Proton, the company behind products such as ProtonMail and ProtonVPN, has shared its 2021 Year in Review. The company has also shared its plans for the year ahead.
Proton in 2021
The company opens the post by saying it didn’t meet the expectations of its community. The company says it had a “slow pace of development” in 2021. Proton says that building encrypted products is challenging, particularly with end-to-end encryption.
Many great open-source search libraries exist, but they are all server-side software, which does not work for ProtonMail because our end-to-end encryption means that Proton servers do not have access to your messages. Thus, to introduce a full message content search, we had to build a custom solution that runs entirely on your device, has good performance, and scales well to large inboxes.
Proton in 2022
Proton shared its product plans for 2022. It’s not an exact roadmap with dates, or even expected dates. Nevertheless, here are the products we can expect to see from the company.
First Half of 2022
- A new iOS app for ProtonMail (the app is currently undergoing public beta testing, and Proton is implementing community feedback)
- A new Proton website and visual updates across all products
- The general release of the ProtonDrive web app (the beta is currently limited to people with a paid ProtonMail plan)
- A public beta for ProtonMail for desktop (this is a proof of concept to test interest in a ProtonMail desktop app)
- Proton Calendar Android general release (currently in open public beta)
Second Half of 2022
- The general release of the Proton Calendar iOS app (the app is currently in limited public beta)
- The general release of Proton Drive Windows, Android, and iOS apps
- The general release of ProtonMail Bridge “v3”. The current Bridge release is “v1”, and a redesigned “v2” with many performance and sync improvements is currently in public beta. An even better “v3” which will resolve all outstanding performance and sync issues is coming in 2022.
I’m looking forward to the official releases of ProtonCalendar and ProtonDrive. I’ve been part of the beta testing and I think it’s great to have alternatives to Apple apps such as Calendar and iCloud Drive. A desktop for ProtonMail would also be welcome. Currently, users with a paid ProtonMail account have to use ProtonMail Bridge which integrates with Apple’s Mail app.