Ditch Excel for Proton Sheets
Fed up with AI junk and Office subscriptions? Jonathan Parkyn explains why you should try Proton’s brand new privacy-first alternative to Excel and Google Sheets
For many of us, working with spreadsheets is an essential part of everyday life. But if you’re tired of paying a Microsoft 365 subscription just to use Excel, then you may have already started considering your other options.
LibreOffice (www.libreoffice.org) or the downloadable version of OnlyOffice (www.onlyoffice.com) might provide the most obvious like-for-like experience. But if you rarely (or never) use Excel’s advanced features, then a simple, free online app like Google Sheets could well be all you need. Understandably, however, handing personal or business financial data over to Google isn’t a privacy compromise everyone is comfortable making.
But now there’s a brand new, free and privacy-focused way to create, edit and collaborate on spreadsheets, courtesy of Proton Sheets. It works entirely online just like Google Sheets or Microsoft’s Excel Online. The crucial difference being it has end-to-end encryption (E2EE) at its core, keeping all your work, personal information and most of your metadata locked away. No one, not even Proton, can view your data. It also works with Proton’s other tools, and is refreshingly free from AI intrusions, ads and other clutter.