We Linux users have plenty of choices when it comes to spreadsheet software, with LibreOffice, ONLYOFFICE, FreeOffice, GNUmeric, KOffice and, new this month, Collabora Office among them.
And for those of you who don’t mind opening a browser to work, the choice is even greater thanks to browser-based office web apps like Google Sheets, Zoho Sheet, and now Proton Sheets (yes, more sheets than a hotel in this sentence).
Proton, as I’m sure you are all aware, is the Swiss-based, privacy-first company best known for its VPN, and has steadily built out an entire suite of tools, ranging from e-mail and cloud storage to password manager and authentication code generator.
Last year we got a Proton word processor to rival Google Docs, and this year a spreadsheet component.
The motivation? The company explains:
Most spreadsheet tools come from Big Tech giants whose entire business models are built on exploiting user data. Now, with AI woven deeply into these platforms, the risks have escalated exponentially.Every keystroke, every formula you enter can feed into their AI training pipelines.
Anant Vijay Singh, head of product at Proton Drive
As with its other services, encryption and user privacy are at the core. All docs — personal info, contents and related metadata related — is fully protected. No one, not even Proton itself can access it.
But Proton Sheets doesn’t sound like a paired-back or feature-lite alternative to other free spreadsheet options, i.e., it shows you don’t have to trade privacy for convenience.
It supports importing CSV and XLS files (encrypted once uploaded), commonly used formulas and data visualisation (charts and graphs) and allows for real-time collaboration with other users (giving full control over who can view or edit files).
It works as well in a modern Linux browser as it will on a Windows, macOS, Chromebooks or one of the 5 low-budget Android tablets you’ve got gathering dust in a drawer. The downside is, obviously, you need to have an internet connection to use it.
In a sense, the best way to ensure total privacy in documents is to work offline, in software like LibreOffice. But not everyone can or wants to, and the ability to work on documents in real-time with other people online is a lure.
Want to try it out?
Proton’s new spreadsheet tool is available through any web browser (or from within the Proton Drive app on Windows and macOS) for both regular users and Proton Drive for Business.
To actually use it you will need to sign up for a Proton account (which is free and gives access to many of their other products). The only real limitation (for working with documents) is that free accounts are limited to 2GB cloud storage.
Then, login to Proton Drive and you should see a link to Sheets – if not, hold tight as access is rolling out gradually during the month.