February 15, 2022 / Lily Collins

ProtonMail Vs Gmail? Best Secure Email Account

Security of email account has always been a major concern for the users, especially for those who use it for carrying out financial transactions and varied official purposes. The concern has now started becoming a worry when recently the news about NSA surveillance and frequent data breaches surfaced all over the world. One of the latest victims of such data breaches were Google+ users. Google revealed that around 5,00,000 Google+ accounts were affected in this breach and they are soon going to completely close this social networking site. This news might have alerted Gmail users a bit and made them consider for another secured email service like ProtonMail.

If you are thinking as to which email service to opt for – Gmail or ProtonMail, perhaps, the following guide might help you.

Comparison Between ProtonMail and Gmail

“Nothing is Perfect” – This quote stands affirmed when it’s about Gmail and ProtonMail. Both these email services come with their own merits and demerits. So, you will need to make choice based on your requirement more than the specification of these email services.

Don’t Want Government Interference?

If you prefer to have utter confidentiality of your email account including the US government’s legal request for accessing your account, you would not want to go with Gmail as they comply with legal requests from US government being a product of a US-based corporation, Alphabet. As per the Transparency Report of Google, it obeys with ten thousand search warrants every year. On the other hand, as ProtonMail is a Switzerland based email service, it doesn’t make US government to potentially have direct legal requests to the company as they do with Gmail.

Worried About Hackers Intruding Your Email Account?

If you feel that hackers may gain access to your email account, then it’s better to go with Gmail. Yes, you may have to compromise with the US government’ watch on your account, but its way better than becoming a victim of hacking. Google is known for having the world’s best engineers in their team when it comes to security (neglecting Google+ fiasco). Gmail’s platform includes more than usual security mechanisms which prevent hackers to think of breach your account. Although ProtonMail’s security is not completely vulnerable as they let users set two-factor authentication on their account and offers an option for setting two separate passwords, however, ProtonMail lacks the use of physical security keys which makes high-risk users’ account to stay vulnerable for sophisticated phishing attack especially intended to overcome two-factor authentication. Therefore, better to be with Gmail than ProtonMail.

Need End-To-End Encryption?

What makes ProtonMail a recognized name in the plethora of emails services is its end-to-end encryption feature. End-to-end encryption allows the user to send email messages that can only be read by the receiver. This is surely one of the selling points of ProtonMail and gives it an advantage over Gmail. However, this feature of ProtonMail works only for the same email service users and which are quite less at present. This means if you wish to send email messages with end-to-end encryption, you will need to go for ProtonMail.

Now, as you know the major differences between ProtonMail and Gmail, you can decide as to which email service can meet your purpose.