I bought Proton Unlimited, and I kinda regret it

VPN
1

So let me just make it clear that I think that Proton is an awesome company, and I really think that they’re products are cool. I do however have a lot of problems with them.

​

Proton Mail:

So Proton Mail’s web app is fantastic. It is probably the best web app for email that I have ever used, so no complaints there at all. It is however a different story on iOS. I feel like the app on iOS is slow and very buggy. Almost all the time after opening the app, I have to wait approximately 10 seconds before I can use the app due to some loading screen (I have already made a post about this). Many times the app icon displays that I have an unread email, even though moments before I just read the email I received. And a lot of the time the app also displays “1 unread” in my inbox, even though all the mails have been read.

​

Proton Calendar:

The calendar’s web app is also really great. It is a bit slow sometimes, but I am aware of the fact that the browser has to decrypt everything. But why can I not even reorder my calendars in a preferred order? Why can I not even create calendars in the iOS app? And why can I not see week numbers in the iOS app? (which is essential for me).

This product seems too sluggish and unfinished in my opinion (on iOS).

​

Proton Drive:

I have not really used Proton Drive as much as the other products, so I can not really say as much about it. For me the web app and iOS app seem okay enough.

​

Proton VPN:

So Proton VPN is very good on iOS in my opinion, no complaints there. I do however have some problems on macOS. The VPN will sometimes lose its connection, and when that happens all internet connection on my Mac is just gone. I can not reconnect to any server, and even if I close the VPN completely I will still not have any internet connection. The only way to obtain an internet connection again is to restart my Mac. I have seen other people post about this in the Proton VPN subreddit, so I know that I’m not the only one with this problem.

There are also certain times where I am connected to the VPN and everything works great, but then I want to switch to a different server. And when I try to connect to a different server, the VPN loads a bit longer than normal and ends with something like “Connection failed”. After that the VPN just disconnects me completely, and I am now not connected to any server, hence leaking my IP address.

​

I have reported all the annoyances in the apps, so hopefully they will get fixed some day. And I know that this post probably will get a lot of dislikes, but I just want to point out that the purpose of this post is not just to complain and roast all the products. I just want to ask the community if I am the only one with these kinds of issues? Am I the only one that has a weird feeling about paying a premium price and then receiving products with very noticeable bugs and lack of quality?

2

Just downgrade. They will prorate your money without a problem. I did it. I will go back to the more expensive plan what I need has been added/fixed.

3

Proton definitely has its downsides. I know these comments won’t jive well on this sub, but it’s far from being a complete service and sacrifices must be made to be a happy user. The UI’s are very nice and honestly better than the big providers, but there are huge issues with offering a complete feature set. I mean you can’t even change the font of text in iOS which is honestly pretty pathetic. When you copy and paste in text from another app, the formatting of your email is all messed up.

With all that said, in terms of managed encryption, it is the best option from what I’ve seen, if you’re willing to let the incomplete service slide. Proton bundling all the other services like Drive and VPN in make it more worthwhile.

4

Personally, I use Proton services only for the Mail app. It goes beautifully with e-mail clients like eM client and Mailspring.

For a VPN, I use iVPN since it is superior than ProtonVPN in my opinion and Raivo for an authenticator. For everything else, I just use NextCloud. NextCloud has a calendar that integrates with Apple Calendar (or whatever you prefer using) and a cloud storage. Syncthing for a backup. You can run your next cloud on seedit4me if you prefer not to host it yourself.

5

I also subscribe and I feel the same.
The odds are that I won’t renew my subscription after it ends…

Mail iOS APP : too slow to start and load.

VPN: ip reputation issues and ipv6 support.

Drive: I don’t use it often.

6

The biggest downside for me is the lack of a drive synchronisation application for the computer.

The email service is great, I like the webmail app, it works well, the iOs app is mediocre, it works but is a bit slow to open.

The calendar is pretty simple, maybe too simple, you can’t even turn off the display of the days of the whole month at the top (wtf?), but for now I don’t use a calendar myself, the same goes for Google, so it’s not a big problem for me.

Drive is… ok on mobile, but it lacks features like integration for sharing directly from other apps, the 10 photo upload limitation, it’s sometimes slow, for some reason it sometimes doesn’t sync with the web client (I delete some files and they stay on the phone for minutes…).

But the biggest problem for me is the desktop sync app, I cancelled my Google One subscription and need an alternative for a backup, but I trust Proton and like its vision, and I don’t want to upload my files to another big or untrustworthy company like Mega or something. I hope summer will come quickly at least for the Windows client.

Vpn, I use it on my phone, and it works great, but I have some problems when I switch from 4G to home wifi, especially during the night when I have the phone a bit further away from the router and I don’t get wifi extremely well, and for some reason I can’t find Whatsapp push notifications, for example.
I pay the monthly subscription, because I don’t want to pay for a whole year and I hate when the change from monthly to annual increases so much (like Maxon subscriptions, it increases by almost double), for what I am using now, 11.99€ is a lot.

7

I think the issue with proton is that they keep releasing new apps/services and not completing/fixing bugs of older services. The more apps they have the more bugs/issues users will raise. Some apps are even missing basic functionality. I’m slightly concerned they don’t have enough devs/engineers to keep up.

8

I don’t understand the macOS vpn problem, I’ve been using it daily for 3 years without any issue, no issue at all. Never. And I frequently switch between different countries, I also often use secure core.

9

Hi u/Confident-Salad-839,I’m thinking of diving into the Proton suite of services. Currently use Mail and happy with it.

Have your complaints change in the year since you originally posted? I’m wondering if they’ve made improvements since then. Thanks!

10

I love it. I’ve been a paying member for years and recently upgraded to Visionary. I use the Bridge on Windows and Linux without any issue and the Calendar on Thunderbird. I use the Drive as a backup for important files. I use Proton Pas and Simplelogin for almost everything. I can’t believe I get so much for so little.

11

Yeah… I’ve downgraded to just mail. Proton VPN on iOS had the exact issue you’re describing on your Mac. I recently went on a whole tirade about the state of Proton Calendar for iOS on this sub. Proton Drive was basically useless without a proper sync app for desktops. So I downgraded.

I went back to using it as an email provider. Proton does a good job at that. Can’t take that away from them And calendars too, as I’m back on my Android device and Calendar is much more feature complete there. Yay. But that’s it. For my VPN, I switched to Mullvad. It’s simple and reliable.

12

I am using proton mail and on android with the calendar et cetera.

​

I love it.

13

I have every faith the drive will be a great product, when we get background syncing apps. The VPN and calendar are rubbish, in my experience. I’ve paid for mail for the last 6 years, and will keep on doing so, but I see no value in the unlimited tier, as yet.

14

I absolutely regret it. I won’t renew. I’ll just downgrade to email when my sub is up in a few months

15

Same, i have already moved to other products, i have paid 2 years in advance, 6 months have passed and now i am talking with support to see how can I downgrade/cancel, everything feels half baked…

16

i also regret my choice of proton mail. I paid for 3 years, and less than a year into the term I have already had major issues with them. their support is absoluteily awful, and they have been having more and more outages every day now.