this post was submitted on 15 Sep 2024
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Privacy
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While technically true, bridge is ultimately an IMAP server you run yourself ... and they do have good reasons for this design.
do you know theit reason?
Imap and end to end encryption are not possible at the same time.
Bridge exposes an IMAP interface but encrypts everything as Proton would, had you used the web client.
It solves a technical limitation.
oh so only when using their client I have the e2ee for the emails on their server? kind of makes sence but def. a point to take into consideration.
No, I think you are misunderstanding my poor explanation.
Your emails are encrypted at rest on their server regardless if you use the web client or IMAP through the bridge.
The thing is that the encryption layer must happen at some point in time when you communicate with their API:s. In the web client this encryption is built-in. IMAP on the other hand does not support this type of end to end encryption, so the bridge adds this layer for you.
So you communicate unencrypted locally between your email client (Thunderbird for example) and the Protonmail bridge that you have installed locally on your computer. Then Protonmail bridge encrypts and decrypts all emails for you. So to your email client, it seems like a normal email server, but in reality everything is encrypted.
(Standard "encrypted email" disclaimer: Your emails are not encrypted in transit unless both parties, sending and receiving, are set up for encryption. Email is otherwise not end to end encrypted in transit)