Digital Self-Defense

Proton provides a lot of the same services as Google, but with a privacy focus. From the beginning, their core values have been privacy and security. They offer a great, useful free version for many of their products. For full functionality, a paid subscription is required.

They started with email (Proton Mail), and have expanded to other core services comparable to what is offered by Google - Proton Drive, Proton Docs, a password manager, a VPN and more.

I am super grateful for Proton, and their foundational focus on privacy and security. It's something that few companies truly prioritize, especially amongst the giants in the tech space. They have been steadily growing, and I hope they continue to grow, and one day even take a notable share of customers away from Google.

One major obstacle standing in their way right now is the usability of their products. Many of them are still far more clunky than their Google counterparts. For those who care enough about privacy and security, they will overlook this.

But if Proton really wants to grow, they need to spend a lot more time polishing their products. I hope that before too long, they will stop adding new stuff, and turn all the good services they have into truly great ones.

Proton - a privacy focused version of Google services

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My top choice for email app, both on my phone and my laptop, is the native Fastmail app. This app only works though if Fastmail is your email provider - which I highly recommend. I have been using Fastmail as my primary email account since 2013.

I also have several gmail accounts and for them, I use the gmail app on my phone, and Mimestream on my laptop. It's a strange sounding name I know. Unfortunately, it's only available on Mac, and it costs money, but it's built specifically for gmail and works beautifully. I've tried a lot of different apps, and Mimestream is my favorite.

For Windows (also works on Mac), my top paid recommendation is Spark.

If you're looking for a free option, Thunderbird works well. If you are a Mac user (like me), then Apple Mail is also a solid free option.

Excellent paid MacOS Gmail app - Mimestream

Excellent paid Windows/Mac Gmail app - Spark

Excellent free Windows/Mac email app - Thunderbird

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I've talked about it endlessly. I will keep doing so. Your email account is vital to protect.

But most people are missing a simple and powerful layer of protection for their email account: using an app to check email instead of the browser.

Virtually everyone uses an app to check email on their phone - that's a good start. But most people use a browser when they check their email on their computer. This is where we have work to do.

If you always use an app to check your email, and follow my advice in Episode 96: Why Your Email Account Should Only Be For Email, your email account will be extremely well protected against a phishing attack.

During the recording of this episode (99), I realized that the advice in episode 96 can be a challenge to follow for heavy Google users, which many of us are these days. I will be making an episode soon to give you a way to do this without giving up everything you use and love about Google, so keep reading!

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What do I mean when I say your home network is compromised? I mean that one of the devices in your home has been taken over by a hacker without you knowing it.

It could be any device that connects to the internet, not just your phone or laptop. Cameras, doorbells, routers, appliances, and smart TVs are all valuable targets.

There's a tool that can help figure out if this has happened. It's super simple for anyone to use. It won't answer all your questions, but what it can tell you is if it knows about devices being compromised either in your home network or somewhere in your digital "neighborhood".

Click here now to check - it's free and immediate. If you do find a problem, feel free to reach out on the forum for help.

Check Your Digital Neighborhood for Compromise

1.8 Million Smart TVs hijacked

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There is a simple feature that can help you greatly in the fight against phishing. Yet all the email providers I've checked, aside from Fastmail, lack this feature.

What is the feature? The ability to route emails you receive based on whether the sender is a known contact.

Here’s how you use it:

1 - Set up a rule to route all email from unknown senders to an “Unknown Sender” folder.

2 - Go carefully through each email in that folder, and for any email you trust, add that sender to your contacts.

3 - For any email you don’t trust, mark it as spam or block the sender.

Then, when a phishing email comes in trying to impersonate a sender you trust, it will end up in the "Unknown Sender" folder. This is the folder where you carefully review every email, and if it is pretending to come from a known sender, you will know it’s a phishing attack.

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I believe your email account should only be for email. Instead, most free email providers turn your email account into an account for all their services.

Google is probably the worst for this. Your Gmail account is actually a Google account that gives you access to Google Docs, Google Drive, Google Photos, Google Chat, YouTube, and much more.

On top of that, many websites allow you to "Log in with Gmail." This expands even further the number of accounts that are directly connected to your email account.

Taken all together, this is a security nightmare. Email accounts are already enough of a master key to your online identity, just through their ability to reset forgotten passwords.

All these accounts being tied to your email also means a lot more opportunities for you to get caught in a phishing attack - because you’re entering your email password not just to access your email, but to access all sorts of other services as well.

https://workspace.google.com/blog/identity-and-security/defending-against-account-takeovers-top-threats-passkeys-and-dbsc

https://blog.checkpoint.com/research/phishing-trends-q2-2025-microsoft-maintains-top-spot-spotify-reenters-as-a-prime-target/

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Blocking all spam before we see it is tough. Email providers are reluctant to block it entirely, in case they are wrong and it’s not spam. The compromise is that they send it to the Spam or Junk folder, where it can be recovered.

As the reader of that email, though, it’s often easy for us to identify it as spam and say, "I never want to receive email from this sender again."

This is where the "Block Sender" feature that some email providers have, including Gmail and Fastmail, comes in.

There’s a big difference, though. In Gmail, the email still ends up clogging up the Spam folder. In Fastmail, it goes straight to the Trash, so I never have to see it.

That may sound like a little thing, but when you’re dealing with spam, it adds up. What’s more, I think it’s symbolic of Fastmail's greater commitment to fighting spam.

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You have an email account, but how did you pick your email provider? Do you use Gmail simply because that’s what everyone you know uses?

I want your choice of email provider to be intentional, not accidental. Today is the first in a series of episodes where we’ll examine my most important considerations when picking an email provider.

Some will be "micro" considerations: specific, individual features. Do they have tags or folders? A "Report Phishing" button? How many aliases do they allow?

Some of them will be "macro" considerations: bigger-picture sorts of questions. How do they make their money? What kind of customer support do they have? Are they working to improve the email ecosystem for everyone?

I’m going to show you why I prefer Fastmail to Gmail and the other big free providers, like Microsoft, Yahoo, and Apple.

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When I choose a digital or tech service, I look for a company with a clear focus that aligns with mine. For each option, ask yourself: what’s the one thing this company does really well?

Take Gmail, the most widely used email provider. If you ask what Google’s "one thing" is, some people might say email - but I’d argue most would say "search." For me, I see it as building the internet by means of an advertising economy. A great thing in many ways, but does nothing to make me think they are going to be the best email provider.

That’s why I prefer companies with a single, obvious focus. It’s a simple principle, but it’s guided me well. It's no coincidence that most of my favorite security tools share this trait: Fastmail, 1Password, Little Snitch, Syncthing, and Signal.

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When you join the email workshop, you will be making some decisions. The first two are simple but important: which email provider you’ll use, and which email client.

Your email provider is the company that gives you an inbox and stores your messages on their servers. The big ones are Google (Gmail), Microsoft (Outlook, Hotmail, Live), Yahoo, and Apple (iCloud).

An email client is the app you use to read and send email. There are a lot of options. On your phone, that might be Apple Mail or the Gmail app. On your laptop, it's most often your web browser.

Personally, I’ve used Fastmail as my provider since 2013. On my phone, I use their custom app (which I love), and on my laptop, I use a browser.

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