# Proton Proton is a Swiss company (Proton AG, Geneva, founded 2014 by CERN scientists) that builds an end-to-end encrypted alternative to the Google and Microsoft suites. One account, one subscription, several apps that share the same encryption model: the servers store ciphertext, the keys live with you, and Proton itself cannot read your data. The apps are open source and independently audited, and the company is owned by a non-profit foundation since 2024, which is the part I find most reassuring about its long-term incentives. The suite, as of September 2026: | App | What it replaces | Note | |---|---|---| | [[Proton Mail]] | Gmail, Outlook | plus Proton Calendar | | [[Proton Drive]] | Google Drive, Dropbox | plus Proton Docs and Sheets | | [[Proton Pass]] | 1Password, Bitwarden | plus hide-my-email aliases (SimpleLogin) | | [[Proton VPN]] | any commercial VPN | the only one with a real free tier | | Proton Authenticator | Google Authenticator, Authy | 2FA codes, synced and backed up | | Proton Wallet | | self-custody Bitcoin wallet | | Lumo | ChatGPT | privacy-first AI assistant, no logs, no training on your chats | Everything shares one identity, one encryption key hierarchy, and one Swiss legal jurisdiction (Swiss privacy law, outside EU and US data-sharing agreements, no mandatory data-retention for email). That is the pitch in one line: stop trusting a dozen vendors with a dozen policies and trust one whose business model is that it can't read your stuff. ## Why I care Two of my recurring themes converge here: [[Data Ownership]] and running my machines on [[Omarchy]]. Proton is one of the few suites where the Linux story is real: native VPN packages in the [[Arch Linux]] repos, a desktop Mail app, Pass on Linux with a CLI, Mail Bridge for Thunderbird, and a Drive CLI (the Drive GUI for Linux is the last missing piece, in development). The trade-off is the usual one for end-to-end encryption: no server-side search inside encrypted content, integrations only through Proton's own bridges and APIs, and a smaller third-party ecosystem than Google's. You pay for the privacy in convenience, not in money. ## References - Website: https://proton.me/ - Proton Foundation: https://proton.me/about - Open source: https://proton.me/community/open-source - Blog: https://proton.me/blog ## Related - [[Proton Mail]] - [[Proton Drive]] - [[Proton Pass]] - [[Proton VPN]] - [[Data Ownership]] - [[Omarchy]] - [[Arch Linux]] - [[Virtual Private Network (VPN)]]