Better than Google in terms of ethics and privacy maybe, and not shoving ads in your face when you don’t use an adblocker. But it’s behind in features.

And unfortunately Google caters to the majority, who generally don’t care about privacy, even the ones who say they do but refuse to act on their words (and I’m not even going to comment on the “they have all my info anyway” crowd).

To me comparing Gmail to Protonmail feels similar to comparing FB Messenger to Signal. The former has more features and therefore is chosen by most people despite the enshittification.

Fair point. I think protonmail is only that way with other protonmail users, and I practically never send personal emails, so I honestly forgot about that feature. It’d be nice if other hosts could integrate with that.

I’m unaware of true feature parity alternatives then. I guess I just tend to use other communication media when I need encryption.

They offer email hosting and kSuite. It’s an alternative and more.

I’ve been happy with infomaniak. If you host a domain name with them, you get a free email too. I switched from Godaddy, gmail, and protonmail earlier this year all to infomaniak.

I’m also happy with AirVPN, but a lot more sites block it than other VPNs, so be ready to deal with that.