Summary

Proton Mail, known for its privacy-first email services, faced backlash after CEO Andy Yen praised the Republican Party and its antitrust stance.

The company initially posted and deleted a statement supporting Yen’s comments, later claiming an “internal miscommunication” and reiterating its political neutrality.

Critics question Proton’s impartiality, particularly as it cooperates with Swiss authorities on legal data requests.

Privacy advocates warn that political alignments could undermine trust, especially for Proton’s users—journalists and activists wary of government surveillance under administrations like Trump’s.

    • The Quuuuuill
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      241 month ago

      For VPN there’s mullvad, for email there’s posteo, for storage I recommend signing up with disroot, for password storage I’d recommend KeePass or BitWarden/VaultWarden depending on your threat models and needs

      • @[email protected]
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        91 month ago

        The real pain is going to be having those services split up so much.

        Proton was really convenient for packaging those in a really convenient way.

        Guess there’s a business opportunity here?

        • @dustyData
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          131 month ago

          Some would say that is actually a pro, not a con. You don’t want your entire digital life tied to the whims of a single corporation. Fragmentation trades a bit of inconvenience for a ton more privacy and control over your digital presence.

          • @[email protected]
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            41 month ago

            Yes, it’s a pro in my opinion, don’t want all my eggs in one basket so to speak. And of course the providers want you to do just that, to use them for everything - mail, vpn, storage, passwords, aliases, docs, digital wallets (yeah proton has one now too!) - because that makes it very difficult to leave their service if their CEO turns out to be a Nazi or if you just find a better offering.

      • xapr [he/him]
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        71 month ago

        FYI, if anyone is interested in VPN for torrenting, apparently Mullvad’s VPN is no longer good for that. Something to do with port forwarding. Out of the three that are recommended on https://www.privacyguides.org/en/vpn/ (IVPN, Mullvad, Proton), only Proton apparently still supports that.

        • trevor
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          51 month ago

          You don’t need port-forwading for torrenting. It’s more like a nice-to-have. Mullvad works fine without it, so don’t let that stop you if you’re on the fence.

    • Let's Go 2 the Mall!
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      121 month ago

      I went with mailbox.org for mail, contacts, calendar. Keepass+syncthing for passwords. Still looking for VPN and file storage. I’ve been trying out nextcloud but there is a learning curve to host your own.

      • @[email protected]
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        31 month ago

        How are mailbox and fastmail privacy-wise? Where are they located? Are they friendly to share stuff to random authorities?

    • @[email protected]
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      101 month ago

      I’ve tried Proton mail and couldn’t get comfortable with their UI. Have been on Fastmail for two years now and it’s been excellent.

      • @[email protected]
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        71 month ago

        I’m back with Fastmail too, after having quit to go with Proton a while back. I never ran into a single email where the recipient was encrypted, so I’ve come to see the whole encrypted email shtick as mostly marketing.

      • Pika
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        41 month ago

        I tried proton and I couldn’t get into using their service since it kept asking for personal information. I ended up not using it.

      • @[email protected]
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        11 month ago

        I really like Fastmail’s web client - just the right mix of 1990s web and “reactive” eye-candy web. The phone client is OK as far as I can tell, don’t use it much. The service itself has always been great and I’ve been a subscriber for 10-15 years, long before Proton existed.

    • Xanthrax
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      1 month ago

      I’m curious, too. It was the only decent free vpn.

      Edit: Why downvote?