> This comment seems to conflate resistance to mass surveillance with resistance to targeted surveillance.
ProtonMail doesn't meaningfully address the mass surveillance aspect, though. Most emails still hit its servers in plain-text form. Encrypting once it hits their server doesn't help the mass surveillance aspect, it only helps the targeted surveillance when a warrant comes in.
And if you're willing/able to get everyone that emails you to switch to PGP to get real end-to-end encryption then protonmail is worth even less, since none of their benefits matter anymore (google is obviously not able to decrypt your PGP emails, either).
And sadly - if someone emails a PGP encrypted mail to a protommail address using a key the recipient knows but protonmail doesn't - it doesn't work. Protonmail gives an "unable to decrypt" error, and doesn't hand over the encrypted body...
For me - I think they're useful protecting against dragnet "full take" surveillance (especially since I'm a non-US citizen, so am considered "fair game" for warrantless surveillance), but I don't for a moment think they'll protect me from any sort of state actor level interest targeting me specifically (I'm still gonna get Mossad`ed upon...)
(In more paranoid moments, I suspect that the first "dragnet" protection quite probably makes the second "targeted interest in _me_" more likely...)
ProtonMail doesn't meaningfully address the mass surveillance aspect, though. Most emails still hit its servers in plain-text form. Encrypting once it hits their server doesn't help the mass surveillance aspect, it only helps the targeted surveillance when a warrant comes in.
And if you're willing/able to get everyone that emails you to switch to PGP to get real end-to-end encryption then protonmail is worth even less, since none of their benefits matter anymore (google is obviously not able to decrypt your PGP emails, either).