Proton Mail is back available on GitHub

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Version 4.0 of Proton Mail, rewritten from scratch and already available for some time via APK on their site It is on Play Store, is now finally available on GitHub.

She was then released on source code and it is finally possible to download the APK directly from GitHub, thus allowing it to be updated via applications such as Obtainium.

Proton Mail is back available on GitHub

In fact, the Proton application does not have its own automatic system to check and propose updates as they do Signal and Ente Photos. The only way to always stay updated was to download the application from the Play Store or from Aurora Store.

This new application, which in reality is aesthetically almost identical to the latest version of 3.x (which has been has been archived on GitHub), is according to Proton a total rewrite. This, from what we have been able to read, it should later allow them to use their notification system without the help of Google services.

Notifications only with Google services

Now, in fact, if you want to receive and install Proton Mail you can only receive notifications if you have Google services installed or if you have at least microG. An operating system, such as GrapheneOS stock, without these services installed it will not allow you to receive notifications. There are solutions like You Have Mail which, however, we do not recommend entirely because it is not necessarily a good idea to log in through third-party applications, even if they are Open source.

This is not an excessive security issue as it is notifications are encrypted. The only thing Google can know is that “you have received an email” (not from who or what its subject is). However it is quite embarrassing if we think about the target users of Proton and if we think that other applications, like Signal, they simply work both with and without Google services.

Signal for example has a very interesting system that allows notifications to work with Google services if it finds them installed and to work perfectly without Google services if it doesn't find them.

Download and try the Proton Mail application

The news however is that Proton has released the source code of this new application and that you will finally be able to receive updates via GitHub. If you are interested in it and haven't tried it yet you can now download it from the link below.

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