people are willing to exchange privacy for convenience.” First time hearing this gave me another reason to dislike Baidu products, but hearing it more, I actually feel it’s true. If I cared about privacy, I’d expose as little personal information as possible from the first moment online, and wouldn’t register domains using my name’s pinyin…

Looking at Proton.me official website materials and internet searches, it’s clear Proton.me is actually anti-China. The founder was born in Taiwan—say no more, those who understand understand. Those interested can search themselves. Sometimes I think censorship is necessary, sometimes I want to break through it—in this contradictory mental collision, I deepen my understanding of censorship.

Overall, Proton.me products are quite good. Proton VPN, Proton Mail, Proton Pass, Proton Drive are all noteworthy. Interested friends can find a group share to try out.