Proton Mail

Proton Mail (previously written as ProtonMail) is a Swiss end-to-end encrypted email service founded in 2013 headquartered in Plan-les-Ouates, Switzerland. It uses client-side encryption to protect email content and user data before they are sent to Proton Mail servers, unlike other common email providers such as Gmail and Outlook.com. The service can be accessed through a webmail client, the Tor network, or dedicated iOS and Android apps. Proton Mail is run by Proton AG (formerly Proton Technologies), which is based in Plan-les-Ouates, Switzerland. The company also operates Proton VPN, Proton Drive and Proton Calendar. Proton Mail received initial funding through a crowdfunding campaign. Although the default account setup is free, the service is sustained by optional paid services. Initial membership was by invitation only; however, beginning in March 2016, Proton Mail was opened to the public. Acquiring more than 2 million users by 2017, membership grew to almost 70 million by 2022. History On May 16, 2014, Proton Mail entered into public beta. It was met with enough response that after three days they needed to temporarily suspend beta signups to expand server capacity. Two months later, Proton Mail received from 10,576 donors through a crowdfunding campaign on Indiegogo, while aiming for . During the campaign, PayPal froze Proton Mail's PayPal account, thereby preventing the withdrawal of worth of donations. PayPal stated that the account was frozen due to doubts of the legality of encryption, statements that opponents said were unfounded. The restrictions were lifted the following day. On March 18, 2015, Proton Mail received from the non-profit Fondation Genevoise pour l'Innovation Technologique (FONGIT) and Charles River Ventures, although by 2022, the company no longer had venture capital investors. On 14 August 2015, Proton Mail released major version 2.0, which included a rewritten codebase for its web interface. On 17 March 2016, Proton Mail released major version 3.0, which saw the official launch of Proton Mail out of beta. With a new interface for the web client, version 3.0 also included the public launch of Proton Mail's iOS and Android beta applications.