Say goodbye to the days when you had to choose between privacy and online productivity – an encrypted document tool has finally arrived in Proton Drive.
Helping you cut ties with big, data-hungry tech apps has been at the core of Proton’s mission from the beginning: to create a better internet where privacy is the norm. In addition to its secure cloud storage, the Switzerland-based privacy company offers a eponymous secure email built in with an encrypted calendar feature and one of the best VPN services on the market.
Proton Docs is a way to ensure that document creation and collaboration is secure and easy to use. Like all of its products, Docs is completely free. It's worth noting that, at the time of writing, the tool can only be used on the web.
How does Proton Docs work?
“In a world where big tech companies are constantly violating privacy and mishandling data, Docs offers a seamless and reliable solution for document editing and collaboration,” said Anant Vijay Singh, Chief Product Officer at Proton Drive. “Our users can create and share documents with confidence, knowing that their information is protected.”
Docs promises to operate with the same level of encryption as Proton Drive. Simply put, every document you create or collaborate on is protected by end-to-end encryption. This means that only the sender and recipient can access the content. The company told me that even changes and keystrokes are encrypted, as well as file names and paths.
Thanks to the recent acquisition of encrypted note-taking app Standard Notes, the team has been able to integrate Docs with all the popular features you need for professional use, from Markdown and rich text support to code blocks and checklists. Plus, Docs also supports a variety of document formats, including Microsoft .docx, to ensure seamless integration.
“Creating collaborative documents that maintain E2EE was very difficult, and not something we've seen anyone else do in the market,” a Proton spokesperson told me.
The biggest challenges appear to have been key exchange and synchronized key information, the ability to invite people to collaborate, revoke those permissions, and share documents privately.
What helped the team, according to the company, is that Proton Drive had already been built with the view to adding these features at a later date. In fact, a few weeks before Docs was launched, Proton Drive was updated with new sharing features in preparation for the integration of the new collaborative tool.
While the new addition is sure to be welcomed by privacy-conscious users looking for a reliable alternative to Google Docs, Proton promises that this is just the first step in making document editing and collaboration more private.
Docs is expected to be updated soon with many new features designed to improve user experience and productivity, so stay tuned for updates.
In the meantime, Proton users, both free and paid, can start using the Docs tool on the web. However, keep in mind that you'll need to upgrade to a premium subscription if 5GB of storage isn't enough for your needs.
For more information, visit Proton's official blog post here.
