I’ve been using ProtonMail for a little over a year and have had a wonderful experience.
ProtonMail (PM) is peddling the same thing what we use to call crippleware - that is, the software worked, was freeware, and did almost all of what it promised.
PM offer the carrot version, AKA crippleware version, but with a “FREE
Upgrade Anytime” for only 1 installment every month, one can go from Free to being a “Plus” user, or for more free upgrade and higher month;y installments, free upgrade to “Visionary” or free upgrade for ore money, to “Professional” on the the Plu$ plan, the Bu$ine$$ and soon super-duper pro or corporate versions. ALL for a free monthly fee. Free = carrot.
Using PM Bridge to use a Email client instead of a Wmail browser is doable, but why? I can a see using PM to get a anonymous account, safe from the prying eyes of one’s ISP, then get a Google account.
I think Proton Mail is like Google mail, only PM makes a very concerted effort effort to prevent scum from using PM-mail for spamming.
I use Thunderbird because I control email by going to the post office, picking up my mail, and storing it at office/home. I also have all my own email accounts, some off my own server. It’s not why I manage several servers, but it’s a part of it and falls outside the ‘norm’ for most Email users.
Moving Thunderbird (Tbird) from a Win 7 arena to a Pure OS is daunting for me due to the age of the files, to a very updated version in Pure. But leaving Windows in the dust is making it all worth while.
Just my rambling thoughts on it… oh, and opinions too…
-S-
I all that in Thunderbird (version?) or Firefox? Do you have a link to how-to find all that “safebrowsing” and “geo”. I can see never using Firefox or any other browser, to view webmail. But has Tbird really fallen that far into the septic tank?
Wasn’t that just to make Google as the default SMIRCer in FireFox?
~s~
Yes. A lot of services today are “crippleware” as you call it.
If you are in the Microsoft/Google platform they have great web apps and function as well if not better than the desktop client. I can do most of my work in the browser with the exception of some excel tasks that require the desktop app.
And it’s all free. The main thing is, both Microsoft/Google platform comes with is a privacy policy. In short, it reads ~you ain’t got any rights~. You get to use their 'wares, they get to use you.
Aren’t you in the wrong neighbourhood?
s
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The kind of work I do best works on these platforms. I have been successful using Microsoft 365 and google workspace on Linux with the exception of teams. But not everyone is technically capable of doing that.
I’ll probably never leave T-bird either. I have 25 years of emails filed away in local folders.
I do notice the past few years local subfolders sometimes won’t open any more by clicking on it, especially the ones with thousands of emails. I instead I get a template about T-Bird .
But the subfolder will open if I right-click and open it in a NEW tab. Odd behavior that.
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I managed to do as suggested and found some files but they are from 5 years ago. Nothing else there. I renamed them. In your honour. 
Still reading up on the points you bring up, and reading, and reading and that’s something I hoped I wouldn’t have to do so much more of when trying to hide in Linux from M$.
~s~
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Replying to my own OP to let you know I decided to stick with Tbird for now.
@gatalito and @Photon made good points that require attention. Others discussing their preferences (thank you all) have also shed a lot of light some great possibilities.
I appreciate everyone’s input - cheque is in the mail,
~s~
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Cripplewear or not protonmail is not more private than any other email provider unless the recipient of your mails uses protonmail too.
If for instance you use protonmail to send emails to a gmail account the encryption goes in vain because the mails that get into gmail’s servers are monitored ( upon arrival lol).
Your emails are trully encrypted only when they are exchanged inside the same provider or server, if we are talking about your own email setup on your own company.
Thanks @gatalito. I am sticking to Tbird for now, while trying out some of the client-side suggestions. As for Proton mail, any company that uses scams like “Free upgrade” to paid version can’t be trusted not if they have to resort to that kind of bastardized words like “free”.
~s~
p.s. My bad - it should be crippleWARE, not crippleWEAR. That’s A.I. spellcheckers for ya.
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That’s not entirely true. ProtonMail supports sending encrypted communication to non-ProtonMail users via symmetric encryption. When you send an encrypted message to a non-ProtonMail user, they receive a link which loads the encrypted message onto their browser, which they can decrypt using a passphrase that you have shared with them.
Also, you can set an optional expiration time on ProtonMail’s encrypted emails, so they will be automatically deleted from the recipient’s inbox once they have expired. This technology works for both emails sent to other ProtonMail users, and encrypted emails sent to non-ProtonMail email addresses.
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i don’t think that using ProtonMail if you’re NOT currently residing ON or near the European Continent is a particularly good idea … find something that works for YOU in your ‘vicinity’ and stick to that or SELF-HOST.
btw GNU/Emacs has mail built-in … just sayin’ 
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Don’t worry. I misspelled it too but it is not easy to detect such typos as English is not my native language.
Emacs is very powerful and does all about everything, but it is a pain in the… to learn it. We are talking about some hundred pages manual just for the basics. Who and how is going to remember all these?
F.e:
https://www.gnu.org/software/emacs/manual/html_node/gnus/index.html
have you tried something more ‘visual’ than the official manual ?
start here > https://open.lbry.com/@SystemCrafters:e/emacs-from-scratch-1-getting-started:1
or > https://open.lbry.com/@SystemCrafters:e/the-absolute-beginner's-guide-to-emacs:2
David is the best right now, imo, when it comes to putting out AV material for GNU/emacs > https://open.lbry.com/@SystemCrafters:e/5-reasons-to-learn-emacs-in-2021:2
if you decide to go to their discord, watch out ! (M$ now owns it …)
PS: there’s some tuts’ on mu4e (the emacs email client) on SystemCrafters channel. sift through them carefully and you’ll find it
Thank you for the information but the problem is that no matter what is the source that someone uses s/he would have to invest a considerable amount of time to learn how to use emacs. The first video that you’ve linked here is 58 minutes. And you will probably need to rewatch it or keep notes.
The problem with emacs is that it is counterproductive because it lacks a friendly user interface , those few buttons that do the basic tasks which otherwise someone will have to remember them as commands.
How many commands can someone remember after all. This thing has some thousands of them ( along with their variations).
I wouldn’t say that I like the way that thunderbird got but we have to admit that the reason why it has become so popular it the exact same reason why emacs is not so popular. Thunderbird is easy to use. You connect your accounts there and that’s it. It works. You just write, read and send your emails.
My point is that when you have to focus on your work you can’t spend countless hours to learn an program and you can’t either have the manual of this program as a reference on how to do the one or the other task every time that you can’t remember the one or the other command.
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it’s more convenient to use that’s for sure …
it also has more attack surface than GNU/Emacs …
if you use GNU/GUIX with EXWM and GNU/Emacs that attack surface goes even lower because of the few users that actually use it daily compared to the larger user base of Mozilla run ecosystem …
if freedom/privacy/security in the digital space is your main concern then that combination from Guix that i quoted above is still BETTER …
EXWM is X-display-server only NO Wayland YET. that might be an issue if you consider Wayland more secure/modern than X …