- cross-posted to:
- privacy
- cross-posted to:
- privacy
Unnecessary and deeply concerning bow to the new “king”
Update: position got backed up by an official Proton post on Mastodon, it’s an official Proton statement now. https://mastodon.social/@protonprivacy/113833073219145503
Update 2, plot-twist: they removed this response from Mastodon - seems they realize it exploded into their face!
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Oh, goddammit.
The writing was on the wall for proton for a while now
No it hasn’t. Back this claim up with some evidence
I wouldn’t call it “writing on the wall,” but they have done some not-so-good things over the last few years:
- Handing over data for their email services (which was legally required) (ref).
- Releasing a Bitcoin wallet. The problem for me is that Bitcoin is inherently not private.
- Lying in marketing. Proton claims “no data or speed limits” for their free VPN (ref), which is just plain wrong. If you download a few gigs, it will slow you down to a few Mbit (if I remember correctly). I even contacted their support about this, and they just said, “They are balancing the servers for the free VPN.” But then why was it fast in the beginning, and if I reconnected to the same server, would it be fast again. Just to be clear: I have no problem with the speed limit/balancing itself, just that they are lying about it.
- Proton incentivizing free email accounts to connect to a Gmail account to get 500 MB more storage. (You need to go through the “tutorial” steps to get the 500 MB extra, and one of them is to have a Google Mail account send all their emails to your new Proton inbox.)
This is why I personally decided against Proton.
These are useful data for making decisions about using their service, but not exactly indicative of support for a right wing authoritarian leader who lies more in one day than he has hairs on his entire body.
Edit: typo
Mostly true, that’s why I opened with “I wouldn’t call it writing on the wall.” But for me, it shows that they are not as privacy- and consumer-focused as they like to present themselves. Supporting Trump is just five steps further in this direction. (That’s just how I feel about it.)
that’s why I opened with “I wouldn’t call it writing on the wall.”
Damn; you’re right. My bad. I somehow missed your opener saying exactly the opposite of what you were saying.
Everything you said is true and verifiable, and worth considering when you decide which service to use. It’s a lot of reasons to favor the .onion/tor version of their service to limit what they have access to depending on your privacy stance.
They are indicative of opportunism and greed, which is exactly in line with preemptively sucking up to a future dictator.
Woah… an actually rock-solid account of problems with Proton! Nicely done.
This contrasts with the incoherent conspiracy theory spaghetti that has sometimes been trotted out to make the case against them.
This is interesting. I’m current using btguard, but was thinking about other vpn providers. I have a free protonmail email account and was wondering about their vpn service. Sounds like they are not so privacy oriented. And I assume NordVPN is a similar story?
Well, I’d say Proton is still better than most other options (open-source software, no ad trackers on the website and in apps). However, specifically for VPNs, I would recommend Mullvad or IVPN. If you are a bit more tech-savvy, you may also take a look at Cryptostorm. Of all three, only Mullvad is police-raid-proven to not store logs or other PII. The most important thing for me personally would be that the VPN company is not owned by a larger parent company, which in turn owns multiple different VPN providers. This alone excludes a lot of the heavily advertised providers (Private Internet Access, NordVPN, Surfshark, ExpressVPN, CyberGhost, OVPN, and probably a few more).
1,2 and 3 are completely irrelevant. 1 is completely normal, 2 missed the point that the wallet (which I don’t use, I never owned crypto) has nothing to do with privacy and 4 is an optional marketing strategy to incentivise migration from google. Nothing is wrong with any of this.
What did you go with out of curiosity?
Drive - Selfhosted Nextcloud
Email - Posteo/Tuta
VPN - Cryptostorm (IVPN/Mullvad are more user friendly)
Passwords - Keepass (Sync over my Nextcloud.)
Yea! I’m interested, I did not see that coming…
Neither did I.
They’ve been cooperating with law enforcement and handing data to the cops proactively since 2021.
Pay attention.
What do you mean with “proactively”?
Is this what you’re referring to?
The proactive part is when they shut your account down and report it to the cops but yeah, the cooperating with interpol by providing data that they claimed they didn’t keep is damning.
Where do they claim they don’t collect this information?
And then we have the communists making Lemmy. Is there any moderate developers lol. Valve is the only big company I can think of that isn’t annoying. All the faceless Linux devs are good too
Glances at the child gambling enabled by the steam marketplace, an issue being blatantly ignored by Valve leadership.
Buddy, I don’t know how to tell you this. I love Valve for all the good they do, but they got some serious skeletons, too.
Valve representatives were asked point blank if the third party gambling sites have a positive influence on their bottom line, and the dude replying sweated bullets for several seconds before nervously going “we… don’t have any data on that” while the rest stared daggers at him.
Coffeezilla has a recent video on the situation.
I love Steam, but thinking about switching to gog over this. Anybody have any ideas how we can let valve know this isn’t okay?
I mean I always use GoG, if given the option. But there’s almost always no GoG option. Publishers want some form of DRM.
I did this years ago and have like 500 games on GOG. Ended up going back to Steam due to features that gog just doesn’t have. Sigh.
I have a feeling I would feel the same. Its nice having everything in one place. What was missing for you?
All the social features, the workshop, easy browsing, and guides just off the top of my head. GOG is still good for those really retro 90s and early 2000s games though
I understand your frustration but I’m not casting some wide net here. I’m simply talking about political ideologies being in your face.
If it’s between fascism and communism, the answer is pretty fucking simple imo. Only one of those ideologies considers all people to be equal.
And no, I am not a communist, and I would not choose communism unless it was the only alternative to fascism.
Totally understand what you’re saying. Obviously I am on Lemmy. Just wish we didn’t have ideologies in our face all the time
I fear for what will happen to valve when Gabr step down in the future
I have a bigger fear of what happens to Linux when Torvalds retires. He took a break a while back, and it was an absolute shit show of a power struggle.
Give some credit. Even if they aren’t politically aligned with your, they did make Lemmy open source for others to run with.
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lol got downvote bombed for desiring normal. Fucking Lemmy man. Honestly don’t know why I even use this platform anymore.
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fuck off booooooot licker
The fuck are you on about?
Standing up for the little guy. Huh. Is that why billionaires and CEO are throwing literal tens of millions at Trump? Why he staffed his cabinet with billionaires? Why the center of his policy is tax cuts for the giga wealthy, at the expense of everyone else and the national debt, at a time where wealth inequality is literally tearing the country apart?
https://www.axios.com/2025/01/15/trump-windfall-fundraising-500-million
https://www.axios.com/2024/12/09/trump-wealth-cabinet-politicians-billionaires
These are objective, public facts. Like, I’m way more conservative than Lemmy’s center and willing acknowledge any good Trump does, but what reality is this guy living in? Who is this statement for? Who the heck does he think is using Proton services? He just pissed off his employees and customers for… What?
Probably doesn’t want to get banned in the US… Or so my copium tells me.
Silver lining is that Proton is owned by a non-profit.
I was thinking this for a second, but is this really plausible? Normally when we talk about corporations we talk about how powerful they are and how they use different nations to locate headquarters and offices in order to mitigate legal and tax obligations. We regularly talk about how governments can’t reign them in and how they act with impunity.
But now? “They HAVE to capitulate. They are just doing it to survive.” Really? Do we really believe that? Or is it more likely that this is what they want and if they didn’t, they’d be fighting tooth and nail to stop it? I’m with the second option honestly.
That’s what I don’t get. If the proton CEO was actually raging MAGA, the last thing he should do, strategically, is stoke fires by stirring this up. That’s business 101.
…He must want conservative’s ears for some kind of policy issue, maybe to the detriment of Proton’s competitors. But what?
OpenAI has taught me that the non-profit stuff is meaningless.
Seems a lot of people share this view that somehow he’s for the little guy, despite quite clearly being for the opposite. It’s the same over the pond, there’s a paranoia held by many that the government is out to persecute the common people. Very strange on both sides, it’s almost Orwell levels of Newspeak.
The official @[email protected] account replied and doubled down
[email protected] - @jonah
Corporate capture of Dems is real. In 2022, we campaigned extensively in the US for anti-trust legislation.
Two bills were ready, with bipartisan support. Chuck Schumer (who coincidently has two daughters working as big tech lobbyists) refused to bring the bills for a vote.
At a 2024 event covering antitrust remedies, out of all the invited senators, just a single one showed up - JD Vance.
1/2
[email protected] - @jonah By working on the front lines of many policy issues, we have seen the shift between Dems and Republicans over the past decade first hand.
Dems had a choice between the progressive wing (Bernie Sanders, etc), versus corporate Dems, but in the end money won and constituents lost.
Until corporate Dems are thrown out, the reality is that Republicans remain more likely to tackle Big Tech abuses.
2/2
(Less importantly, my response)
Let’s not get carried away. The scope of the comment is pretty narrow if you read it closely. This is one member of a 5-person board that also includes Tim Berners-Lee. The foundation structure is also a protection against abuses.
Yes you are right, and no you are not. It is concerning and something to stay vigilent about in the upcoming times.
Can’t you both be right? One it is a very narrow complement and also it be very concerning that the “small tech” is also bowing harder than big tech.
But this may be the price for not donating?
Let’s not get carried away. The scope of the comment is pretty narrow if you read it closely
The only thing I want to hear from you is that you actively disavow Trump, or if you feel this is going to hurt your business, at least say nothing at all. Anything other than that marks you as a shameless suck-up, and I want nothing to do with you or your business.
Ergo, I want nothing to do with Proton. It’s time suck-ups pay the price and see their bottom lines drop because of their dubious choices.
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I think the big difference is what the companies stand for.
If the CEO of The Anti-Spyware Company comes out in support of Spyware, is that not significantly worse than the CEO of The Spyware Company doing the same?
I supported The Anti-Spyware companies because of what they believed in. Now that is in question.
FWIW I don’t use Proton but switching to it was in my 2025 plans. Not so sure about that anymore…
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Yes he is. You are factually incorrect. You can see it from their official page too
Good to know, I was just going off what OP said
FYI, that user is incorrect. Yen is both the founder and CEO of Proton.
Thanks for the update! I guess I shouldn’t have taken him at his screenshot
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All right then replace support of Spyware with “praise for The Spyware Company”
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Spyware was just an example? Proton is all about privacy and this board member is saying good things about a guy who doesn’t think us peasants should have any.
I agree that this isn’t the worst thing to ever happen. But I also agree with the people saying he shouldn’t have said anything.
Fastmail is pretty great :)
Thanks for the tip, I’ll check it out!
I am good with computers but not good enough to roll my own entire email/calendar/cloud storage system
NextCloud is almost an “out of the box” experience for all of these.
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Nextcloud isnt end to end encrypted.
Between your machine, and a machine you control, via ssl?
if you disavow every company contributing to the republican party/trump you might as well sell all your belongs, and learn to live off grid. no internet access, no power, no retail.
we just dont live in a black and white world. its lovely shades of depressing grey gradients.
if you disavow every company contributing to the republican party/trump you might as well sell all your belongs, and learn to live off grid. no internet access, no power, no retail.
As much as possible, I will take my business to companies that aren’t openly terrible.
we just dont live in a black and white world
Tell that to the orange utan. He sure is about to turn the word from RGB to 1-pixel color space.
Do you really think I want to split people into people I can talk to vs. people I want to avoid at all costs? Trump is doing that. He’s forcing shitty choices on everybody. I’d rather have constructive and peaceful interaction with my fellow man. But can you honestly shake hands with a magard and not feel sick to your stomach? I can’t.
right, i agree the idea is revolting… but the old man at the dog park who only watches fox news isnt inherently evil. hes brainwashed. hes a fellow human who if shown the light would absolutely change his tune. to abandon those people is to abandon civilization.
sure thats not everyone, but its enough. we just need to show them the truth… that theyve been lied to and actually do have a choice.
treating every conservative voter as you would trump himself is absolutely painting in black and white.
but the old man at the dog park who only watches fox news isnt inherently evil
I’m sorry but no.
You have the die-hard racist MAGAs with the flags and the red cap. Those can fuck right off obviously.
But you also have all the ordinary folks who are NOT die-hard MAGA, but who decided that it was okay to vote for a convicted felon who tried to overthrow the government. And guess what: in a sense, they’re even worse.
Voting for Trump is crossing a line. If you voted for Trump, I really don’t want anything to do with you because you have proved to me that your sense of morality and your respect for the institutions of this country are compromised.
Either that or so fucking stupid that interacting with them wouldn’t be worth my time. I honestly used to believe what originallucifer said, but after this election i’ve been thoroughly and completely radicalized.
remember that 88 million people who can vote, dont.
many of those that did vote are under a veil of propaganda. theyre not all rabid maga racists. its been proven that one-on-one interaction with adversaries can often change their minds. its just a slow, painful process.
we just need to show them the truth
I once read this on lemmy and it stuck with me. I think it applies here:
The autistic trait that bites me in the ass most often is the unshakable belief that if I can just show someone the truth, they’ll believe me.
True for me, and worse, I never seem to learn.
Fuck, that’s just exactly me. It’s an autism trait??
More and more, I approach wishing everyone was autistic lmao
hes a fellow human who if shown the light would absolutely change his tune.
Thats not always true… That old man stuck on Fox News would likely rather shoot a bunch of brown people than admit he was wrong.
If I could live off grid I would. It’s not even an option. I’m forced to live like caged rat in a society that crushes my soul.
no internet access, no power, no retail.
Does this actually sound like a utopia to anyone else or just me?
Sure, there’s not always an option, but sometimes there is. My tiny bit of $ isn’t going to make or break a company, but i try to give it to places who donate less to the big orange turd. I’m in a constant struggle choosing among home Depot, lowes, and Ace hardware.
Do you even use Proton?
I do yes - VPN. I won’t next month though.
Just be aware that this is a peculiarly American take. In Europe at least, most people will agree that somebody’s opinions cannot somehow pollute whatever it is that they produce. Be it a traded good, or art, or in this case software.
Americans did not invent the idea of voting with their wallets. What a preposterous claim
The concept that wrong opinions are like a taint that rubs off on everything they touch is indeed pretty uniquely American (with some echos in the rest of the anglosphere). It explains much of the craziness and bitterness of US politics in recent years. It is absolutely not replicated in, for example, Catholic Europe.
Avoiding giving your money to companies that go against your politics isn’t some irrational “tainted” concept. Not sure why you’re insisting it is. It’s just not supporting things you don’t want to happen. These companies donate to and otherwise push forward bad policy. Also, still not sure where you got that Americans invented any of this, or how it would relate to the recent increase in polarization
This is a guy’s personal opinion about one aspect of a politician’s program. The only fact he mentions is just that, a fact. His insinuation that Democrats are supported by big business is also fairly defensible. There’s no obvious link to his company’s practices. The opinion is banal and widespread. You and a bunch of others here are treating this semi-non-story like some kind of religious heresy. I can tell you’re American just from that fact.
His insinuation that Democrats are supported by big business is also fairly defensible
The truth comes out. You think this is a “both sides” thing, and you agree with it.
No, what’s being said ITT is that he’s praising trump prematurely and people don’t want to support a business run by people who do that. Incredibly simple, and might I add, logical.
This. Also, in Europe you can get internet, electricity, email from coops. There are even some “ethical banks” and some survivors from the 2008 (at least in Sapin) as “small savings rural banks” (cajas de ahorros).
And if you aren’t a rich progressist and can’t afford some expensive eco-bio-coop consume, there are 2d hand options, food recicling, stealing is easy enough (and nobody will shoot a bullet to you for this) and so on. So, yeah, off-the-grid is a legit option, but on-the-grid stealing electricity from huge power corps is super legit also. No need to go to the caves.
Even in case of no alternative (say, I must have an id and a cellphone number), this doesn’t justify anything from CEOs. Fun fact is, in the case of Proton, there is PLENTY of alternatives. So, let’s use all the colorful gradients instead of accepting to remain in a dark-gray scale
I mean for most people there are lots of variables here. You have to pick and choose your battles. This is the entire concept of The Good Place TV show.
The only people that are 100% “good” are living in a fuckin yurt.
Idk in the rest of Europe, but in France I’ve witnessed the contrary a lot of times. I do however not have a study on a big enough sample to make a claim, this is all anecdotal evidence on my side.
Examples please. France is the classic example of a country where most people put the art before the artist. The partial exception, unsurprisingly, is younger people who are more plugged into the poisonous world of America’s culture wars.
Even Michael Jackson?
Absolutely, yes. Great example. Great music. I guarantee you that almost everyone outside of the US-centric bit of the anglosphere agrees with me here.
Well, assuming they actually like music, of course.
It send a chill down my spine nonetheless
Yes. The “Trump was a good idea after all” take seems almost to be spreading like a meme at this point.
that also includes Tim Berners-Lee
You mean that traitorous piece of shit who sold us out to DRM on the Web?
Actually I ended up coming round to his view on this. If Firefox has stuck to its principles on DRM, then it would have been goodbye Firefox. And then you would have had no decent options at all, and neither would I. The setting is still opt-in.
Sometimes we have to compromise.
Yeah plus it’s a swiss company…with a crypto banking feature. They probably just want to attract Nazi bitcoin.
Sad. The way tech companies are changing stripes, we are about to hit a surveillance state by summer
The US are a surveillance state already. But I guess it could get even worse.
It’s like everyone forgot about the Patriot Act and NSA stuff. This shit has been going on through at least 4 different presidents. And that’s just the modern surveillance state.
I don’t understand how everyone can be so blind to the surveillance that already exists.
Literally all your communications or purchase or browsing history, 90% of people’s photos and contacts, everything you ever say near your phone/smart devices, your health data with devices like fitbit, cm resolution spy satelites, 4D maps of the entire globe being created via services like Pokemon Go, phones create and store in the cloud high resolution 3D maps of your face, mesh networked devices like Alexa now surveil without you even having internet access, your home and your exact location down to a meter are already being live spied on. Not to mention full remote access to all your devices.
Sometimes with a thin veneer of privacy on top of it, like Apple pretends to have.
Basically the only part of you that the surveillance state doesn’t constantly surveil already is your butthole.
Even avoiding just 10% of this surveillance in your daily life is almost impossible.
Soon smart toilets will also surveil your butthole.
It’s like people were born after Snowden’s leaks
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Taking the time to remove Google, embraced proton mail … Maybe it’s time to just write letters and send meme post cards.
Meme post cards are a great idea actually.
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That’s pretty cool, nice tool for the communication toolbox
hand drawn, because of these fingerprinting yellow dots
Same here; but I’m switching to tuta
So Proton is out.
Sorry, I won’t trust a service that licks fascist boots.
There is no ethical consumption under capitalism, and that applies to tech. I pay for Proton and this is disappointing af but not shocking. Corporations and wannabe billionaires always fold to fascism.
Gonna start looking around at alternative email services to consider but I use my Proton email everywhere, so switching away is going to suck.
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Yeah, I think (hope?) we will find that his opinion is not echoed among them.
People don’t accidentally get on a board. The whole idea is that you actively search for and interview and even recruit people who best embody the values of your project. Then you get nominated and often voted.
Ingl, I think the only way to stay sane these times is to ignore what they say and look at what they do. As long as his products are up to my standards and values, I’ll just ignore whatever he says to appease whomever
Agreed. If I haphazardly ditched services based on the opinions of tech folks, I’d be reduced to using a pair of cans attached with string and nothing else.
Were the cans and string ethically sourced, though?
I saved them from a landfill! They smell kinda weird though.
Yep… But CEOs bootlicking daddy trump is pathetic non the less…
What people define should not be doing is using Proton as one stop shop like they did with Google.
Got to stay nimble
Nonetheless is one word :)
I cannot think of a free VPN that doesn’t suck; does anyone has suggestions outside of Proton for that, please?
It is the spell check, trust me bro haha
Mullvad is is considered the gold standard but there is another that people recommend. Anybody can drop the other one?
I think I’ll have to do this as well. I’m tired, boss.
no ethical consumption under capitalism
I agree with this as much as the next guy, but this is also kinda cope.
I take it as more of an observation and use it to be more mindful of what I buy, the services I use, etc. The reality is that we don’t know what happens behind the scenes with so much of this stuff, but we can still be conscious of it and use it as an opportunity to reduce clutter in our lives.
When you register a domain, you own the whole name-space of that domain:
All possible sub-domains of your domain are yours. All possible URLs on the domain are yours. All possible email addresses on the domain are yours.On your domain, you are also free to choose the linked services such as web, email calendar etc. If you are not satisfied with one provider, you are free to switch to another one at your own convenience.
Been using their paid service for months. I have so many aliases. I’m just surprised. Surely this company knows its biggest user base has to be too educated to let this slide.
Why does he think Trump is against big tech when he’s working side by side with Musk?
People somehow still surprised by Switzerland being neutral on Naziism
I see a lot of good discussion here. I’ve been on proton for years now, using my own domain. While true that Andy is one of 5 board members, and it’s a nonprofit etc, these statements are raising hairs on my neck, personally.
Does anyone have a good guide on problems associated with self-hosting email?
Very disappointing that this is the CEO and founder of Proton. I’ll be moving my stuff elsewhere and deleting my account this week.
I can understand being fine with a nomination that aligns with his personal interests but from there the journey to « party of small people » likely takes a convoluted path.
It’s probably just a language thing. When he says small people he means sub-mega corporations. Actual humans probably pass beneath his notice.
So you’re thinking he means small in terms of Proton vs Google.
Well, he’s clearly not talking about small people like say, me or you compared to Trump or Musk. And let me be clear, he is probably wrong about that as well. If Trump is anti-google that is likely nothing more than a negotiating position.
I just assumed Google was kissing the ring to avoid antitrust.
The little man does some heavy lifting
I fucking love Oh Brother, Where Art Thou
As it’s usually the case.
Why can’t we have nice things?
