Lately, their posts on Mastodon became full of comments questioning their CEO political views. I guess, this is the answer to those, a clear one.
Proton is really just trashing their rep.
Three years ago I made an issue on their feedback page because the android app doesn’t really work on degoogled phones, it requires gms for notifications. Still not fixed.
Nice privacy focused App that can’t fully be used if you take privacy seriously.
FYI i use a degoogled FP3 with microG and I don’t have any problem.
One wonders why the rest of the Proton Foundation hasn’t stepped in and gotten rid of Andy; I assume it’s just because they don’t actually care about privacy, they’re just cryptonerds.
I suggest you give a read to “Privacy is power” by Carissa Veliz (on the board). She also gave a very good interview on the podcast “firewalls don’t stop dragons”.
I also don’t think “cryptonerds” applies to people like Tim Berners Lee.
I’d say this move seems too dumb even for fiction, if that wasn’t the SOP for the entire country I live in.
Given the context though, I’m curious if one of you privacy experts can change my mind on how I approach email.
I don’t use email for any meaningful communication where I expect privacy. It is essentially the way for companies and a few other organizations to send me low priority information and/or confirm my identity to reset a password or whatever. Because of that, the only attributes of an email service I really care about are reliability and availability, including not having emails silently blocked for not coming from a “trusted” provider.
So what is the practical risk of just using a Gmail address for that stuff, equivalent to hiding in plain sight? Yeah it helps Google fine tune their advertising model for me, while I’m running Linux on all my machines and blocking ads on any device I touch. My social media is Lemmy and my streaming service is Jellyfin.
Am I risking too much if I use it as the corporate contact point that it is? Am I just letting my white/straight/cis/male privilege show through?
I don’t use email for any meaningful communication where I expect privacy. It is essentially the way for companies and a few other organizations to send me low priority information and/or confirm my identity to reset a password or whatever.
As a privacy enthusiast (expert seems too much), this immediately stood out. Privacy is the context of emails means that all my data which includes the content of the messages but also the metadata (who I talk to, which services I use - like in your example -, when I communicate, how often, etc.) is kept private, meaning not used for anything else than providing me the service (i.e., let me send and receive emails). From this point of view, even if you consider the content of your emails not sensitive, already the fact that you do use company X (because they sent you a password reset email) is data about you, and as such can and will be mined by Google to profile you or to sell it.
Am I risking too much if I use it as the corporate contact point that it is? Am I just letting my white/straight/cis/male privilege show through?
Nobody can tell you this, because risk in this context is purely a subjective estimation, and you are free to do what you please. However, I do care about my privacy, which means that I want to minimize the amount of data about me available for sale or to others in general. For me the motivation is quite simple, while I do block ads everywhere too and I generally don’t have an impact in terms of getting personalized ads, once the data is collected I have no idea what will be used for, by whom and for what purpose. It doesn’t even matter if the data actually allows to infer accurate things about me, it’s enough that someone (e.g., insurance company, employer, bank, government, etc.) is gullible enough to believe that inference is correct. In the book “Privacy is power” (written by Carissa Veliz) she also develops a very interesting argument about the fact that violating your privacy usually means also violating the privacy of the people near you (the people with whom you share demographic, the people you communicate with etc.). This could be another point of view to consider.
Anyway, if for you the above is fine, there is no other significant risk you are taking, and you should keep using Gmail if that suits you.
A technical note. Secure email providers generally can have technical controls (i.e., encryption) to protect the body (content) of the email, and in some cases some small amount of metadata (e.g., Tuta encrypts also the subject). Generally though, you are still trusting the provider to perform that encryption (especially because a mail from Gmail -> Proton/Tuta would be encrypted by Proton/Tuta) and to not use metadata for any purpose besides delivering the emails. So privacy here doesn’t mean absolutely removing the data from a third party, but it means giving it to a third party who uses it (due to contractual obligation, business incentives etc.) only for the intended purpose in a privacy-preserving way.
I mean yeah I think the main problem is just Google having all that data about you and potentially selling it to others whether that be for advertising, robocalling, or other things. So it really just comes down to how comfortable you are allowing Google to be able to use your emails and communications from corporations to see what things you like. Only time it really matters more is if you are using email for more personal or secure communications which yeah I would always prefer using better encrypted more messaging focused apps like signal for or just talking in person when possible.
I’ve committed a bunch of relatives and myself to a year of the Family plan, and now most of us want to leave… What a mess.
Wait, you bought/gave money to Proton so early in its life? Why do people keep falling for these over and over.
If a ‘can run on low resources sustainably’ is legit, going to have test and wait for it to see first.
Otherwise we need to accept what we can and can’t have based on what is possible without being greedy and at someone else’s expense.
Do they really need a team of people to post the same thing to X, Mastodon, BkueSky, etc? I’m honestly surprised they don’t have some bot to make all the posts for them to those services. Sounds like a cop out to me.
i heard they stopped posting on bluesky weeks ago, not surprised they are active on meta platforms, and X.
They specifically said they don’t want to do automated posting, to avoid writing and not interacting with the community. I see no value in them doing this, considering we can get the same content via RSS, blog page or email newsletter. Presence makes sense if it means presence. If it means a bot reposting content, anybody can do it, but the value is very low.
It wouldn’t be hard to do simultaneous posting. People figured that out ages ago.
It’s not a problem of complexity, it’s a deliberate choice of not wanting to do that, because it is synthetic content disconnected from the community.
Exactly. If they need help maybe someone could create something so they can post to BlueSky, Matrix, Lemmy, and Mastadon at same time soon. Also set it up for the up and coming Flashes and Pixelfed.
Such delicate snowflakes these ceos…
on reddit they can pursue sitewide bans more easily on users, since reddit had started doing this month. its to silence all criticism against them, im betting facebook will be thier next stop.
one simple reporting of your acct will get you immediately banned from the sub, and potentially a sitewide ban.
I do think the second part of your statement was unnecessary.
In a normal scenario yes. This is not longer a normal situation. You support Trump? You better start hiding…
Yeah. In my experience babies can be pretty fun people to be around and they have much healthier ways to express their emotions.
*member of the board
Ouch! They really are working hard on getting any privacy oriented person to leave them.
I’m glad I have moved away from them.
fleeing to reddit of all place, banning any instance of discourse, much like facebook is now.
Out of curiosity, where did you move from Proton?
Tuta
I was using mainly the emails from proton, I moved to mailbox.
At one point I was planning on moving my drive and VPN with them but their Linux support was really lacking, especially the CLI support so I’ve never done it and I’m glad I didn’t.
For the VPN I’m using Mullvad integrated with tailscale, for the drive in using my own synology NAS and tailscale to connect to it.
I agree this is an issue. They move away from a privacy oriented community. Additionally, the reason they give is vague and easily dismantled. What I’m interested in is why this would be a good enough reason to switch providers. They haven’t changed anything crucial in their mail offering, so why should I switch?
kinda wierd for proton to promote on reddit, when reddit doesnt allow VPN usage to most users, mostly for spam/botting/ban evasions.
That may be, but they have always done that. Reddit is the only place where they have a real presence for years. It’s not like they are moving there now. They have always been predominantly there on the first place.
What kind of expensive resources you need to just post on Mastodon?
ability to silence, and censor or criticism,?-proton probably
Mastodon has that too, so Wonder why leave Mastodon at all
But people still can see the other messages. Instead a censored post on Reddit or Instagram is invisible
reddit allows you more ability to censor people permanently from the site, in the form of sitewide bans and automatic removals and such. and they can probably with the request of the admins take down any other proton subreddit that is potentially critical of them. and reddit recently has given mods more privileges to ban people with thier filters.
Good to know, thank you
i came here from reddit because of such a ban, apparently if you report someone too much you can get banned, or if you report and the mod doesnt like it you can recieve a sub ban, or even sitewide temp or permaban, and alot of the mods have admins ears, so you can get banned more easily. thats why proton wants to go to reddit, they just remove all negative comments, and ban people. and reddits ban feature is very intense(any attempt an evasion is pretty difficult nowawadays)
They can’t control all the instances. I think that if they tried that with the one that I am on they would be laughed at.
Way easier for a company to make its own reddit and censor any post that talks about why you should probably start to look at moving your data before they are quietly asked to hand over all the data they have.
Makes sense
A human being.
Whoever posts on reddit can copy paste to other platforms, if they are to lazy to use a software that consolidates it for them.
i disagree as there are plenty of tools to post to multiple platforms at once. but yea if they were so kind to actually interact then yes
This really sucks, I like using Proton and now I want to leave… WTF
Protón is just a bunch of criptonazis
After Andy Yen’s endorsement of the orange utan, I would seriously reconsider using any Proton product.
Yen tried to backpedal meekly several times since then, to get out of the pickle he got himself into with his definitely-not-impressed customers, but it’s a bit late for that: either he’s pro-Trump or he’s naive. Either way, he makes Proton sketchy.
Idc if I likes Trump or not (even though Trump is garbage); but I do care that he says the Republicans - the party that has spent years attacking encryption and privacy, who has sued to obtain private medical records of women and trans people who see doctors, and who is funded by billionaire big tech moguls - is the better option for privacy.
Also just taking ANY position for a leader of the US - one of the biggest parties to the Five Eyes agreement - just leaves a bad taste.
Do you have any recommendations for someone who just uses them for email?
Tutanota has been pretty decent to me, though their android client is sometimes a little rough around the edges. Though never in a way that’s caused problems for me or impaired usage, and it has a pretty enough interface.
They have a free plan if you’re broke as shit like I am and are looking to switch from a free proton plan
I’m a happy mailbox.org user
I use them too. Their web ui and app are totally ugly crap but if you use it with thunderbird or another mail app it’s good.
Just switched and couldn’t be happier. Now I can use FairMail as a client and loving all the extra features.
I used a custom but generic sounding domain name which made the switch pretty seamless.
I’m only missing tag support on emails from them. In my ever growing archive, I came to realize, that tags are better suited for organizing than folders.
Ideally I would archive in yearly folders and also tag as much as I can.
I’ve been using Tuta for more than 8 years now and had one serious issue with their service during this time (longer outage, pretty early on). Other than that I have nothing but positive experience with them.
They’re also based in Germany if that makes any difference.I was debating between proton and tuta, but I was able to get first.last@tuta so I’m happy that worked out now.
I have [email protected] and its a 3 letter last name, very cool.
We can only hope they won’t screw up as well in the future.
I’m happy Posteo.net user.
German and secure email service.
But unfortunately the web frontend isn’t quite as good, so if you are dependent on something like this then don’t use it.
I’ve been a Runbox customer for many years. Never had any problem with them. They’re located in privacy-friendly Norway.
Been very impressed with Runbox since Andy turned out to be an idiot.
Tutanota
Seconded, but they just go by Tuta now.
I made it, so I’m obviously very biased, but I think it’s better than Proton. It’s got some really useful organization and anti-spam features.
The labeling idea is pretty interesting, an email service with inbuilt proxy, but your website is pretty light on details. Stuff like pricing or custom domain support is absent.
Good point. I’ll add that.
I’m working on custom domain support right now. And pricing is pretty straightforward, since I only have extra storage and sending options. You get 500MB for free, and the ability to receive email. Sending is $1/month. I put that behind a paywall to prevent spammers from using Port87. As a small email service, if you send spam, the big players can blocklist you and kill your service. So, keeping my SMTP servers’ IP address reputation high is really important.
You can join the Discord to follow along with new features and updates:
“…join the Discord…”
Aaaaand I’m out.
Not OP, but I’ve been using Fastmail for a few years now and have had no issues with them.
Same, I just switched over to them and have had a good experience with it.
Posteo is good. Have been using them for 2 years now.
I’ve got an account with tilde.club
They even have a newsgroup service for the tilde community. It’s not full on Usenet and there aren’t any hosted files, but it’s a nice community feature.
You get a gigabyte soft cap (three gig hard cap and a week grace period to get back to soft cap) but it actually talks to google, for the time being, and I’ve been making an attempt at migrating to the point of using gmail as a ‘talking ot my republican family’ and ‘spam’ account.
I think im going to try it out. I dont like where proton is going.
https://tilde.club/signup/ https://tilde.club/wiki/faq.html
Remember. This is a hobbiest community. Personal recommendation is using tilde.club for emails, and spread your other needs across other tilde servers.
Yes commandline interaction is required.
Save your SSH keys not just on your computer but in a couple other secure places. If you have to pull them from backup, remember to reset the file’s permissions otherwise SSH won’t like them. Setting up a password backup is very helpful here especially since that will let you use your mail address with apps such as k-9 on android, or claws/thunderbird/outlook for desktop.
oh yeah def. Im going to donate if/when I take a look. sdf also has something similar.
SDF’s been, in my experiance, less sure? I don’t want to talk trash about what is effectivly pubnix’s grandaddy. I’m going to put money in the pot because I want that place to keep running, but i view it more as curiosity than cornerstone.
Migadu!
Hotmail. Been using it since high school and every data breach and fuck up taught me something new.
Any alternatives for their VPN service with port forwarding?
Mullvad (or Mullvad on a router with Adguard)
Mullvad no longer has port forwarding.
There are none of them as good as Proton.
For example, AirVPN hasn’t had any security audits and doesn’t seem too interested in them either due to monetary concerns. That’s a deal breaker for me.
Airvpn, or Azirevpn if you’re ok with few servers
Of those I’ve only used Azire, and it worked well. I’ve seen Airvpn recommended often though
Private internet access is nice
They have port forwarding, but they were bought by a company that has been caught stuffing malware into purchased programs. Basically, it was a company that has a history of buying out otherwise legitimate software brands, and then bulking them with adware as a quick cash grab on the existing customers.
That buyout was like 4 or 5 years ago, but it left a sour taste in many people’s mouths. Because everyone expected the PIA client to silently get bulked with adware one day. Since trust is basically the only reason to casually use a VPN, it pushed a lot of their users to alternatives.
Just did the transition off Proton! Most replacement self hosted in my homelab except for email.
There is not and never was any endorsement of Trump. I wish people would stop spreading such wild disinformation.
He also never backpedaled.
Here is the tweet - if that’s not the most flagrant Trump bootlicking, I don’t know what is:
And here is the backpedal:
https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonMail/comments/1i2nz9v/on_politics_and_proton_a_message_from_andy/
Believe what you will. I believe what I read.
Here is the tweet
I know exactly what you’re referring to.
if that’s not the most flagrant Trump bootlicking, I don’t know what is
I agree, you don’t know what is. Agreeing with a single decision someone makes is not an endorsement. But that’s exactly the kind of irrational dichotomic reaction I expect from society these days.
And here is the backpedal
I don’t see anything here that could be construed as backpedaling. If he were smart he would have, but if anything, he doubled down several times.
I believe what I read.
You didn’t read that, you made it up.
It’s kind of stupid to say that Republicans aren’t the party of big business anymore. Both parties are parties of big business.
If you want to claim it was a stupid thing to say, I will agree with you 100%. If you want to claim that it was a tacit endorsement specifically of Trump, you are just wrong and spreading disinformation.
“No you don’t get it! Supporting trump isn’t really supporting trump! Just bc the CEO likes Trump’s policy and endorsed him doesn’t mean he endorsed him!”
Normal people don’t jerk off Trump like that. Dude is blatantly a Nazi, if you can’t see it that says a lot about you
“Anyone who disagrees with me is a Trump supporter and a nazi!”
See, I too can make up things that you didn’t say and put it in quotes and pretend like you did.
I’ll sometimes agree with stuff Trump does too, like appointing Tulsi Gabbard, but I’m not going to say this means Republicans have become the party of anti war lol
What’s good about the Tulsi Gabbard here? Unless you just mean she (like all the Trump appointees) is the worst person for the job and it’ll make the country collapse faster lol
You agree with Trump about something?! How dare you, nazi!
I wouldn’t call that boot licking. Maybe a misguided opinion.
I think he internet mob went a little hard on this one.
A perfectly guided opinion. You do get why the CEO likes Trump and left the fediverse while staying on Twitter, right?
Looking at the board of directors for the proton foundation, I’d say people are jumping to conclusions way too fast about proton.
I don’t like that they’re ditching Mastodon to focus on reddit. But, it makes sense in a marketing perspective. Reddit has a LOT more users, and potential customers. If they indeed don’t have the resources to manage both then Reddit is the best option if they want to attract more people as customers. On Mastodon they’re pretty much preaching to the choir.
Does Proton really support Trump? A deeper analysis
One thing to note is that while on Reddit, people are alleging that Proton is a company run by a fascist, pro-MAGA, pro-dictatorship CEO, users on X are accusing Andy and the company of being anti-MAGA/anti-Trump.
So, in the face of all the evidence I’ve found, to compare Andy to a tech oligarch like Zuck and Elon, who are now bootlicking on display for all to see, is not supported by the evidence.
[…]
However, being disillusioned with one party on one issue doesn’t mean that all of a sudden Andy Yen changed all of his stances and that now he’s actually pro-Republican or pro-MAGA. All of the evidence gathered suggests the exact opposite.
Considering how many users here have expressed similar disillusionment with the current Democratic party, it seems a bit hypocritical to judge Andy Yen for having the same feelings (or expressing them on occasion).
This whole “Proton supports MAGA” thing is another example of internet mob-think where everybody has an opinion informed by no facts at all, actively ignores or dismisses the larger context in order to protect that fragile opinion from reality, and most haven’t even looked at the original statements that sparked the controversy.
Considering how many users here have expressed similar disillusionment with the current Democratic party, it seems a bit hypocritical to judge Andy Yen for having the same feelings (or expressing them on occasion).
The only thing Yen should have done to be credible is shut the fuck up and not take any side, or express any political opinion. I expect no less from the CEO of a company that pretends to sell me privacy from a neutral country.
I’m not saying Yen is a raging magat. I’m saying the moment he opened his trap about US politics, he tainted his company and damaged its credibility.
It’s not “his” company, the company is owned by the Proton foundation (of whatever it’s exactly called)
Yeah Yen is an idiot, but his power is more limited than with a normal CEO company structure and the Swiss law is a lot stricter than the competitors law in like Germany.
Just like with any of these mail servers, buy your own domain just incase the company switches gears and starts selling your data or whatnot
It’s not “his” company
I meant “his” the same way I say “my” company: it’s not mine, but it’s where I work and who I work for.
Ah yes, I too require everyone else to only express views that agree with my own or else keep silent. Of course, I am the only person allowed to have nuanced opinions.
🤡
“10 years ago, Republicans were the party of big business and Dems stood for the little guys, but today the tables have completely turned.”
Yen said this as our government is being devoured by someone with massive conflicts of interest. In no way is this nuanced. It was in extremely poor taste and the worst time to say something political.
We don’t use real names on the internet for a reason. CEOs that use their own names as platforms should have a department (or at least a publicist) take a look at their posts as it can effect a company.
People are leaving the platform now because of something pretty avoidable.
Sure sure. The guy who unprompted endorsed a trump appointment that has deep US Telco ties, bizarrly said “the GOP is the party for the little guy,” had nothing but wonderful things to say about J.D vance, stated that Chuck Schumer slow rolled 2 internet privacy bills because of “quid pro quo” with his daughters working for big tech, used the phrase “triggered” unprompted, and just randomly added “88” to the end of his new user name.
Yeah, that guy is just neutral and disillusioned with the Democratic party. It’s not utterly clear what spaces and politics he aligns with. That would just be wholley unknowable.
Yen is an idiot yes I don’t anybody can disagree on that one.
But he was born in 88 and while it is well known on the internet the general public doesn’t know it’s other meaning (except the Germans and maybe the American’s).
I live in NL and I can ask around and the majority of people will not know what it means. Probably the same with 34, 69 en 420 for the matter.
I also don’t believe that endorsing one statement means that you agree with the entire pov of the person/party, but I am not American.
Believe what you want and the best thing is to just use a personal domain for your email
It wasn’t unprompted - he was literally replying to the announcement of the appointment on Twitter. An announcement of a person he thought would be great for a role that he’s apparently been advocating for action against big tech in for years.
He’s born in 1988 you dolt.
The ugliest thing about Lemmy I’ve noticed so far is that it enjoys disinformation just as much as Reddit - as long as it fits the circlejerk, updoots this way.
Huh, I noticed you cherry picked two things to try to refute (interesting that you ignored him hiding “88” in binary and the fact he specifically tagged Trump in that tweet) and ignored all the others I listed. Its almost like you want to spread disinfo about how this is a non issue instead of actually digging into it.
Explain his fandom for J.D vance (a tech millionaire funded by the biggest, most privacy invading, facebook funding, Palentir creating tech billionaire ever, Peter theil) while endlessly criticizing Chuck Schumer, his statement that the GOP “was there for the little guy,” that the GOP was going to take on big tech even while they bent the knee and were donating millions directly to Trump in real time, his use of the term “triggered” to describe offending someone, on and on.
Go on, keep excusing all the clear MAGA “mask on” indicators. Tell us why a CEO in a foreign country, that keeps heaping praise on one party while using their cultural shibboleths, also “coincidentally” used an in-group dog whistle, is actually totally non partisan. That should be easy, right?
This comment is a perfect example of why I have written https://loudwhisper.me/blog/proton-fediverse-burnout/
The 88 thing is the complete tip of the iceberg for me. I can’t honestly imagine the thought process needed to reach a conclusion that a Taiwanese guy (8 is a lucky number) born in '88 would put that number as a dog-whistle (which is not really part of his own cultural landscape) for Nazis, while dealing with a PR issue.
It’s like looking at a crashed car, tire marks on the ground and suggesting it must have been a sharknado and not a car accident.
Nicely written blog post, it actually sums it up pretty nicely imo
Thanks, I appreciate it.
“Hide your power level” mask on behavior from the alt right love to play these plausible deniability games while still signaling their actual intent. You see it with the “my heart goes out to” or “i’m just autisitc” cover for musks nazi salute, or the “he was just waving” Bannon nazi salute. They made a nazi salute, but of course it cant be a nazi salute, wink wink.
I honestly find the 88 to be a faint indicator in this case, but it was a wildly tone deaf one if so. When someone claiming neutrality is making very partisan endorsements for a party that’s steeped in all of the same memetic game playing, you cant ignore the dog whistles.
The problem is that those arguments are not falsifiable. If not one, but two completely reasonable explanation cannot convince you of someone motivations, nothing can. However, I don’t care if Musk did or did not a Nazi salute. His actions speak much louder (in a bad sense) than the aesthetic that he decides to adopt. Proton donation pattern for example would be a strong indicator to measure intentions.
but it was a wildly tone deaf one if so
Maybe. But also maybe people are allowed to have different cultural references, and in a global context (i.e., the internet) we should expect diversity. I - for example - had never heard of this 88 thing, and I would definitely not think about it at all the next time I create a username, and I didn’t think it when I went to a barber shop that has that number in the name. Likewise, I wouldn’t call anybody writing “Merry Xmas” tone deaf for missing the reference to the X MAS of infamous history (and just recently in the news). For some people it’s apparently impossible to see their culture as non-universal (at the cost of sounding stereotypical, folks from US have particularly this problem after decades of cultural hegemony).
for a party that’s steeped in all of the same memetic game playing, you cant ignore the dog whistles
This all happened before Musk/Bannon salute. Just to specify it.
At least personally I agree with the part of his statement about the corporate capture of the democratic party, I don’t think that’s the part most people have a problem with imo. It was saying that republicans are now the party of the little guy, or more likely to tackle abuses by big tech that was dumb. Obviously neither party is going to seriously go after any abuse or anything, but the richest tech CEO is blatantly running the country under the republican president, so saying they’re “more likely” to help is straight up a lie lol. I don’t think calling Andy a fascist is correct either, but I also very much disagree with his opinions of the republican party. Under either party billionaires and corporations are in control, but Trump is definitely not making that better at all.
And honestly all things considered Lina Khan was a pretty great FTC chair tbh, and Johnathan Kanter was pretty decent as the head of the antitrust division too. He was probably a lot better than Gail Slater will be. She’s literally a VP in a few different big companies, so touting her as a champion of the people against the abuses of big tech feels either misinformed or disingenuous.
Pointing people to reddit, as if that’s an alternative. When a VPN provider makes such bad choices it’s tempting to imagine that the decision was influenced by somebody who wants to secretly get the message out that the company is no longer to be trusted, because it’s hard to see any other logic in it.
We have to wait and see what the next audit is going to find, that will give us more security than any kind of information provided from Proton themselves.
The Swiss laws are also helping to make it so they keep the privacy standards high.
But I would definitely use your own domain for your Proton mail currently
Reddit has a ton of users. Mastodon is marginal.
Privacy usually doesn’t mean following what’s popular.
