Reviews - Page 3

cmsWhen it comes to email, it's a very personal thing. Some people want more features and others want less but overall, we all want three important things: reliability, solid spam filtering and an easy to use interface. In this article, I'm going to <a target="_blank" href="https://protonmail.com/">t</a>ake you through my ProtonMail Review and explain why they are now my email provider of choice.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/protonmail-press-web-3.jpg" />ProtonMail offers a great interface and encrypted / secure email for the web and mobile.ProtonMail is an open source secure email provider based in Switzerland. They offer a very solid web based email client as well as apps for all major devices. ISince discovering ProtonMail, I've switched all of my CMS Critic email over to it from Gmail and I won't be switching back. Not only do I prefer the client and it's layout to that offered by Google but I also love the full email encryption.Furthering that, it's open source and as a fan of open source software and an avid user (all of my computers run open source operating systems) it was a natural fit.You do not need to provide any personal information to create a secure email account with ProtonMail and they do not keep IP logs that can be linked to your anonymous email account.Here's a breakdown of the security features included with ProtonMail:<ul><li>End-to-End Encryption Messages are always encrypted and transmitted in encrypted format between their servers and your device. If you are emailing other ProtonMail users they are also fully encrypted within their secure server network.</li><li>Zero Access to User Data The makers of ProtonMail have absolutely no access to your data. They use what they call a zero access architecture which means the data is encrypted in a way that makes it inaccessible to them.</li><li>Open Source Cryptography ProtonMail uses open source cryptography which means they use well tested, trusted encryption algorithms.</li></ul>If you want to learn more, you can visit this page: <a target="_blank" href="https://protonmail.com/security-details">ProtonMail Security Features</a>.<h3>Free or Paid? The Choice is Yours</h3>It's easy to sign up for ProtonMail and they offer a quick and easy to set up free offering. With it you receive the following features:<ul><li>500MB Storage</li><li>150 Messages per day</li><li>Limited Support</li></ul>They also offer two paid plans; Plus and Visionary which offer more advanced features and range from $4 – 25 USD / month.The Plus account includes:<ul><li>5 GB storage</li><li>Send up to 1000 messages per day</li><li>Labels, Custom Filters, and Folders</li><li>Send encrypted messages to external recipients</li><li>Use your own domain (ex: john@smith.com)</li><li>Up to 5 email aliases</li><li>Priority Customer Support</li></ul>The Visionary account includes:<ul><li>20GB storage</li><li>Up to 50 email aliases</li><li>Support for up to 10 domains</li><li>Multi-User Support (6 total)</li><li>No sending limits*</li><li>Labels, Custom Filters, and Folders</li><li>Send encrypted messages to external recipients</li><li>Early access to new features</li><li>Includes access to ProtonVPN</li></ul><h3>Getting a Free Account</h3>Getting a free account is easy, you can sign up with very little information. Literally, they just need you to select a username and password with an optional recovery email. For the purposes of this ProtonMail review, we'll set up a free account.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/protonmail-review-1.png" />ProtonMail Review – Setting up an AccountOnce signed up (and verified by either having a code emailed or sent to your via SMS) your account will be created and you'll be redirected to your new inbox.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/protonmail-review-3.png" />ProtonMail Review – The Inbox<h3>The Interface</h3>The same features you'd expect from any web based email are present along with those specific to ProtonMail.When sending a new message, for example, you have two new security based features available if you choose to use them; expiration time and encryption for non-ProtonMail users.To enable an expiration time, from the new message window, select the small hourglass icon in the bottom left and you'll be presented with this screen:<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/protonmail-review-5.png" />ProtonMail Review – Setting an expiration time for an email.To enable encryption for non-ProtonMail users, you can set a password which you would then provide to the recipient. To use this, you would click on the padlock icon in the bottom left of the new message window.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/protonmail-review-6.png" />ProtonMail Review – Setting up EncryptionAlong with these inbox features (and the typical ones you'd expect from any email client) there are a number of ways to migrate to ProtonMail from your existing email provider.<h3>Migrating to ProtonMail</h3>If you choose to migrate over to ProtonMail, there are a number of ways to do so. ProtonMail offers an easy way to import your contacts which you can access from the contacts tab.Clicking import will present you with the following screen:<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/protonmail-review-7.png" />ProtonMail Review – Importing ContactsProtonMail supports importing CSV files from Outlook, Outlook Express, Yahoo! Mail, Hotmail, Eudora and some other apps. They also support importing vCard. (UTF-8 encoding).Importing EmailTo import email into ProtonMail, you'll need a paid account as their import/export tool is only available to paid users. Fortunately, however, the cost of a paid plan is incredibly reasonable and affordable for everyone. The Import/Export tool works for Windows and Mac users and allows you to import your email from another email account or from a local MBOX or EML file on your device.You can learn more about the app and how it works on the <a target="_blank" href="https://protonmail.com/blog/import-export-beta/">Import/Export tool page.</a><h3>Other Security Features</h3>Along with your typical settings which you can find by clicking the settings tab, you can also find information via the Security tab. This tab shows you past logins and current and previous sessions, amongst other things.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/protonmail-review-8.png" />ProtonMail Review – Security and Session Management<h3>My Experience So Far</h3>Overall, I've found that I thoroughly enjoy using ProtonMail. I prefer their platform and the simplicity offered by the interface. There are, however, a few things I'd like to see added / improved upon which I'll get into in my pros/cons list below.Pros<ul><li>Simple Interface that is easy to use.</li><li>Encrypted email.</li><li>Price point is very reasonable for personal users and business users.</li><li>Highly secure.</li><li>Plenty of features.</li><li>Easy to migrate from other platforms.</li><li>Excellent help and documentation.</li><li>Available smartphone apps.</li></ul>Cons<ul><li>No scheduling option for emails to allow me to remind myself to reply to it at a later date.</li><li>In their mobile apps, there is no way to select multiple emails at once and mark as read or archive them in one go, things must be done individually.</li><li>No calendar with which to integrate.</li></ul>Overall, I think ProtonMail is an excellent option but I would love to be able to migrate my calendar over from Google and make the transition a complete one. For now, however, I'm stuck using it there until that time comes.Have I convinced you to try it? <a target="_blank" href="https://protonmail.com/">Go ahead and sign up and see for yourself.</a>

ProtonMail Review - Secure Email on All Platforms

mike-johnston

<a target="_blank" href="https://kinsta.com/?kaid=QQMMZOGRMCQE">Kinsta</a> is a popular hosting provider that provides managed WordPress hosting to the public. Today, I'm going to review their system and hosting setup to see whether it's a good option for those of you looking for a solid, trustworthy provider with a good set of tools for your WordPress website.What makes Kinsta a unique beast is that their entire infrastructure uses <a target="_blank" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Cloud_Platform">Google Cloud Platform</a> which differs from the traditional shared, VPS, or dedicated infrastructures you see with most providers.Kinsta was kind enough to provide me with a test account for the purposes of this review so I'll be using that for the screenshots and to take a look through everything.<h2>The Dashboard</h2>Once you've <a target="_blank" href="https://kinsta.com/?kaid=QQMMZOGRMCQE">signed up for an account with Kinsta</a>, you'll be given access to your Kinsta Dashboard which is where you'll manage your sites, migrations and a whole lot more.Your dashboard, once you get access and sign-up, will look like this:<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/kinsta-wordpress-hosting-review-1_ws7yhd.png" />Kinsta Managed WordPress Hosting DashboardThere are numerous graphs on the Dashboard for you to review such as Resource Usage, Data Transfer and Unique Visits. You can also see a full list of your sites from one location (if you have multiple).<h2>Sites</h2>To add new sites and manage existing ones, you'll use the Sites tab. When you move a site over to Kinsta, you are given the option to choose from one of their <a target="_blank" href="https://kinsta.com/knowledgebase/google-cloud-data-center-locations/?kaid=QQMMZOGRMCQE">18 data centers</a> for your site. Each of your sites can have a different data center as Kinsta uses multi-regional deployments.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/kinsta-wordpress-hosting-review-2_qmmhyx.png" />The Sites TabIn the Info section, you can see everything you need to know about your site from your IP information to your Data Center location, sFTP and SSH details and more.Most of the other sections are pretty self explanatory and I won't go through all of them because that would likely bore you to tears but what I will tell you is that there is plenty of information and functionality here. One of the sections I especially found useful is the Tools section. Here you can clear site cache, restart PHP and do a database Search and Replace quickly and easily.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/kinsta-wordpress-hosting-review-9_v1tcl7.png" />The Tools Section<h2>Migrations</h2>The Migrations tab is where you'll initiate any migrations from your previous hosting provider to Kinsta. As you can see in the screenshot below, I've got 1 free migration that I haven't used yet so to kick off a site move, I'd do so here.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/kinsta-wordpress-hosting-review-4_lspgkw.png" />The Migration Tab<h2>Kinsta DNS</h2>Kinsta also offers a service called Kinsta DNS which allows you to manage your own zone records and use Amazon Route 53 to speed up DNS resolution for faster domain name resolving.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/kinsta-wordpress-hosting-review-5_fz2pm7.png" />Kinsta DNS<h2>Analytics</h2>The  tab is exactly what it claims to be, analytics for your site. While it does offer you a quick peek into how your site is performing, most of you should make sure you also have Google Analytics as that's what everyone uses and it provides far more in-depth detail. Having said that, this doesn't mean this section is useless as it does provide quick insight without having to leave the dashboard so I can appreciate that.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/kinsta-wordpress-hosting-review-6_ecfwrv.png" />Analytics<h2>Activity</h2>Skipping now to the Activity tab now, this is where you'll find a log of all activity that has happened within your Dashboard such as adding new sites, making changes and more.<img src="https://cmscritic.com/ms-content/uploads/2023/08/kinsta-wordpress-hosting-review-7_vbeols.png" />ActivityThat about does it for the Dashboard tour but does all of this mean Kinsta is the right managed WordPress hosting provider for you?<h2>My Thoughts</h2>Kinsta provides some pretty amazing features / services that go along with each and every plan so they are definitely good bang for your buck. One of the most interesting ones is the Free hack fix meaning that if your website gets hacked (which is always a fear for every website owner) they will fix it with immediate priority.Additional features include:<ul><li>Free CDN, free Letsencrypt SSL, staging environments, automatic daily backups and the option to create manual backup points anytime.</li><li>Full page caching at the server-level to deliver content almost instantaneously to visitors. We also pair that with our Kinsta MU plugin, developed in-house, to provide even more granular control over caching.</li><li>PHP 7, 7.1, 7.2, and 7.3.</li><li>Server-level rules and optimizations for WooCommerce and Easy Digital Download sites to ensure a smoother checkout experience for customers.</li><li>Multi-user access with fine-grained permissions. Add any number of users to your team. Give them access to all your sites, just billing or add them as developers or administrators to a subset of your sites.</li><li>SSH access, Git, and WP-CLI.</li><li>At least one free migration, completed by our expert support team. There are a certain number of migrations included depending on which plan you choose.</li></ul>There's another good reason I'd consider Kinsta that most people aren't aware of. AdThrive, one of the largest ad networks in the world for bloggers, recently recommended Kinsta in an email sent out to their publishers (I know this because my wife's site is with them). This nod from a company that takes things into deep consideration before making recommendations is a good sign for those thinking of choosing Kinsta for their own websites.<a target="_blank" href="https://kinsta.com?kaid=QQMMZOGRMCQE">You can learn more or sign up with Kinsta here.</a>

Kinsta Managed WordPress Hosting Review

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ProtonMail Review - Secure Email on All Platforms

Kinsta Managed WordPress Hosting Review