I’m reaching out to the community for some guidance regarding creating a ProtonMail account. I live in India, where the population is large, and IP addresses are often recycled. This has led to some challenges when trying to register for a new account.
Whenever I attempt to create a ProtonMail account, I encounter a captcha verification, which is good as it doesn’t trigger email or phone number captcha. I also pass the captcha and new account is created successfuly. However, whenever I register for third party service like github I receive emails from abuse@protonmail.com stating that they have detected bulk sign-ups associated with my IP address, even though I have only tried to register one service. I mail customer service they said to permanently link a email or a phone number.
Here are my questions:
1. Is it safe to provide a personal email or mobile number when creating a ProtonMail account? I prefer to keep my information private, but I’m unsure if this is required for verification.
2. Has anyone else experienced similar issues? If so, how did you resolve them?
Yes, I have also had this issue. I have had a lot better luck with Tuta personally; they allow you to create an account with no personal information. However, they will put a restriction on your account for, like, a day or two. Another tip is to make the account in the mobile app over the website; for some reason, that has less chance of being restricted.
I would create an email with Tuta first and then link that as your recovery email for Proton Mail. This will then allow you to bypass this restriction on accounts with no recovery information.
I wouldn’t link a phone number because they are far more identifiable.
Alternatively, if you upgrade your account to a paid plan (even for one month), I believe this restriction would not apply. You can also top up your account anonymously with cash if you wish not to add any recovery information for whatever reason.
Proton prohibit fresh new account from receiving registration mail initially. Either add email or phone number recovery, which you probably wouldn’t want, or wait abit longer. For obvious reason, proton never specifically stated how long to wait but I’ve heard that around a week the limitation should be lifted.
I can’t remember what the registration process is like with Proton and Tuta. I can’t remember if I had used identifiable information other than using my credit card to pay for a subscription. At this point is it too late to check what information I have submitted and then clean up my Proton and Tuta email accounts?
In the early days they used to don’t care at all. Maybe back then they wanted more users asap, idk. My early proton accounts are created via tor, can instantly send and receive mails. I understand why they’re now wants existing email address, phone number, limiting function on new free accounts etc etc, amount of abusive people/bot grew bigger. Thats why we can’t have nice free things.