Contacted both Proton and Jolla to express interest in closer integration, and others are encouraged to share similar feedback to help show broader community support

General
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Hello Sailfish OS community,

Disclamer: written with help of AI ideas are my own

I wanted to share a small but sincere user initiative that I recently took, in the hope of opening constructive discussion within the community.

As a Sailfish-interested user who has been actively migrating core digital services away from the Google ecosystem, I contacted both Jolla and Proton with the same message, openly addressed to both parties. The intent was simple: to express user-side interest in closer alignment between privacy-focused European services and a European mobile OS.

Proton Mail, Contacts, and Calendar form a strong privacy-first service stack, while Sailfish OS represents one of the very few mobile platforms built around similar values — user control, independence, and long-term digital sovereignty. At the moment, integration between these worlds is limited, which is understandable, but also highlights a potential opportunity.

By sending the same message to both Proton and Jolla, I wanted to make this overlap visible rather than hypothetical. Whether or not anything comes of it, I felt it was important to articulate that there are users who consciously choose this path and are willing to accept some friction in exchange for alignment with these values.

I would also like to encourage others in the community who share this view to express it in their own words — to Jolla, to Proton, or publicly within the community. Individual messages may be small, but together they help signal that this is not an isolated idea, but a shared interest among users who care about the long-term direction of the platform.

I am sharing this here not to speculate about outcomes, but to underline something broader: there is genuine community-level interest in seeing European privacy-oriented projects not only coexist, but possibly reinforce each other over time.

Even small signals matter. Sometimes they are all that exists before something becomes discussable.

Thank you for reading, and for continuing to build and maintain an alternative that many of us quietly rely on.

Best regards,

Antti

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Welcome you and your initiative here. But let me disuss some thoughts: First there are a bunch of providers like Proton out there. For me it seems better to improve the connectivity to all of them. This means the three DAVs protocols must improved a little bit more. And second I never understand why I should transfer my private contact or calendar data to some smaller or bigger provider. This data belongs local and private because your will only access from local programs like your local email program. And of course also the features sharing contacts or calendar data between local programs are not too perfect this day..

In short: we don’t need another hero. We need more features for sharing data between devices we control.

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I have Proton Mail, Authenticator, Pass, Calender and Drive all working on Xperia lll and C2. I have not been able to configure VPN but that’s probably me. Also all of them working, plus VPN, on Fdroid and Arch. The Proton team have done a phenominal job making them available on so many different platforms as well as the data harvesting behemoths. Support is always prompt and accurate.
Threema works on everything

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Disclamer: written with help of AI ideas are my own

Thanks for taking the time to respond — I think we are actually closer in values than it might first appear, but looking at the problem from slightly different layers.

My point was not that Proton (or any single provider) should become the solution, nor that centralized services are inherently better than local-first approaches. In an ideal world, I agree with you: contacts and calendars would live locally, sync between devices we fully control, and rely on open standards that work flawlessly.

However, my perspective comes from the reality of transition rather than the ideal end state.

Today, many users are trying to move away from large US-centric ecosystems. For them, the choice is often not between “perfect local-first sovereignty” and “nothing”, but between different imperfect steps. Privacy-focused providers like Proton are, for many, a pragmatic intermediate layer — not heroes, not idols, but tools that are good enough to enable people to leave something worse.

From that angle, integration is not about elevating one provider above others, but about lowering the friction of exit. If Sailfish OS integrates more smoothly with services that already attract privacy-conscious users, it becomes easier for those users to move closer to the local-first, device-controlled model you describe — not further away from it.

I fully agree that strengthening DAV protocols and local data sharing is crucial. I see that work as foundational. But I don’t see it as contradictory to selective integrations that help real users in real transitions today. For many, those integrations are the bridge that makes the long-term architecture you envision reachable at all.

So for me this is not about heroes, but about gradients:

from centralized → privacy-respecting → fully self-controlled.

Different users are at different points on that path. My message was simply trying to make visible that there are users walking it — and that Sailfish OS already represents a key part of the destination.

I appreciate your thoughts, even where we disagree slightly.

Best regards,

Antti

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Hi

Disclamer: written with help of AI ideas are my own

Thanks for sharing your experience — I agree, Proton has done an impressive job making their services available across many platforms, and it clearly shows in how well things work on as android app That broad availability is a real strength, especially compared to the data-harvesting ecosystems they compete against.

My own thinking is less about whether Proton works today — it clearly does — and more about what the next step could be for platforms like Sailfish OS. Using Android apps is a very practical solution, but it still means relying on the Android app ecosystem as an intermediate layer.

For me, the idea of a native Sailfish OS application is interesting precisely because it could reduce that dependency. Not necessarily to replace existing solutions overnight, but to offer a path where key services no longer need to be mediated through Android compatibility at all. That feels aligned with the long-term goal of platform independence rather than just cross-platform availability.

So I see this less as criticism of the current state — which works well for many users — and more as curiosity about what a deeper, more native integration could enable over time for those who want to go one step further.

Thanks again for the thoughtful reply; it’s useful to hear concrete real-world experiences like yours.

Best regards,

Antti

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Disclamer: written with help of AI ideas are my own

I think it’s important to acknowledge that we no longer operate in a vacuum.

Most users already live in an ecosystem of email, calendars, password managers, cloud storage, and identity services. When people try to move away from dominant, data-harvesting platforms, they are not jumping directly into a perfect local-first future — they are looking for a workable transition path.

From that perspective, integrations with established, privacy-respecting providers are not a compromise of principles, but a practical necessity. Without them, platforms like Sailfish OS risk remaining technically interesting but socially marginal — attractive mainly to a small group of highly motivated enthusiasts rather than a broader user base.

Open standards like DAV and local-first architectures are absolutely important long-term goals. But usability and integration are what make those goals reachable in practice. If the friction is too high, most users will simply stay where they are, regardless of how sound the architecture is.

Integrations do not negate sovereignty or user control. They lower the barrier to entry and make it realistic for ordinary users to start the journey away from centralized ecosystems. Without that bridge, the ideals remain correct — but isolated.

If Sailfish OS aims to be a credible alternative beyond a niche audience, it needs both: strong foundational protocols and pragmatic integrations that reflect how people actually live and work today.

This is not about abandoning principles, but about making them usable in the real world.

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Am I the only one who thinks these messages has been padded with AI? Also why the tag 4.4.0?

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Yes. I have used AI but idea behind messages is my own. If that is wrongly done here then I apologize. I put the tag because form asked. I Have nothing to hide.

Antti Silenius

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It can be seen as some kind of politeness to mark AI generated text as such.

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I have nothing against your ideas, but it would make reading this discussion much faster if you would keep the posts more concise. Nothing wrong if you use the AI to translate or etc., or even make the opening look better, but the extra padding to make the every reply look more professional is bit faux pas if you ask me.

Also the tag refers to SFOS version 4.4.0, we are in 5.0.0 now, and I don’t see that tag relevant since we ain’t talking issues/bugs that are related to certain version of SFOS.

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Okay. I can remove the tag if that is possible. Now first message has disclamer about ai. I can add it to others as well. I speak english pretty fluent and this message for example is my own writing. Sorry for confusion

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The answer is simple. Make the Proton apps available in the Jolla store. Saves using SDK’s, UAR etc.

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I think this development is more up to proton than Jolla. But yes that is ideal endgoal of my idea.

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I think this is great initiative and more people express wish for native apps, probably some point they will appear if there is big enough user space. Great work on that front! It would be amazing to see European privacy oriented companies doing native apps for Sailfish to boost European tech independence. I for example have wished native Tuta apps.

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Sorry, I don’t see what Proton, AI and Sailfish have in common.
I use excellent Threema for chatservice, excellent Tutamail and Soverin for mail service. I try to stay away from AI and I refuse chatbots.
There is a website that inventarises European tech:
european-alternatives.eu. Recommended.
Searching with Qwant I find ‘Open Mobile Hub’, a European Linux foundation that tries to develop cross-platform solutions. This is not to my liking because they try to combine Big Tech, yet the idea is interesting.
Undoubtedly there are more initiatives like this.

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Make the Proton apps available in the Jolla store.

Why would it be?
If it’s opensource (or at least open API in this case) it’s common that a 3rd party enthusiast (like you) starts coding.

Otherwise I agree with what others already wrote: there’s no particular reason to single out Proton here, there’s a ton of “privacy/safe” email providers and common protocols to build something that works for all of them.

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I know AI, especially LLM’s are popular because it’s fast and easy.
Unless you have your own windmill, think about this:

https://unric.org/en/artificial-intelligence-how-much-energy-does-ai-use/

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A good point to start a European collaboration would be if at least the Android apps of European companies would be available directly in Jolla app store. I know and would like to see native SFOS apps, but it would be easier to provide (hopefully tested and working) android apps directly in Jolla Store. Even F-Droid as one of the few android apps in Jolla store is outdated.

This would maybe help to get rid of the play service binding several android apps relay on.

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Just a FYI to everyone: I packaged the Proton Bridge for SailfishOS: Proton Bridge CLI | OpenRepos.net — Community Repository System

It’s only the CLI currently but I plan on making a GUI for configuring it sometimes this year.

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Allso vpn works just fine. You can test it with a free version before purchase.