Proton privacy tools promise a Google alternative for everyday users

Proton started in May 2014 with one product, an encrypted email service. Its first users were mostly people working at CERN, the physics lab in Geneva. When it opened more widely, about 10,000 people signed up on the first day, the same again on the second, and the servers crashed on the third. Yen says that was when he realized privacy was not just a niche concern.

Twelve years later Proton offers 11 products. They include Proton Mail, Proton VPN, Proton Drive for cloud storage, Proton Pass for passwords and passkeys, and Lumo, its private AI chatbot. Yen says Proton competes with formidable rivals in every market, but does things differently: a different business model, different values and much stronger privacy.

He also points to stability. In the VPN business, he notes, companies are bought and sold constantly, which makes it hard to know who will still protect your data in a few years. Proton has stuck to the same mission for more than a decade.

Privacy experts often advise spreading your data across different services, so a single breach or bad actor can’t see everything. Yen’s answer is practical. Finding 11 separate companies that are all trustworthy is statistically very unlikely, he says, and smaller firms may be less reliable. He reckons more than half of users would rather keep everything in one place with one company they trust.

If your threat level calls for splitting your data up, he is fine with that and hopes Proton is one of the companies you choose. To earn that trust, Proton points to several safeguards:

• All of its apps are open source, so outsiders can inspect the code.
• Its controlling shareholder is a non-profit foundation.
• It is not funded by venture capital, which Yen calls a built-in speed limit against reckless expansion.
• Its only income is privacy-focused subscriptions, so compromising on privacy would destroy the business.

Yen admits the ecosystem approach is hard work. When Proton’s community pushed back on reports that it might build a web browser, he said hiring browser experts doesn’t automatically mean a browser is coming. But he was clear that beating Google in one or two products won’t change the status quo. Only a full ecosystem can.

Kinda chic to give a damn about your online privacy

— Proton (@ProtonPrivacy) August 19, 2026

Lumo came from the same frustration as Proton Mail. Yen wanted to use AI but didn’t trust the big US labs or Chinese models on Chinese servers. He argues that the ad-driven, data-hungry approach of Silicon Valley is an artificial limit, and that an ad-free chatbot giving unbiased answers is simply a better product.

Lumo is based in Germany rather than Switzerland, and that was a deliberate signal. Last year the Swiss government proposed mass surveillance rules. Proton and much of the industry opposed them, and Proton invested hundreds of millions outside the country to show that privacy has real economic value. A government impact assessment later estimated the surveillance plan would cost the Swiss economy tens of billions of francs over a decade and roughly two hundred thousand jobs.

On the age checks spreading across the US, UK and Europe, Yen’s view is blunt: they shouldn’t happen at all. You can’t verify only children, he says, because you don’t know who is a child. The only way is to check everyone, which means showing ID to use the internet.

If lawmakers insist, he says the right way is on the device. No personal data should go to a central server, and anything scanned should be deleted once the check is done. Social media companies, he notes, have no incentive to do it that way.

For you, the practical upshot is choice. If you are tired of ads and data collection, you can start with a single Proton app, such as Mail or VPN, without moving your whole digital life at once. Most of the switching pain comes from moving years of email and files, and that is exactly what Proton’s next updates target.

In mid-October Proton published its autumn and winter 2026 roadmap, aimed at the sticking points that keep people on Google. Highlights include:

• Moving out of Google: a Google Drive migration tool and a better Gmail connection in Proton Mail.
• More devices: a long-awaited Linux app for Drive in beta, Mac folder sync, and dedicated Lumo apps for Windows and Mac.
• Safer sharing: Proton Pass will let you share a login without revealing the password, plus shared folders.
• AI for developers: a Lumo API so other apps can build on it.
• VPN refresh: a new design on every platform, a better kill switch and an easier way to pause.

Yen thinks Proton will eventually win, even if it takes decades, because he believes nine out of ten people prefer its vision of the internet to Google’s.