Proton Calendar Finally Accessible to Everyone in the World

Proton Calendar Finally Accessible to Everyone in the World

Anyone using an iPhone can now protect their entire daily schedule with the latest enhancement to the popular secure messaging app Proton Mail. Released about a year ago, the encrypted Proton Calendar is finally available on iOS devices as well.

The Swiss-based provider, also behind one of the best VPN services, Proton VPN, says today's announcement is one of its biggest launches, as most of its community interacts with Apple devices.

Like their other products, Proton Calendar is free. People looking for more features or extra storage can sign up for their Plus or Unlimited plan instead.

Starting today, you can get Proton Calendar on your iPhone. 🗓️ Protected by the same end-to-end encryption as #ProtonMail, #ProtonCalendar has all the features you need to take your schedule with you wherever you go. Try Proton Calendar: https://t.co/9brgTRUAG4 pic. twitter.com/Fc2jY7JU5FNNovember 30, 2022

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A complete privacy ecosystem

"People don't think of calendars as something to protect, but a calendar is a record of your life," Andy Yen, CEO of Proton, told TechRadar. "We shouldn't release this information because it will be misused by governments or tech giants."

The vision is simple. Like Google users, those registered with Proton Mail are very likely to integrate additional features like two-month Proton Drive and the encrypted calendar into their daily activities.

It is believed that Proton Calendar is actually the first app of its kind.

"At this point, almost anyone in the world can use Calendar. It's pretty big because it's the first time it's been around," Yen said.

“It helps complete this ecosystem and also supports future performance. Proton is truly becoming an ecosystem in its own right."

However, building the software was not easy.

Yen explained that Calendar was actually the most technically challenging product, as preserving end-to-end encryption under shared conditions was quite a complex feature to achieve.

Now, any user can enjoy protection in practically all the details of each event created. These include names, locations, and participants.

For technical reasons, the time of the event is the only information that should not be encrypted.

Also, the hard work that the Proton team has put into this project is already paying off. Your new Proton Drive has seen over 1,000,000 files downloaded per day in less than two months. The software has also been used to stream videos of protests in China to circumvent censorship.

"Many of our users are activists, journalists and dissidents. We are very active in places like Hong Kong, Russia and Iran. It's all part of our mission. As a scientist, it's the reason we created Proton in the first place," he said. he said.

Thousands of Canadian Iranians and their supporters protest against Iran's Islamic regime in Richmond Hill, Canada, on November 19, 2022.

(Image credit: Getty Images/NurPhoto)

Yen believes that even Calendar has the potential to revolutionize the way human rights activists and organizations work, especially in authoritarian countries.

"I think Calendar just gives them an extra tool to protect their information so they can avoid lawsuits and all the other things that come with data breaches in those countries."

Being able to make the right impact that could make a difference in people's lives is the main reason why all Proton products, including Proton VPN, are free.

"It's especially important in countries like Iran and Russia because they're under sanctions, so credit cards don't work, bank payments don't work, there's no PayPal. Basically, our millions of users in those countries, even if they wanted to pay us , there's no way for them to transfer money," Yen said. "Having a free service is the only way to really target these users."

While an encrypted competitor to Google Meets isn't Proton's top priority right now, we shouldn't wait too long to see the feature grow, and for those who need a truly secure alternative, it will prove invaluable.