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Andy Yen, the CEO of Proton (Mail, Drive, VPN, Pass...) answered a lot of the questions you, the community, asked, in an interview that covers basically everything! He discusses security, privacy, the origins of Proton, how they operate, Linux support, future projects, products and features, quantum computing, passkeys, and more! Proton Mail: https://proton.me/mail/TheLinuxEXP Proton VPN: https://protonvpn.com/TheLinuxEXP 👏 SUPPORT THE CHANNEL: Get access to a weekly podcast, vote on the next topics I cover, and get your name in the credits: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@thelinuxexp/join Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/thelinuxexperiment Liberapay: https://liberapay.com/TheLinuxExperiment/ Or, you can donate whatever you want: https://paypal.me/thelinuxexp 👕 GET TLE MERCH Support the channel AND get cool new gear: https://the-linux-experiment.creator-spring.com/ 🎙️ LINUX AND OPEN SOURCE NEWS PODCAST: Listen to the latest Linux and open source news, with more in depth coverage, and ad-free! https://podcast.thelinuxexp.com 🏆 FOLLOW ME ELSEWHERE: Website: https://thelinuxexp.com Mastodon: https://mastodon.social/web/@thelinuxEXP Pixelfed: https://pixelfed.social/TLENick PeerTube: https://tilvids.com/c/thelinuxexperiment_channel/videos Discord: https://discord.gg/mdnHftjkja #vpn #privacy #proton #onlinesecurity #protonmail Timecodes: 00:00 Intro 01:16 How did Proton start? 03:24 Why start with email? 06:03 What is Proton's business model? 08:34 Why set up in Switzerland? 11:33 What data do you have on customers? 14:39 How is encryption important? 18:20 Do you always need to use a VPN? 20:47 Why focus on building an ecosystem? 24:55 Is an Office Suite planned? 26:29 What differentiates Proton from competitors? 30:26 Is Proton a viable alternative to big tech services? 33:31 Why expand to more products instead of finishing existing ones? 37:19 Does the general public care about privacy? 38:45 What's next for Proton services? 40:08 What are the plans for native Linux clients? 46:03 Will ProtonVPN offer dedicated IPs to everyone? 47:46 What's the environmental impact of Proton? 49:27 Proton on F-Droid, without Google Play notifications? 52:03 Why are code repos all separated and hard to find? 53:12 Why are addresses ending in ".me" ? 54:57 When will all apps reach feature parity? 56:24 Will SMTP relay be supported? 57:47 Will Proton focus more on businesses in the future? 59:50 Why put all your eggs in one basket with just Proton services? 01:01:00 Will Proton support passkeys? 01:03:21 Does E2E matter is the recipient isn't using it? 01:04:49 Will Proton disable port forwarding in VPN? 01:06:41 Is encryption enough to make email private? 01:09:06 What protects users from a change in Proton's code licensing? 01:11:14 How does Proton protect its infrastructure? 01:13:14 Impacts of Quantum Computing on privacy and security? 01:14:24 What's the future of Proton Bridge? 01:16:25 When will Proton photos be a thing? 01:17:17 Plans for Proton Notes? 01:18:20 Will VPN support the Apple TV? 01:21:12 Support the channel
He seemed like a decent guy and that was enough for me to finally make the switch from Gmail to proton and buy prem.
They have some shady (or at least questionable) enough actions in their past, some even covered by mainstream media, that made me dismiss them as an option. I went with the German hosted mailbox.org instead. Swiss law (where proton is hosted) is actually quite a bit less protective of privacy than EU/German law, or maybe just protected in other ways. The international reputation of privacy protecting character of Swiss law seems to be outdated?
Just to be clear, I can’t remember exactly what the specific events were that caused me to reconsider back when I switched years ago. When I just did some quick (!) searches just now, I found statements that they would only record ip addresses in “extreme criminal cases”, but examples include cases of trespassing and property damage. Not exactly child molesters and serial killers (example source). I also understand that the (Swiss) laws relevant to them probably forced them to, but at the very least that seems dishonest or misleading advertising.
Enjoy pop-up ads trying to sell you a subscription when you just want to view your inbox! The one bad thing about their service.
I pay for the subscription and if I didn’t I do not mind free services asking for money. If you are giving me a free service and not data mining me then you have every right to nag me.
Gmail litterally puts ads in your inbox that look like emails so I doubt any service is gonna be worse than that.
Yeah, GMail literally pisses me off for that exact reason.
Yeah if you don’t pay its fine, but if you have mail plus, they will have pop ups advertising premium. Once you get premium? They start advertising family!
I have premium and I have received emails regarding the family plan, not popups. And honestly I want those emails because the family is a fantastic value proposition. Too bad you only get 3 custom domains to share with 5 other people, that is really not enough :/
If they ever change it to at least a domain per person I want them to email me about it.
Emails, opt-in are fine yeah. I don’t mind the little Special offer button at the top either, it’s just the pop-up when I’m just trying to check my mails that is really intrusive.
I have the paid version and have never seen a popup advertising upgrades.
They mentioned that they bought premium, so they won’t be seeing ads. Edit: Multiple people below are telling me that purchasing premium does not remove all ads, so that’s actually quite annoying.
As an aside, I really don’t get the logic of using a service like e-mail and just expecting it to be free - it’s very bizarre to me.
If it’s something important to you (as I assume e-mail is), pay for it - or stop whining about ads/nagging pop-ups.
And if you can’t pay for it, download Dovecot and try doing it yourself - it’s a fun experience, and will make you appreciate the work done by email providers. Spoiler alert: it’s a massive pain in the butt.
You get premium ads if you are on a plus subscription or a free account. Once you get premium though, then they start advertising the family pack to you!
Hmm, guess I was wrong, then - that would be very annoying; especially if you’re getting pop-ups for a family plan you won’t ever be able to make use of as you’re a solo user.
My problem is that I only need to use the VPN, but I get pop ups all the time asking if I want to subscribe to their all in one plan or buy their black Friday deal. When all I want to do is connect to the VPN.
So yes, even when you subscribe you still get pop ups (and in their apps too so you can’t even use ublock origin to block them).
Ah, you’re right - that is very annoying.
really? “Very” annoying? :D I see the ads as well but I only see ads for the higher tear and not really often. I wouldn’t call it “very” annoying
Sorry, I don’t use proton mail. It sounds annoying, but please understand that I am not talking from the perspective of a person who uses the service and is directly affected by them.
If you just use the VPN consider moving to Mullvad! I really loved their service but ended up moving to Proton because I use all their services.
I was on Mullvad before but moved to proton when Mullvad stopped offering port forwarding :/
They did what?
Mullvad was working incredibly well with port forwarding. Thatbwas their selling point compared to proton. Wow 😅
Yeah they ended forwarded ports on 2023-07-01. I was pretty sad when they did so and I had to move because I loved what they were doing and was extremely happy with my subscription.
Doesn’t sound too good tbo. Let’s hope ipfs becomes more useable/accessible over the next years
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In case you didn’t know, you can turn off promotional emails in Settings -> Dashboard -> Email Subscriptions or by adding a mail filter to push them all into an advertisement folder, and the other ads can be mitigated by hitting “don’t show this offer again” on each one
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Can confirm. If/when something happens to the VPS I’m hosting mine, I’ll be moving to a fully managed solution. Probably cheaper, too.
Gmail has far worse ads that crawl your inbox. A free service asking me to pay for hosting isn’t the end of the world
And the sewer is filled with literal shit, it doesn’t make a complaint over a pop-up ad on a paid tier any less valid. Get ya whataboutism out of here!
Then host it yourself, it’s open source.
The backend is not
Well yeah, there are a bunch of FOSS mail back end frameworks you can use to integrate.
But they don’t support the same API. This is completely off topic.
Can it be blocked with uBlock Origin (on the web view)?