Wait till you try transparent pngs. It'll be like it should have always been.

For anyone who wants to do this easily: afaik (ymmv) most mail systems will accept aliases to your account if you put a + after your email username. for example, if you're foo@example.com, then foo+bar@example.com would still route to your inbox but you'd be able to see that it was sent to a different address than your own. i do this for any email i put into a website I don't trust (which is most) and if you use the company name it's a really easy way to see who sold your data

Yes that's what SimpleLogin does and its part of the Proton umbrella. You can use your own custom domain or a SimpleLogin domain to create email addresses. It also enables you to send from the custom addresses so the end user never learns your true email address. SimpleLogin also has mobile apps so you can create addresses very easily.

You cannot turn off the proton aliases, one of my aliases (those with +) got compromised and I’m still getting phishing emails on that one. You can create a rule for that mail but you cannot completely disable it. There is also Proton Pass which does the same as SimpleLogin and also stores Passwords. You should check it out as well.

if youre running a full domain, you dont even need to manually create alias' unless you need to reply/send as.

i've found i rarely need to do that, so you can literally just use an email address literally off the top of your head, have it all forwarded to a catch all and youre done. none of this extra service stuff. again, unless you require 'send as/aliasing'.

i think instead the opposite. The backend is the real interesting part, and the only way that we can be sure that "they cannot read the emails" (they arrive in clear, saved with reversible encryption and they have a key for it - if you use their services to commit crimes they will collaborate with the law enforcement agencies like everyone else)

imap/smtp can be toggled with a warning, if that's really their concern. As of now i have the feeling that's instead blocked to keep users inside (no IMAP = no easy migration to somewhere else) or to limit usage (no SMTP = no sending mass email)

i started with the mail basic (10 euro yearly for 10gb) but then because i switched from "secondary email that forwards to gmail" to "primary email that imports from gmail", i had to move to the more expensive plan

Proton has been gradually closing down access to proprietary apps only. After they're done you won't be able to take your email anywhere else.

If you have your own domain you'll be able to host it elsewhere but you would leave behind email, calendar, aliases etc. and restarting from scratch.

At that point "encrypted" starts smelling more like "hostage". It's generally a bad idea to be tied down to a specific email provider.

You could wake up tomorrow to find out Proton has been acquired and the new owners can charge anything yet want for continued service.

The only thing i have done so far is use imap into thunderbird…. All this is valuable. I want to use a self hosted solution but at the moment its all a surface level thought. Thanks a lot for this comment!!

I could but it's pretty simple. You're the owner of that domain. Any accounts/communications with that domain can be traced back to you.

I don't trust anyone. You don't have to trust them. That's the point. Everything is open source and encrypted.

But aside from that they've been audited several times and they have a good reputation in the community.