Only partial happy with Proton unlimited

VPN
1

After using iOS for 15 years i switched over to an android phone with GrapheneOS.

To handle email, calendar, an cloud based drive, and contacts sync I subscribed to proton unlimited.

The mail service and the vpn is good, no question.

But its really hard to work productive with, calendar, contacts and drive because they can’t set as default app neither on my Mac nor on my android phone. Therefore I have to use a secondary calendar and a secondary service to sync my contact which makes it useless to use those services from Proton. But I have to use Proton contacts, because Proton Mail does not have access to my main contact app…

Locations I added to my schedules in Proton calendar don’t open my navigation app automatically. Even in the free etar calendar this works.

I can’t create a schedule when clicking on a link someone send me on Signal…

Proton drive is terrible slow and does not show previews of fotos or videos (even not from small ones with less than 20mb) proper.

On proton drive android I can create a new document, but not on proton drive macOS.

Just to name a few of the massive shortcomings.

All of your services except mail and vpn are only half baked not not ready for a professional usage.

BTW it doesn’t help me at all when your support tells me you are working on that (some of them are requested for years!). With a little bit of vision you should have created good working apps before you launch them.

My experience says to me, that all the promises companies say like “our developers are aware of that and working on it” or “this is on our road map, but we don’t have an eta” are in 99% just marketing.

BTW: a closed system is security wise a good thing and besides that you critisised Apple a lot for having a closed system, but I have to WORK with your services.

My subscription ends in 10 month. So enough time to proof that I’m not right and you really add the (longtime) promised and highly recommended features.

Otherwise, I have to say goodbye, sorry.

Cheers!

2

Hey, a few comments about this.

Regarding setting calendar default on Apple devices and Android devices, this is where antitrust regulation (something I feel strongly about) is truly necessary.

On Apple devices, it is simply not possible to set another calendar as the default. Apple does not support this functionality to lock people into the Apple ecosystem. It is not really possible on Android either, the only way is to disable the system default, so that next time you click on a calendar file or link, the OS might prompt you to pick an application. We’re currently working with regulators in the EU and the US to try to make this possible, and we’re fairly confident we’re going to get this (at least in the EU due to the Digital Markets Act).

A few other updates.

Two way sync on contacts will be after the v7 version of Proton Mail mobile apps, which are coming later this year.

For the best Proton Drive performance, make sure you have the latest version. Users have reported it is much much faster, see here: https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonDrive/comments/1if1iw2/proton_photos_in_android_loading_very_fast_after/

macOS not able to create a document in Proton Drive, this is coming after the v2 of Proton Drive for macOS comes out, hopefully later this month (this is also a massive performance increase release). However, we will follow Google Drive’s approach and open the browser when the user right clicks and selects to create a Proton Docs from their local file system.

Final note. GrapheneOS is not an operating system that is part of our current test suite, so if you use Graphene, certain things just might not work properly. Ideally we would support Graphene better (and actually the Proton Foundation is one of the donors to the Graphene project), but it’s hard to prioritize at this time since it is not widely used even among the Proton userbase. Graphene also struggles with a number of Android related issues, caused by Google just intentionally making life difficult, which is unfortunate as well (and part of the reason we’re deeply engaged on the antitrust fight, since that may fix this).

3

Agree with you 100%.

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I agree with everything you say except with the following wrong statement/belief “a closed system is security wise a good thin” as it’s completely false. It has been proven many time already. Arguments sounds in favor or closed sources, but overall, it’s way weaker than open sources ones.

6

Convenience is the enemy of privacy. For my Graphene set up I use Fastmail, Mullvad and bitwarden along with self hosted Immich. Fastmail Drive is fine for my limited use.

7

completely agree with everything you said. I can only in good conscience recommend the mail and vpn service. I make do with drive but honestly its very slow and buggy.

8

I’m in the same spot. Good VPN and email service, terrible photo and files management.

After a week, I’m still waiting for my photo backup to end, even with a super fast fiber connection. Previewing items takes ages, no folders, upload is broken…

9

So many of these types of posts with no appreciation of how software development and deployment actually works. Version 1 of any product is hardly complete, it’s an iterative process. If the features available today don’t meet your needs, don’t use them. There’s no magic wand in software development. I can’t wait for Proton Drive to be more feature rich, but it’s not so, for me, it’s not helpful today. Proton Mail and VPN are fantastic now and that’s what I use.

10

Thanks a lot for your comments. This really makes me hope (I don’t want to go away from proton)

And I appreciate a lot, that the CEO took some time to write a reply!

11

Why Mullvad instead of ProtonVPN?

12

Sounds like a good setup, but I need cloud service for syncing files and documents also

13

Don’t forget that is all part of one subscription. Calender, Drive etc are not free addons.

14

Sorry but that doesn’t make any sense!

Version 1 is incomplete → you don’t sell it and you won’t have dissatisfied clients

As simple as that! You sell the VPN, you sell the email, and you offer storage as a “beta” feature untill it simply works as it should

15

Product development is indeed iterative. However, Version 1 of any commercial product is a working product, not a beta.

Mind that Drive is two years old, Calendar older and in all this time they haven’t been able to produce a truly working product with basic features.

It was so bad that they had to entirely redesign Drive on Mac, hope it comes out this month as per Andy’s post.

Also don’t forget that there is not a Drive app on Linux. After two whole years. Simply not right.

16

If they’re paying for just Mail from Proton, I believe Mullvad VPN is a little cheaper than Proton VPN. Personally I use that setup but with Proton VPN (and Tuta Calendar).

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19

For me, they are. I didn’t subscribe for Calendar and Drive and I’m not sure who would subscribe for just those apps. It’s a great value for private mail and VPN.

20

If you are ok with that, fine. I’m not. If I pay for several services in one subscription, I expect the same quality for all parts.