Proton might be best known for its VPN service, but the company also makes email and calendar apps with privacy in mind. Now they're more interoperable with your friends and family.
Proton Calendar has been under development for a while now as a privacy-first calendar, complete with a desktop web app or mobile app and integrations with Proton Mail. However, it's lacking many of the features you might be used to with Google Calendar, Outlook, or other services. Proton is now fixing one significant limitation: you can finally share calendars.
Proton said in its announcement today, "With Proton Calendar's new calendar sharing feature, users can easily share their calendar with those who need it. Business users will be able to share their calendar with trusted colleagues and collaborate more easily with their co-workers to find meeting slots and avoid scheduling conflicts. Consumers will be able to keep their families organized by sharing their calendar with loved ones. Anyone with a paid Proton plan can start sharing their calendars from the web app."
Proton is also rolling out another helpful feature for interoperability on Android phones and tablets. When you receive an event invite in .ics format, you can now open it with the Proton Calendar app for Android to import it into your calendar. That's how most invites are shared through emails and other messaging platforms, so having that on mobile should make on-the-go calendar management much simpler. There's also a Proton Calendar app for iPhone, but there's no word on ICS support there just yet.
The new changes should help Proton's services feel a bit less isolated from the rest of the digital world, though the apps are still far behind its (less private) competitors, at least for now.
Source: Proton