this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2025
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Privacy

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In an unexpected mask off "secure" email and VPN provider Proton took the stance of siding with the fascist MAGA Reps. Proton's services are no option for me and many others any longer. Let's collect and discuss alternatives (E2E encrypted email and VPN) here ๐Ÿ”๐Ÿ‘‡

Always try to provide:

-Server location (jurisdiction)

-Governance

-Integrity/trustworthiness/transparency

-User experience/ease of use (grade 1 to 10, lets take Proton as a benchmark with an 8)

-Pricing and links

If you know alternative setups, feel free to share, too.

#ProtonExodus

Background: https://lemmy.ca/comment/13913116

Edit:typo

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[โ€“] JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world 75 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (37 children)

Misinformation. OP is advocating that you shoot yourself in the foot.

The CEO said something silly on Twitter which revealed either that (a) he shares an exceedingly banal opinion with literally half of America or (b) he's not above a bit of preemptive sycophancy to advance his (positive) anti-trust agenda.

There's nothing particularly scandalous in the offending tweet:

  • Implying that the Democrats are now "the party of big business" is arguably true (and very boring)
  • Implying that the Republicans now "stand for the little guys" is dumb but also arguably true, unfortunately - the working classes swung to Trump in the recent election while the Democrats are fast becoming a party of high-earning elites (which is why they lost)
  • Saying that the antitrust actions began under Trump I is, well, true

Proton is not owned Zuck-like by its CEO. It's controlled by a foundation with other stakeholders on the board, including the inventor of the Web himself. In its niche it is still by far the best option. Ditching it for a nebulous non-existent alternative because the CEO expressed a dumb and extremely commonplace opinion is just silly and self-defeating.

PS: to be clear, OP is peddling misinformation because it's not true that "Proton took the stance" of anything. It's the personal opinion of the CEO that's at issue. It's a major distinction. I find it disappointing that people interested in privacy would have such little respect for a private individual's right to have their own thoughts.

PPS: to be extra clear, my comments are about the post above, not stuff that people are reading elsewhere. But the substance stands. See discussion for detail.

[โ€“] Not_mikey@slrpnk.net 15 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

Implying that the Democrats are now "the party of big business" is arguably true (and very boring)

While true in some scenarios, in anti-trust Lina khan's ftc has done significantly more than trump ever did. Biden keeping her over the protest of countless business execs and daily articles in the wall street journal on how she's ruining America shows some commitment to prosecuting big tech.

Meanwhile, trump's anti-trust moves were mostly based off petty issues he had with the ceos or the platforms having a "liberal bias". Now that every big tech ceo has fallen in line and given him $1 million for his inauguration I doubt we'll see much movement on that front.

[โ€“] JubilantJaguar@lemmy.world 4 points 3 hours ago

Completely agree on all that.

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[โ€“] lazzerot@startrek.website 7 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (2 children)

Protonmail has been my main email provider for the past 7 years, and unless its CEO decides to sell it to Trump or Musk I honestly don't see how his stupid private or not so private opinions are worth the hassle of changing my email for the million things I use my main and all the other emails I registered with Protonmail.
Most rich people have very dubious or outright awful political opinions and unless you're rich enough to have someone build you an alternative or deconnected enough from society/only exist in programmer circles and are able to live entirely on FOSS software I don't see why the average user should care about the CEO's political stance. Maybe that's my ignorant opinion as a European, but would you stop using Linux if you found out Linus Torvalds secretly loves Windows? Probably not.

[โ€“] raspberriesareyummy@lemmy.world 6 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

Your analogy/ example is fucked up and beyond stupid. Protonmail is hosted by the organization. Linus has no access to the Linux systems in the world. Also, thousands have contributed to the Linux ecosystem.

[โ€“] lazzerot@startrek.website 2 points 1 hour ago (2 children)

I agree that my analogy is fucked up and a little stupid, but I was just applying OPs logic: Andy Yen doesn't do any more for Proton than Linus Torvalds does for Linux; they're just stand in figures that people project their love or in this case hate onto. I doubt he personally wrote a single line of code for Proton. In that case Linus Torvalds is actually way more involved with Linux than Andy Yen is with Proton; Andy Yen might have more power over Proton but afaik and like you said Proton is owned in majority by its foundation, which I hope does get a say in what they do.

[โ€“] zqps@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 hour ago

He directly profits from Proton subscriptions. As does the rest of the leadership which seem to back him on this.

A comparison of singing the praises for a modern proto-fascist movement with "secretly loving Windows" is... certainly something.

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Service =/= Software

Proton could (theoretically) hold your data hostage. Linus Torvalds could not just update linux to inject a maga banner in your desktop, or turn your os into ransomware. Even if your distro maintainer wanted to do that, you still have the final say on whether or not to update (and if you keep up with the news, you can just avoid the update and wait for someone to fork it).

[โ€“] carlytm@lemm.ee 103 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

Sigh.

Goddammit. I'm so fucking tired.

[โ€“] cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca 46 points 5 hours ago (1 children)
[โ€“] WhatSay@slrpnk.net 10 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Like zombies, slow and steady, dumb and hungry

[โ€“] ZeroHora@lemmy.ml 4 points 3 hours ago

Be tired with Tuta!

[โ€“] some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org 17 points 4 hours ago (4 children)

Mullvad is supposed to be a safe and secure VPN.

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[โ€“] cyborganism@lemmy.ca 11 points 3 hours ago (6 children)

Before you decide to go back to Google or close your account, keep in mind that Proton became a non profit organization with the main mission of protecting your privacy. And as a non profit, they're not trying to profit off of you in any way.

Going back to Google is the worst solution you can use. Remember that Google donated $1 million to Trump's inauguration fund. Google also doesn't care about your privacy. On the contrary, they're selling your data and using it against you.

While the Proton CEO may be a nut case, he's only praising the choice that Trump made as the candidate for the antitrust department. While that's understandably stupid since I don't believe Trump is going up stick up for the little guy now that he's got Musk and Zuck in his pocket, at least he didn't actively donated and enabled Trump either personally or through his platform and spread misinformation.

Think about it.

At least with proton, the fact that you're different, that you're 2SLGBTQ+, is safe. Or at least substantially safer than Google.

[โ€“] ShotDonkey@lemmy.world 13 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

They have doubled down officially with their official Mastodon account https://mastodon.social/@protonprivacy/113833073219145503 I therefore consider this official opinion of Proton. Focussing on one aspect and completely ignoring the bigger picture of a luming fascist period in the most militarized economy of the world is just inacceptable. Proton just could have kept their mouth shut, but they decided not to.

[โ€“] cyborganism@lemmy.ca 4 points 2 hours ago

This is extremely disappointing. :(

[โ€“] lukecooperatus@lemmy.ml 12 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (1 children)

Why are there so many responses like this, saying not to go back to Google? The OP didn't even mention Google as an option they were considering. I've seen zero discussion in any of the other posts around the fediverse where people have expressed any desire to use Google because of this. Why would anyone think that users who had already moved to Proton would find Google acceptable as an alternative right now?

This just feels like you're trying to discourage actual conversation about alternatives by acting like the only options are Proton or Google, so we all ought to shut up and sit down.

Also, if you think merely becoming a non-profit means a corporation can never exploit people and isn't interested in making money off of it's customers, then I've got a bridge to sell you.

[โ€“] cyborganism@lemmy.ca 8 points 2 hours ago

Because I looked at the discussion threads for this post and I saw a few early comments where people mentioned they would go back or stick with Google.

I'm not trying to shut down or discourage any discussion. Just pointing out to the people who said they'd go back that it's not the best solution.

Yes, proton is about ten thousand times better than google, even with this board member's stupid fully factored in.

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[โ€“] swordgeek@lemmy.ca 60 points 5 hours ago (2 children)

Wow!

Of all companies, this is one I didn't expect.

Damn.

[โ€“] sp3tr4l@lemmy.zip 22 points 4 hours ago (3 children)

Why would this be unexpected?

Proton already handed over the IP of a climate protester to authorities several years ago, while boasting that they had a no log policy.

https://therecord.media/protonmail-forced-to-collect-an-activists-ip-address-in-police-investigation

Every time, in the past few years, that I bring this up, everyone just acts like I'm setting an impossible standard and no alternative exists.

Proton has been shady for years.

[โ€“] Zadhu@slrpnk.net 14 points 3 hours ago

From reading that article it looks like they were only using and able to log the IP address when the person logged in to their protonmail account specifically - not VPN.

They even state that VPNs can not be forced to log under the same legal order and are treated differently so in this case it seems the activists were not using the VPN while accessing their emails.

Although I dont agree with even the logging of the email IP, it appears like the user shot themselves in the foot like that other case where someone used their real name in the username and that obviosly has to be logged in some way.

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[โ€“] Quill7513@slrpnk.net 30 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

the good news is this is a lesson to never trust any entity whose role in the world is to accumulate capital

[โ€“] xapr@lemmy.sdf.org 14 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

What's insane is that didn't Proton just recently announce they were converting to a non-profit?

Yes, they did: https://proton.me/blog/proton-non-profit-foundation

Yea, and Andy Yen is only one of five members on the board of the Non-Profit organization, so you'll just have to gamble that everyone else isn't this weird (if you still want to continue using Proton services, that is, your choice ๐Ÿคทโ€โ™‚๏ธ).

[โ€“] bleistift2@sopuli.xyz 61 points 5 hours ago (3 children)

Phew! For a moment I thought you were talking about the steam compatibility thingy.

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