Don’t get phished: encrypt your email with Proton Mail

By 2023, more than 4 billion people around the world will use email. No other platform even comes close to email’s reach. Although email is effective and important, it is not very secure. We’ve almost become accustomed to phishing attempts, spam, scams, or spyware polluting our inbox every day. until hack In your email inbox apparently it’s not that difficult. There can be readers at every intermediate step of email traffic. If you value your privacy, it would be safe to use a provider like Proton, which does not collect data, IP addresses, or record logs.

Provider website

What should you consider when choosing a secure email provider? One of the most important criteria is the server location. Some countries, including the United States and China, systematically collect and share information they retrieve from email servers.

Tech companies also exploit our personal data, no matter how trivial it may seem. They claim to do this to improve our ease of use. For example, Google scans the contents of your email to provide features like Smart Reply. Google analyzes the content of your inbox using artificial intelligence and automatically suggests some possible answers.

Therefore, if you are not only worried about hackers, but also about interference from the authorities, it is better to use an email provider based in Switzerland, Germany, Sweden, Netherlands or Belgium. Privacy laws in these countries are more stringent than those in the United States. Meta, the parent company of Facebook, saw this happen in May of this year when it was fined $1.3 billion for transferring data from European users to servers in the United States.

Proton Mail Subscriptions

To install Proton Mail, it is best to go to www.proton.me/mail. There you use the button at the top right Create a free account. There are three subscriptions for individual users.

The basic account is free. You’ll receive 1GB total storage, a free email address, and you can send 150 messages per day. You also have three calendars at your disposal and can share encrypted files. Proton Mail also encrypts your attachments end to end.

With paid subscriptions you obviously have more options. A Mail Plus account, for example, costs €3.99 per month, which gives you 15GB of storage, 10 email addresses, you can send unlimited messages, and you have 25 calendars where you can also share your agenda.

We start with the free account. Then you perform the registration procedures. You choose a username, password, recovery email address, and recovery phone number. The last two options are not mandatory, but are useful in case you forget your password.

Web environment

You will then be taken to your inbox. It looks like any other email program. By the way, it actually contains a number of messages from Proton Mail itself. When you hover over a message, buttons appear to delete, archive, or mark the email as read or unread.

On the left you will see the default folders and by clicking on the plus sign you can create new folders. Below you will find the button Labels. It is possible to name emails, making them easier to find later in the folder structure. Below the Labels button is a plus sign to create new labels, but labels with the same name as folders cannot be created.

At the top right you will see the gear Settings Togo. If you click Go to Settings/Appearance Click, you can change the appearance of this program using different themes. In these settings, you can also set the language of Proton Mail, so the program now works in Dutch. From the web environment, Proton Mail encourages you to install the mobile app. The app works the same way and the data is continuously synced from then on.

Send encrypted messages

By button new message Start a message. Anyone who has ever sent an email will recognize the standard fields and buttons for shaping a message. By clicking on the paper clip at the bottom, you can add an attachment to the message. Type the message and press Sends.

So far, Proton Mail works like any other email program, except for the button Remote encryption Makes a difference. If you click on it, you can enter the password that the recipient will need to open the link to this message. The recipient must of course know the password.

You can also add a hint that helps the recipient know the password. Make the hint a question that only the recipient knows the answer to. This encryption is only useful if you’re sending this message to someone who doesn’t use Proton Mail, because mail circulating among Proton Mail users is automatically encrypted in the background.

Each encrypted message is only available for 28 days. Messages you send to non-Proton Mail users are not end-to-end protected by default, but you can easily set that up.

Self-destructing emails

It is best to send sensitive information with end-to-end encryption. Or better yet, set the email to self-destruct after a certain period of time. In both the mobile and desktop version, it’s easy to send self-destructing emails.

First, use the lock icon to activate end-to-end encryption and set a password. Self-destructing emails only work when end-to-end encryption is used. When you’re done, tap the clock icon below the subject line on your smartphone. On the desktop, use the three-dot button next to the lock icon and select Set expiration time.

The minimum time allowed is 1 hour and the maximum is 28 days. Once you choose the time, you must confirm. The clock icon now has a check mark indicating set time. Then all you have to do is press the send icon (kite).

When the deadline ends

Important: The timer runs from the moment the email is sent, not from the moment the recipient opens the message. So, if you set the time interval to 1 hour, there is a high chance that the recipient will never see it. Once the expiration time is reached, the sender’s message is automatically deleted from the sent folder.

The message also disappears automatically for the recipient, provided they are a Proton Mail user. When it comes to an external user, the email containing a reference to the encrypted message will remain in the recipient’s mailbox. The message itself and any attachments will actually be deleted. Proton Mail does not work with read receipt. So you don’t know whether the recipient opened the message or not.

You can also set an expiration date in Gmail. Read how to do it This article.

Decode messages

As a recipient, you will receive a message from Proton that there is an encrypted email waiting for you. You can read the expiration date or expiration time, and perhaps a password hint.

By button Open the message A pop-up window opens in Proton Mail where you can enter the password. You can then open the message as well as the attachment. The button is located at the top right Answer safely. This way you can send a secure reply to the sender, with an attachment if necessary.

People you emailed will automatically be added to your contacts. When you create a new message, you will see the button Contacts To stand. Here you add new contacts and select a contact as the recipient of a new email. Creating groups only works on a paid account.

Other safety features

The settings are quite extensive, but not all of them are available in the free version. Choice is important Account and passwordWhere to find Two-step verification (2FA) can be activated. This means that someone who steals your password simply cannot access your email. So another form of authentication is needed. One factor is the password. The other factor is your mobile phone on which you receive a one-time code linked to your username and password.

bee Security and privacy You can read accounts that were recently active. For example, if you read that your Proton Mail account has been used on a device you don’t recognize, you can revoke that authorization here.

You will find it below Security log It states the exact login time and why the login attempt failed – for example, because an incorrect password was used.

The option is very interesting Import via Easy Switchwhere you can activate automatic forwarding from Gmail and where you can import emails, calendar, and contacts from another service like Google or Outlook.

And with Identity and addresses It is possible to change your display name and create a signature that will automatically appear at the bottom of your messages.

Broughton Post Bridge

Want to use Proton Security with your regular email client? This can be done through Broughton Post Bridge. This is an open source application that allows you to integrate your Proton Mail account into any program that supports IMAP and SMTP, such as Microsoft Outlook, Apple Mail, and Mozilla Thunderbird.

Bridge runs in the background on your computer and encrypts and decrypts your email as it leaves or enters your computer. Of course, you must first have a Proton Mail account. Furthermore, Proton Mail Bridge only works with a paid account. Then you need to download and install Proton Mail Bridge.

Set up the Proton Mail Bridge

To make Proton Mail Bridge work with Microsoft Outlook, for example, first open Outlook and navigate to the tab File / About / Account Information / Account Settings. This is where you use the button new. Enter your email address and choose Advanced Options. Place a check mark next to it I want to set up my account manually. On the screen Advanced installation I chose Access via IMAP. Here you enter all the account information that will be displayed in the Proton Mail Bridge app.

Confirm and you will be asked to enter your Proton Mail Bridge password twice, once for IMAP and once for SMTP. The password you need to use is automatically generated by Proton Mail Bridge. So you are not allowed to use regular Proton Mail password. These account details can be found in Bridge below Post box details. tap on communicate Once you enter that information. You will receive a security alert that you must acknowledge.

Go back to Account settings Of expectations. Select your Proton Mail account and click modify. Then you choose More settings There you disable these two options: Save a copy of messages in Purge items When switching folders while connected to the Internet. tap on the next. The installation is now complete and Outlook can access the Proton servers.