I don’t think OP was trying to say Proton Mail is bad or insecure. Rather the opposite.

Ah yes, true. But it is a whole year, so you’d only need to login once a year.

And what would be a situation where you have to enter a phone number? I only know it’s optional for account recovery.

As far as I know they delete the account if you don’t log in for a few months.

I mean, without the additional requirement Proton may be sufficient.