"There is no free lunch." The online landscape is rigged to hide this, and people who have begun to expect "free" everything online will either discover the truth the easy way, or the hard way...

My choice about email is whether to continue renting my own server for $5/month, or to pay a service like Protonmail. I have awakened to the truth that on the Internet, you pay with currency, or you pay with your soul, essentially. Your choice.

In the business there a simple foundamental law: getting a lot of people means to get a lot of income. IMAP/SMTP service on payment is a silly violation of that law (Google knows it), because it moves free users people away from Protonmail: less people less income. Are you sure you want to continue with this "bright" business strategy?

im on the fience on eather useing proton mail and tutanota but the big seller here is that tuta has a free desktop client to use there email services on. if the bridge was made useable for free users that would be great

if you need thunderbird or similar, you are either a pro user, or you are want to be comfortable, and I agree with protonmail, that you should pay not so big money for that, keep in mind that this level of security is not free because somebody has to work on it not in their free time

I would love to see ProtonMail extend the bridge feature to include free users. This would clearly show their intent to protect privacy overall.

I can't afford paying money for a email service, but I would like to use Bridge on my Linux machine.
I know that maybe is asking too much, but with Bridge I could harness the full power of my protonmail email. I would like that very much.

And I don't think that Protomail must be worried about users ditching their services, with so much data collection involved in other major email services, and on major sites of the internet...

Please! I too wouldn't mind paying a small amount just for the bridge on Linux, or be limited to one user. The web interface just doesn't work for me.

I wouldn't mind even just paying for Bridge. I don't need the other paid features, so Bridge only payments is a good compromise as well.

Free for 1 connection through Bridge is a good idea, any additional accounts should then come at a cost.

I agree that the free account should allow 1 connection through the Bridge (I'm ok with all other free restrictions and would be for a custom domain, but not just to connect my email client)

Hey, I can understand both sides. A company needs to make profit somehow and users want all services for free.

However I guess that having the Bridge for one single free account would make sense.
It would permit to test it with a @protonmail.com email, single account only and other limitations of a free account.

I'm still looking for something that would ditch most uses of Gmail (not trying to compete with the full deck), and that would be a kick for sure!

Great idea ;) smtp for contact form and phpmailer :)

I want to upgrade to use the bridge but there is no incentive because I use half-a-dozen different Proton Mail accounts to separate various aspects of my life and to provide different levels of anonymity. Even if one of the mail accounts is upgraded to paid, the free accounts remain inaccessible. [I'm a paying VPN customer and would be happy to pay for the bridge also, but there is no economical solution?]

There is a second problem with this: Free-users have no possibility to migrate their e-mails to another e-mail account and are therefore bound to ProtonMail.

We want users to try PM for free, love it, and ultimately support it in exchange for flashy features like Bridge. Free users don't need Bridge...but they DO need to be able to batch export all their messages (like with a button tucked in settings somewhere). Without that small feature, many consider the free tier a data prison and are hesitant to try PM at all.

I am against this. If you want the best of Protonmail you gotta pay for it. If Protonmail keeps giving free stuff then it could not sustain itself. I like free apps and services too but the worst thing to see is for an app or service to be discontinued or no more.

I'd say we get quite a lot for free. if you want unlimited power and don't want to support these guys with 5$ a month, fine, make your own mail server.

There is no fundamental human right to be provided with an e-mail account and certain features.
As with all these imagined rights, you can only get them guaranteed and for free by enslaving the providers.

I agree that conveniences like the new Bridge feature should go first to paid supporters, but it remains a serious oversight (surely not a tactic?) that free users cannot download their messages at all. As others have intimated, until there is a simple method to download an archive of all messages in a non-proprietary format, the free tier remains a closed system—not something that inspires trust.

IMAP and SMTP for all users, not only paid users. This is, like you say, a fundamental human right - to be able to access email using your own privacy respecting client.