ProtonMail beta has officially closed and the company is now accepting new users and signups as of Thursday, encryption for everyone. The ProtonMail beta had been running for two years and at one point was hit with a massive DDoS attack holding their servers ransom for a bitcoin payment. During the attack the company reached out to the public for financial assistance to try and combat the attack but in the end, they paid the bitcoin ransom. Now with the public launch of ProtonMail the company is confident all the bugs have been ironed out and situations like the earlier DDoS attack shouldn’t happen.
ProtonMail, the world’s largest encrypted email provider, is announcing today that the service is leaving beta and will be allowing open registrations for the first time in nearly two years. Concurrently, the service will be launching its free iOS and Android mobile applications globally in the Apple App store and Google Play store.
The privacy focused email service was first launched in beta in May 2014 by a group of scientists who met at CERN and MIT. In the post-Snowden environment, ProtonMail was hit with overwhelming demand and forced to institute a waiting list for new accounts after signups exceeded 10’000 per day. For the past two years, ProtonMail has been invite-only and today has over 1 million users participating in its closed beta, including businesses, journalists, activists, and private individuals.
The Company’s innovative email service features end-to-end encryption, which makes it practically impossible for governments, or even ProtonMail itself, to gain access to user messages, ensuring the highest level of security and privacy. In the past two years, the Company has been frequently thrust into the public debate over encryption and terrorism, and like Apple, has on occasion needed to fight governments to protect user privacy.
“Strong encryption and privacy are a social and economic necessity, not only does this technology protect activists and dissidents, it is also key to securing the world’s digital infrastructure,” says ProtonMail Co-Founder Dr. Andy Yen, “this is why all things considered, strong encryption is absolutely necessary for the greater good.”
In light of recent challenges against encryption and privacy, ProtonMail has decided to open the service for public registration so anyone that wants an encrypted email account can obtain one immediately.
“The best way to ensure that encryption and privacy rights are not encroached upon is to get the tools into the hands of the public as soon as possible and widely distributing them,” says Yen, “This way, we put the choice in the hands of the consumer, and not government regulators.”
“The past decade has been marked by a massive erosion of privacy and we’re working to reverse this trend,” says Yen. “Encrypted communications is the future and ProtonMail is committed to making online privacy a reality again for all Internet users.”
The video below is about a year old but gives the basic gist of what ProtonMail does.
Head over to the ProtonMail website if you’re interested in checking out their encrypted email service.
[button link=”https://protonmail.com/” icon=”fa-external-link” side=”left” target=”blank” color=”285b5e” textcolor=”ffffff”]Get Encrypted Email Here[/button]Last Updated on January 23, 2017.
