Like you I looked for an alternative to Proton and I’ve been using tuta for a couple of years now as my main mail. You can create aliases with your own custom domain. My only non important complaint is that you can’t use other email clients (Thunderbird, K-9), due to their encryption I guess. They are also fairly active in Mastodon.
Nowadays I just play something else, so many games out there that work flawlessly (thanks
to wine/proton). I also did virtualization successfully for some time but it can take a while to get it right. The best and simplest solution is to get a separate SSD just for windows and dual boot.
Like you I looked for an alternative to Proton and I’ve been using tuta for a couple of years now as my main mail. You can create aliases with your own custom domain. My only non important complaint is that you can’t use other email clients (Thunderbird, K-9), due to their encryption I guess. They are also fairly active in Mastodon.