Longtime Proton Users Are Leaving Over Broken Promises, AI Hype, and Neglected Features
After more than a decade of building its reputation as the privacy-first alternative to Google and Microsoft, Proton is starting to see cracks in its once-loyal user base. Recent discussions among paying subscribers, including Visionary plan holders paying nearly €400 a year, reveal a growing sense of disillusionment. While many still admire Proton’s mission, they are walking away due to a combination of unmet promises, questionable new product directions, and persistent gaps in the user experience.
A history of trust and growing frustration
Proton’s early years were defined by a bold mission: to take on surveillance capitalism and create a secure, privacy-focused ecosystem. Early adopters believed in that mission, often subscribing to the most expensive plans to fund development. For years, users patiently tolerated rough edges, trusting that the small Swiss company would eventually catch up to competitors in usability while staying true to its principles.
But ten years later, many feel that patience has run out. Complaints from departing subscribers share a common refrain: paying for what Proton might become no longer feels justifiable when the current offerings remain incomplete or clunky.
Feature promises that fade into silence
One of the most repeated frustrations comes down to timelines and follow-through. Users cite feature requests and roadmap items left to languish for years. Promises are made, sometimes even given rough timelines, only to vanish into what they describe as a “black hole of silence.”
Popular requests like Linux desktop parity, full-featured calendar and contact integration, and even basic usability improvements to Proton Drive remain underdeveloped. Meanwhile, new products such as Proton Wallet and Scribe have rolled out quickly, leaving long-requested features untouched.
Many see this as a problem of prioritization. Why, they ask, launch new services when the core suite is still missing essential capabilities?
The AI and crypto pivot raises eyebrows
Proton’s recent focus on AI tools and a cryptocurrency wallet has bewildered and alienated part of its user base. The company’s decision to promote Bitcoin and release a crypto wallet feels, to many privacy enthusiasts, like a drift into hype rather than meaningful improvement to core services.
Similarly, AI-powered features are seen as unnecessary for a company that built its reputation on security and reliability. Some subscribers dismiss these additions as investor-driven trends rather than responses to user needs. For longtime users who came to Proton to escape big tech’s fads, the shift is unsettling.
Linux users feel abandoned
Perhaps the loudest criticism comes from Proton’s Linux community. Years ago, Linux support appeared to be on the roadmap, with promises of clients and parity with other operating systems. Yet recent communications suggest that development has stalled indefinitely, with executives citing Linux’s complexity and small market share.
For privacy-focused users, many of whom are Linux enthusiasts, this feels like a betrayal of Proton’s founding ethos. The absence of a fully functional Proton Drive client for Linux is especially painful. Without it, large portions of paid storage go unused, leaving customers wondering why they should pay for features they can’t access.
The mobile experience is underwhelming
iOS users face a different frustration: limitations imposed by Apple’s ecosystem. Background syncing for Proton Drive photos, seamless calendar integration, and native system hooks are either impossible or unreliable. While this is largely Apple’s fault, it leaves Proton users with a second-class experience on one of the most popular mobile platforms.
Combined with sluggish apps and missing batch features, these friction points add to the sense that Proton lags behind mainstream competitors in day-to-day usability.
Paying for now, not for “someday”
One recurring sentiment is a shift in mentality among subscribers: no longer will they pay for promises. Users are tired of paying premium prices for services they feel are half-finished, while features sit in development purgatory.
Many are downgrading to Mail-only plans, switching to alternatives like Tuta for email, Mullvad for VPN, Bitwarden for passwords, and Tresorit or pCloud for storage. Others are reluctantly moving back to Apple’s iCloud+ or even Google’s ecosystem, choosing reliability over ideals.
The lesson for Proton
Despite the exodus, few departing users express bitterness. Most remain deeply respectful of Proton’s mission and grateful for what it has accomplished: proving that a paid, privacy-first alternative to the data-harvesting giants is possible. But respect alone is no longer enough to justify premium pricing without delivery.
For Proton to win back these users, it will need to recommit to core functionality, polish existing products, and communicate transparently about realistic timelines. Chasing trends like crypto and AI might attract headlines, but neglecting long-term users risks eroding the trust that made Proton viable in the first place.
Until then, many early adopters are stepping away, holding out hope that someday Proton will again become the platform they once believed in.
I’ve been with Proton for about 6 months now. I was really hoping for a Google/gmail replacement, but I am becoming more frustrated with Proton by the day. I use my Calendar, and Contacts daily, almost more than email and both Calendar and Contacts are compressed into Proton Mail as if they were not as important. When I access Calendar there is this huge sidebar which is totally unnecessary on the left side, which you can’t get rid of. After painstakingly creating vCards to Proton Contacts I get only minimal information on my mobile device. I’ve contacted them and get generic responses like thank you for your feedback……..But there’s no telling when, or if it will be addressed.
I was an original donor to Proton a decade ago and have used it ever since with a number of free and paid plans. I’m big on privacy and Proton delivers that on all their products, end-to-end, better than pretty much anyone (with a few caveats here and there). That said, it’s been a long haul waiting for some features.
Here’s my own personal experience as a long-term Linux, Android, and iOS user of Proton services. Your mileage may vary:
1. I’m pretty happy with Mail. The apps are fine and getting better quickly. Gripes that it “doesn’t use standards like IMAP and SMTP” come from people who don’t understand the design restraints of end-to-end encryption. If you want to run Thunderbird, you can. Just set up the Proton Mail Bridge first. It’s not that hard. True, headers are not fully encrypted (again, mostly because of restraints inherent with encryption), but that’s not a killer issue for my use case. Like most Proton apps, you get more features with paid accounts (in this case, things like alternate email addresses and the ability to turn off the advertising sig). For those who argue that Proton emails to non-secure services like Gmail are not encrypted (true), you CAN still send encrypted email to Gmail and Apple Mail and others using a password you have previously transmitted separately (send it with Signal, for instance). Your recipient can log in to see your encrypted message. In practice, I don’t have many emails to non-Proton accounts that need that level of encryption — just financial documents, and the like — but it’s good to know that I can send a fully encrypted email to anybody, with a little added preparation.
2. VPN can be a little flaky with Linux (experiment with the Flatpak and the native app to see which one works better with your distro), but has improved over time and works well on Android and iOS. I’m told much of the Linux team’s development efforts are now centered on VPN. Free accounts are allowed only one (slower) VPN connection at a time. So on one hand, no matter your economic class you have access to encryption. That’s a principled design choice. But beyond one device, or for faster connections and more countries, you have to pay. Is that a little coercive? Maybe. Or it’s just the “freemium” model most of Proton operates under.
3. Calendar is adequate; basic. I have a bug where invitations to my main Calendar address fail, but invitations to any other of my several Proton addresses succeed. I’m working on that with Support. (More on Support later.) There is no dedicated Calendar app for Linux (or Mac or Windows, AFAIK) — you need to open Mail, then switch to Calendar view. Even a placeholder icon that would launch Mail into Calendar view would be an improvement.
4. Pass works quite well. There are standalone Proton Pass apps and browser plugins that are excellent. It’s pretty much the equal of Bitwarden, though the latter is perhaps occasionally better with autofill. Some features are available only to paying customers — the ability to hold credit cards and make custom fields among them.
5. Proton Drive is a sore spot for Linux users (Mac and Windows folks seem to like it). I have a half-terabyte of storage and can use maybe a gigabyte. There is no sync client yet for Linux, though one has supposedly been on the roadmap for years. (I know it was a requested service about six years ago.) Uploading photos and files via the web interface is extremely slow. I have about 80 GB of stuff to upload (and, ideally, sync in real time, someday). I set an upload going one day and 24 hours later I was about one-quarter finished. A sync client (with much faster sync speeds) is absolutely crucial. If you’re thinking about Proton and you use Linux, this could be a deal-breaker. Drive is associated with Docs and Spreadsheets. I don’t use those much, but for people explicitly trying to dump Google services, they are welcome and work well enough (though not as well as the big-name equivalents.)
6. Lumo — Proton’s new AI? Who asked for it? (And where’s my Linux sync client for Drive?) Not only does it seem like Proton is following a fad here, their implementation produces the worst output of any AI client I’ve ever tried, by far. Your interactions with Lumo are (if I understand correctly) private and not mined for training data, which is good. But as far as I’m concerned, this is a solution in need of a problem.
7. Wallet — for crypto bros. Not of interest to me. (And where’s my Linux sync client for Drive?)
8. Meet (videoconferencing), Notes (notetaking)? I haven’t used them.
9. Support. I’ll go against the grain here and say that I have been quite impressed with Proton support, at least as a paying customer. I submitted a support request last week and heard back within minutes, even though the time was 10 pm in Switzerland. Obviously, they have support staff distributed in various time zones. All my issues over the years were addressed promptly and resolved in the end. I don’t recall ever submitting a question while a free customer, though, so I can’t speak to that tier of support.
Summary: In general, I guess I would say that if you’re looking for a full suite of tools to replace your Google or Apple suite, Proton is getting to the point where it can compete on a one-to-one basis. Sure, there are gaps (no dedicated To Do list, for instance). Sure, Google and Apple tools are in some ways more refined, maybe more beautiful. And sure, the big players (more Apple than Google) have added some end-to-end encryption where the user controls the encryption key. But if privacy is your primary concern, Proton does it better than the big players, hands down, no question, end-to-end on all their products, period. If enhanced privacy is worth $5 or $12 a month to you (or whatever your particular plan costs), then go with Proton. If you can’t afford anything, maybe just use free Proton for your more sensitive transactions and enjoy not being the product for a change. I have completely eliminated Google (and Meta, and Amazon, and Twitter, and a few of the other egregious privacy-invaders and time-wasters) from my online life. Proton makes a lot of that switch possible.
Hi, as someone relatively new to Proton, I’m curious about the claims that this is a common sentiment among “many” proton users. Was there a survey, or were these conclusions made based on the author’s personal observations?
Please provide sources that detail how the data was gathered, or in the absence of direct sources, it would be nice to know how you obtained this information. Thanks!
Used to run all my business emails with Proton. A recent legal issue prompted us to restructure our situation. we have been disappointed by Proton, despite having over 50 paid licenses. This proton company has changed.
I couldn’t agree more. Proton has for some reason decided to go down the google route, offering a full suit of services – most that noone wants – to lock us up in a new ecosystem. Just the thing we fled from a few years ago. One thing is for sure: The marketing department of Proton has grown massively in recent years. I can hardly open a Proton owned webpage anywhere without being bombarded by all their “amazing deals”. I just want a secure mail service.
so where to next
so true, i have been waiting for a Linux update for months, if not for Firefox Extension, what would my reliable VPN be? We need a change….
As someone who switched to Linux 3 months ago and had been a Proton customer for a couple of years …. I agree with every word. I’ve been giving serious thought to leaving Proton when my account is up for renewal in 2026.