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by grappler 1746 days ago
Sad to say, Proton's onion service is for their old version. Proton has recently rolled out a new updated version of their service, and as far as I'm aware they don't offer a Tor onion service for that newer version.

So Proton users who like to connect via Tor onion services have been faced with a choice of either staying on the old version of ProtonMail, or giving up on connecting via a Tor onion service. It definitely leaves the impression that they don't care much about Tor anymore, or that it's at best an afterthought for them.

3 comments

I tested this, and you're right: Their Tor service runs the (in my opinion nearly as usable) older version.

It's plausible that Proton does not care about their Tor service, but there may be another reason: The new version relies more on Javascript code than their old version, and a Tor user is more likely to browse with scripts disabled than a regular user. Proton may be holding back the rollout of the newer version until they have tested it more without Javascript. This is only a hypothesis, and I came up with it just now; take it for what it is.

Tor + Scripts is not good. You're probably right on why there isn't a newer version on their onion service.
I don't think you can use Proton without JS. You need JS for cryptography; the emails get encrypted/decrypted/signed/verified on client-side.
Of course; should have been obvious.

Perhaps there is a greater reliance on scripts in the new version, but this makes it seem more likely that they've abandoned the Tor version.

I use proton-bridge and a normal email client, although I've never tried to use it with Tor.
I bet they initially configured it when Onion Routing was the new buzzword, and then lost interest when it wasn't the New Thang anymore.