ProtonMail in Main Profile or Private Space with Play Services?

WaterBottle25

I am having trouble researching exactly what quantifiable privacy advantages are lost in a Play Services-enabled profile versus a stock Graphene profile with no GSF/GPS. I understand there is Google telemetry involved, but Google can't, for instance, read my emails in the ProtonMail app if that app resides in a Play Services-enabled profile, right? This question comes from ignorance and not incredulity. I appreciate your assistance.

c86

WaterBottle25

Google can see what apps are associated with the account used to download them, and also can see notifications sent via that account to apps that use their notification service. ProtonMail uses google services for real time notifications. A burner Google account limits the data mosaic that can occur since it wouldn't be used for anything other than loading apps.

But no, Google could not read what is in your ProtonMail emails. They could see unencrypted metadata associated with the push notification services though. I will add, if you use Proton and email a nonProton user then the email could pass through Google servers which then they could read. Just an aside but I assume you already understood that.

If you run ProtonMail via the APK from their GitHub (without Play Services installed), you'll have to open the app to get new emails.

I haven't tried it via Aurora Store because I'm not a fan of the risk exposure from their anonymous account setup. But I had heard apps can work more normally if downloaded via Aurora and without any Google services installed.

Ammako

c86 They could see unencrypted metadata associated with the push notification services though

They'll see a ping that essentially just says "there is a new message."

Proton doesn't send the full content of notifications through firebase, it's just a ping to tell the app there are new messages, and then the app knows to connect to the servers, pull the new message(s), and display the message in a notification.