Every year, we send a survey to the Proton community asking for your feedback and ideas. We then use that information to guide our future plans. This year, we received thousands of responses, giving us insight into what you expect from us.
As one of the rare tech companies that’s entirely community supported, your feedback is crucial. Since you are our most important stakeholders, we believe you should have a voice in what we add to the Proton ecosystem and how we build it.
Thank you to everyone who responded — your responses help us shape our services to better serve your needs and expectations. Read below some highlights.
The Proton community is satisfied, even if there are things we could do better
Most respondents expressed an overall high level of satisfaction with Proton and Proton services, with three in four respondents saying they’re highly likely to recommend Proton to their family and friends.
However, there are services that the community expects more from. Proton Drive, as one of our more recently released services, has room to improve. However, we’re excited to announce that in the coming year, Proton Drive will be adding several of the most commonly requested features.
What does the Proton community want?
We asked the Proton community what features we should prioritize for each of our services going forward. Respondents could choose as many features as they wanted.
For Proton Mail, 59% of respondents want an easier way to send end-to-end encrypted emails to non-Proton users, while 29% want a writing assistant for proofreading, grammar, and composing emails. Other popular requests include better search functionality, alias management, and integration with SimpleLogin.
While we have speeds comparable to (and often faster than) other leading VPNs in major markets, 27% of respondents asked Proton VPN for better speed and performance in smaller and more remote countries. The next most popular requests include anonymity (16%), better ease of use (roughly 16%), and better reliability in censored countries (roughly 14%). Other requests include IPV6, more server locations, and an Apple TV app (we’ve heard the feedback on this and the Proton VPN app for Apple TV will be ready before September).
For Proton Drive, 55% of respondents want to save files from Mail to Drive, 46% want to edit and modify documents, 34% want to scan documents on mobile directly to the cloud, and 34% want to organize photos into shared albums. Other popular requests include better Linux support, more storage space, and iOS photo backup.
For Proton Pass, 52% of respondents want full access to Proton Pass in offline mode, 38% want the Pass apps to autofill bank card details, and 36% want designated spaces to store identity information. Other popular requests include Safari support, Linux support, and better item organization features like folders.
The most requested service is a browser
The community’s most common request for a future Proton service, with 48%, is an online browser, followed by an encrypted chat app (33%) and an encrypted document editor (24%). Less than a quarter want none of the proposed ideas, with some proposing other services like a search engine, a note-taking app, and a photos app.
Two-thirds of Proton’s community members use or would use AI
Generative AI is one of the most significant developments in recent history, and it is supposed to lead to incredible gains in productivity. As more and more AI assistants come online, we asked the Proton community what they thought of these tools. Around 42% of respondents use an AI service regularly (at least once a month), and another 18% have never tried AI but are interested in it.
In the opposing camp, roughly 26% of respondents have never tried AI and have no interest in doing so.
Most worry about their data being used to train AI models
Given that a majority of the Proton community has used or is interested in generative AI, we thought it would be interesting to see what you thought AI done the “right way” would look like. As one might expect, the Proton community’s primary concern with AI tools is how they use people’s data. Nearly 80% of respondents said they don’t want their queries or private information to be used to train AI in any way. Over 60% of respondents went even further and said they don’t want AI to send their information to the cloud, while 48% care about knowing which data was used to train the AI model they use.
What does the Proton community say?
Almost half of respondents left Proton a message, and we love hearing from you!
Two in five survey respondents left Proton a message, most of them overwhelmingly positive and motivating for our team. One in eight included a thank you, and one in seven included the word love. Here are some of our favorite messages:
We’re nothing without the Proton community
Thank you again to everyone who responded to our survey. Your responses, much like your support, are invaluable and allow us to build the services and internet you want to use. Is there anything in the results that surprised you? Is there anything else you’d like us to know? Keep the conversation going on X (formerly Twitter)(new window) and Reddit(new window).
