ProtonMail End-to-End Encrypted Email App Now Available to All on Android, iOS

If you don't want governments - or any unauthorised person - to read your email, you will want to try out the ProtonMail encrypted email service. Developed by enthusiasts from MIT and CERN, the Switzerland-based free email client announced this week that its Android and iPhone apps are now out of beta and available to all.

In the light of revelations made by the whistleblower Edward Snowden, in 2014, developers and privacy advocates united to make an email client that nobody could eavesdrop on. The email client in question, ProtonMail, was until now available on an invite-only basis. That's changing now.

The Geneva-based company says that ProtonMail offers end-to-end encryption, and insists that no unauthorised eyes will be able to read your conversations. Additionally, ProtonMail utilises a segregated authentication and decryption system, which forces a ProtonMail private email account to require two passwords. Here's how the company explains it.

The first password is used to verify the identity of the user. After that, encrypted data can be retrieved. The second password is a decryption password which is never sent to us. It is used to decrypt data on your device so we do not have access to the decrypted data, or the decryption password. This means we cannot hand over your data to third parties."

"The best way to defend our right to privacy is to get the necessary tools out to the general public as quickly as possible, and put the decision into the hands of the people and not governments," the company wrote in a blog post.

The demand for a secure email has been hitting the roof ever since Snowden revealed the existence of government-led programs such as Prism that were performing mass surveillance both domestically and internationally. Soon after ProtonMail released the app as beta in 2014, it said it received an "overwhelming demand" with signups exceeding 10,000 per day.

It has been a long journey to get here over the past two years, and not without some difficulty. However, thanks to your support, from our initial crowdfunding campaign, to the continued donations over the past two years, we have been able to overcome many challenges to get to this moment. With your support, we anticipate that ProtonMail will continue to grow and get even better in the coming years.

There were several motivations behind our decision to open up ProtonMail. We have seen in the past couple years, an increasing trend towards more and more surveillance around the world. Whether it is CISA in the US, the Investigatory Powers Bill in the UK, or even the recent FBI case against Apple, the forces working to undermine online privacy are growing. We understand that governments have concerns when it comes to terrorism and encryption, but undermining our collective security by weakening cryptography is the wrong approach. Whether we admit it or not, we are now in the middle of a second crypto war.

It is clear that if people around the world don’t stand up for privacy now, this right will be stripped from us. However, this fight is winnable if we stand together as we saw in Switzerland this winter. Today, even Apple, the world’s largest tech company has moved towards the side of greater privacy protections. This is why opening up ProtonMail to the world is more important now than ever. The best way to defend our right to privacy is to get the necessary tools out to the general public as quickly as possible, and put the decision into the hands of the people and not governments.

This is why we are committed to keeping ProtonMail free for the community. In order to do this, your support is absolutely essential. With the launch today and the millions of new users who will be joining our community, ProtonMail’s operational expenses will also greatly increase. This means we will absolutely need more users to upgrade to paid accounts (or donating) so we have the financial resources to support our growing community.

Unlike companies like Google and Facebook who abuse user privacy to sell advertisements, ProtonMail is entirely dependent on users upgrading to paid accounts to cover expenses. Without this support, the project would not be able to operate. We hope enough of you will support us in this mission so we can continue to protect online privacy.