Proton Rolls Out Redesigned 'ProtonMail Bridge' to Paid Customers

ProtonMail Bridge is being updated with a completely redesigned user interface for ease of use. It gradually rolls out to paid users starting today.

This new version of ProtonMail Bridge is packed with fixes and improvements, but the main change is the new local cache, which now includes full message bodies. This means ProtonMail Bridge stores messages encrypted on your device, so they can be retrieved much faster than when stored remotely on our servers. You can control your cache using the Advanced settings.

ProtonMail 1.15.11 Update Fixes Bugs With Push Notifications

The ProtonMail 1.15.11 update for iOS fixes a slew of bugs that users were experiencing. From the version notes: Fixed a bug where push notifications where not received properly. Fixed an occasional bug where swipe actions in the inbox were applied to the wrong message. Fixed an occasional bug where the reply, reply all and forward option did not work on some messages.  Fixed an occasional bug during signup where the prompt for captcha was not fully visible. Fixed a bug where contacts migrated through the Proton Easy Switch functionality were not properly displayed. Preparation for upcoming change to exclude embedded images from counting towards attachments. Technical improvements behind the scenes (including updates to the cryptographic library, improvements related to key management and password changes and more).

ProtonMail Now Blocks Tracking Pixels and Hides Your IP address

ProtonMail now blocks tracking pixels and hides your IP address, the company announced on Wednesday. The web app is mentioned so these features may not be present in the mobile apps.

By default, ProtonMail on the web now protects your privacy by: Blocking tracking pixels commonly found in newsletters and promotional emails, preventing senders from spying on your mail. Hiding your IP address from third parties so your location remains private.

Update: A ProtonMail spokesperson confirmed that this is indeed only for the web app, and expanding it to the mobile apps is part of development plans.

Import and Export ProtonMail With This New Tool

Proton released a new tool that lets you import and export ProtonMail. It’s available to paying customers to help you migrate from other email services.

Like all Proton apps, the Import-Export app’s code is open source, which allows anyone to verify its code for themselves. This level of transparency is necessary so that users can be confident their privacy is protected. It also makes it easier for cybersecurity experts to perform checks and audits of our apps, increasing their overall security.

ProtonDrive’s End-to-End Encryption Security Revealed

ProtonDrive (from the makers of ProtonMail and ProtonVPN) is in the final stages of development before it gets a beta launch later in 2020. The team revealed its end-to-end encryption security in a blog post.

Files and folders are arranged in a tree structure. Therefore, there is a recurring pattern where a file or folder’s asymmetric key is locked with a passphrase, which in turn is encrypted with the asymmetric key of their parent folder. All passphrases are signed with the address key of the user, without which a malicious server could forge the contents of the tree.

ProtonMail Users Get Free Storage, ProtonVPN Gets More Servers

Proton is giving users additional storage for ProtonMail at no extra cost, and added 53 additional ProtonVPN servers in 17 countries.

In these turbulent times, we’re reminded of the importance of community and solidarity. With this in mind, we wanted to do our part to help support both the Proton community and others around the world who need support to confront this crisis.

It’s great to see Proton do this. Since it mentions the experimental ProtonDrive product coming in the future, it sounds like this extra storage is permanent.

The ProtonMail iOS App is Now Fully Open Source

Since 2015 ProtonMail’s web app has been open source, and today the company announced that its iOS app is, too.

In addition to making our iOS app open source, we have also documented and published our iOS security model. This is important to us because raw code without documentation can be almost unintelligible sometimes, and a documented security model will assist in rigorous assessment and review of our code by the public. Our iOS trust model is also available on our Github page.

New ProtonMail Anti-Phishing Feature Makes You Confirm

For the past several days I’ve seen a new dialog box whenever I tap on a link in ProtonMail for iOS. It turns out that it’s a new ProtonMail anti-phishing feature.

Another security improvement is our new link confirmation modal, which is now enabled by default on all our apps. This anti-phishing feature helps you avoid opening a link by mistake or going to a different page than you intended.

ProtonMail Bridge Lets You Use Apple Mail as a Client

ProtonMail is an end-to-end encrypted email service based in Switzerland. Since its debut, it has become a viable email service for those wanting email security. Until now, you could only access your ProtonMail account via the web app, and an iOS app. But ProtonMail Bridge finally lets you bring it to the desktop. Bridge acts as a local email server using IMAP and SMTP. It runs in the background and interacts with email clients on your computer. All encryption and decryption happens locally. Benefits include full text search, multiple accounts, and import/export of emails. It uses JavaScript cryptography, and is open source. The software is only available for users with paid accounts, however. You can download it here.