In order to make my ProtonMail account untraceable, should I access it with a VPN only, or is it okay if I use it with my regular usage and internet connection?
I want to keep it private and separate from my actual email accounts. Let me know your thoughts. Thanks!
According to Protonmail and under current Swiss law, Protonmail can be compelled to log user data. The only thing protonmail can log is your IP address. That’s what happened to an activist few years ago.
Under current Swiss law, email and VPN are treated differently, and Proton VPN cannot be compelled to log user data, so yeah using a VPN to access protonmail makes sense.
Source : Important clarifications regarding arrest of climate activist | Proton
Not really clear what it is you’re asking for here. But based on what you’ve stated you’re fine using your regular ISP; using a different DNS provider or using a VPN isn’t going to make the fact that you’re using ProtonMail “untraceable”.
It’s possible that what you want to look into is SimpleLogin. That would prevent others from knowing you have a ProtonMail account.
VPNs itself provide little privacy. However, using a Swiss VPN operator can give a better protection due to Swiss laws not requiring IP addresses to be logged.
But it is unclear to me what you try to achieve? Is it anonymity or better privacy? For anonymity (not being able to trace communication back to you as an individual), using Tor is the only real option. For better privacy (where you want to protect your data), ordinary Proton without VPN will in most cases suffice.
VPNs, however, won’t give you anonymity. It was never designed to give VPN users anonymity. Neither privacy, as the VPN service provider can see what you do regardless. That VPN providers claim they don’t log IP addresses, is just a claim - which is hard (if not impossible) to really confirm. From a technical point of view, it is impossible hide what you do via a VPN tunnel from the VPN service provider’s point of view.
Please don’t refer to that case as an “activist” case. Yes, they were some kind of activists. But the reason they were being tracked by French law enforcement was not due to their activism activities. They had occupied a building illegally, which is an offence in most countries.
If you want label them, rather say something like “French house occupants” or something along those lines. That’s actually more correct, based on what I dug up through various media sources when this all played out a while back.
and yes SimpleLogin is super helpful. I use the mask, to provide on websites. And can easily discard the mask once I start getting spams.
Yes, I believe that makes sense. I think accessing it with your ISP would be fine. Was wondering whether the Tracking cookies or the third-party cookies could somehow identify this proton email belonging to this specific Gmail account. Sorry not really sure how the tracking cookies work. tbh.
What if that provider is Proton itself? How private would you consider their VPN?