The smartphone is one of the most invasive devices ever invented. It’s easy to forget that, of course, because we are so familiar with them, and they are so useful. But while you might value your smartphone for the convenience it gives you, tech companies value it for an entirely different reason: it is collecting …

Your web browser is the vehicle that carries you around the Internet to your desired websites. As such, it knows precisely what sites you have visited, how long you spent browsing them, and what you clicked on (or almost clicked on). Anyone who has access to your web browser can have a window into your …

Since we launched in 2014, ProtonMail has been the preferred email service provider for activists around the world. Protecting freedom of speech and democracy is, after all, one of the main reasons we created ProtonMail in the first place. Normally, this would not be of particular interest to anyone: we have always believed that all …

This is a challenging question to answer, but it is also a fair one, so we wanted to share our views about this in a blog post. In general, we strive to make our service require as little trust as possible. We encrypt data in a way that does not allow us to decrypt it, …

Google recently generated a flurry of coverage about its supposed privacy pivot, including an op-ed in The New York Times by chief executive Sundar Pichai. “We feel privileged that billions of people trust products like Search, Chrome, Maps, and Android to help them every day,” Pichai wrote. It’s not that we necessarily trust Google. It’s …

Without end-to-end encryption, Gmail confidential mode is little more than a marketing strategy. Learn why privacy experts call Google’s privacy features “misleading.” When we launched ProtonMail nearly five years ago, we pioneered a new kind of email service: one that gives you control of your own data. All emails are end-to-end encrypted and zero-access encrypted, …

Updated on September 12, 2019. As the blog post referenced by this post has been removed, this post no longer serves a purpose so we have removed it. To remove any doubt, we confirm that ProtonMail has not and does not engage in voluntary real-time surveillance on behalf of law enforcement. We also confirm that …

Small businesses are big targets for hackers, but they still aren’t prepared. Data breaches that make the news usually involve massive corporations with vast datasets. But small businesses must also prevent cyberattacks and data breaches, and most don’t feel prepared. “We lost $10,000 due to a cyberattack on our mainframe in which a hacker was …

For decades, information security experts have tried to get people to create stronger passwords by requiring a minimum length (usually eight characters), plus at least one capital letter, one number, and one special character (like @, #, or !). This strategy is now widely considered to be a failure. Many people simply created an obvious …

Our mission is to promote security, privacy, and freedom on the Internet. That encompasses technical solutions, such as ProtonMail and ProtonVPN, but also policy solutions. The right to privacy and user control of personal data will never be safe unless they are also guaranteed by law. Addressing one without the other is a futile endeavor. …

Improve your online privacy with this comprehensive guide, developed by the ProtonMail team. Here, we’ll help you determine your threat model and take steps to achieve online privacy that meets your needs. Updated July 2019 Total Internet privacy is impossible, but you can get close by adjusting your online behavior — and a few of …

Four years ago, the Pew Research Center, a US think tank, asked hundreds of cybersecurity experts to weigh in on a simple question: “By 2025, will a major cyber-attack have caused widespread harm to a nation’s security and capacity to defend itself and its people?” A majority of the respondents said yes. “Cyber attacks will …