Andy Yen’s values are incompatible with Proton’s mission. He advocates for poor security practices, supports fascists, and he verbally abuses his subordinates. As such, I can no longer in good conscience continue to financially support a company with such terrible leadership.
Unfortunately for me, my subscription just renewed last month on a multi year plan, but it does give me time to browse for and experiment with alternatives.
If you’re able, I encourage you to do the same and cite Andy Yen as the driving factor for your decision. We can’t let these tech bro fascists destroy what little semblance of privacy we have left.
I had a feeling Proton was no good. I don’t like walled gardens.
Thanks. Did.
EDIT: The thing is done.
Up until recently, I was willing to roll with Proton since the product itself is so good, but who knows if that will remain with the reckless charge into LLM integration? We’ve been watching Microsoft and Google enshittify their products at a rapid pace in order to force people to use their chatbots, so Proton’s likely up next.
I’ll spend part of my day researching alternatives, but for those of you out there doing the same, just keep in mind that your best bet for privacy is Non-US tech services, especially if the country in question doesn’t comply with the CLOUD Act.
I hate the fascists too.
What did you move to?
Have not decided yet. Thankfully there are a ton of Non-US options.
When people show you who they are, listen.
There was a lot of copium flying around after the first red flag. I told people then, best case scenario is he’s a naive idiot to think a Trump cabinet pick is good for anyone other than Trump and his cronies. Worst case scenario he was trying to cosy up to an anti-dempcratic fascist.
Here we are with red flag 2. How many people are going to keep injecting that copium? Or are we finally listening to the man when he tries to show us who he is?
This isn’t a red flag, it’s a red banner parade, holy shit
Emphasis: listen the first time.
And this is red flag number 3. Don’t forget about Proton sponsoring fascist Youtubers.
Holy hell… I was expecting it to be something AI related but Yen is straight up acting like a Musk wannabe. And I was seriously considering a switch to Proton but I think I’m going to bin that idea now
where do you migrate to? especially password manager and web storage?
I used to self host those, but nextcloud is a pain to keep updated, and password management is to important to do half assed.
Self hosting vaultwarden is pretty easy, standalone, and lightweight. It doesn’t need anything like next cloud and has an alpine container option
If your server is down you just can’t save new passwords but the local copy on your phone or computer is still up
- Filen.io encrypted notes and camera roll backup and cloud drive
- Tuta email
- Bitwarden password
- Aegis 2FA
- Windscribe VPN
- Addy.io email alias
- privacy.com credit card aliases
- Cryptpad productivity suite
Thanks. I am gonna try out filen.
then ill try keypassxc with sync via filen. (Bitwarden seems to go a little downhill recently)
Yeah, as for Windscribe and Tuta…
I was considering Windscribe, but Canada’s new Bill C-22 is making me reconsider.
https://windscribe.com/features/no-identifying-logs
Do you think the bill would bypass the no-logs privacy protections?
I said this before, will say it again: do not migrate to another subscription service.
People went through all the trouble to migrate from Google to Proton, then now they must migrate from Proton to whatever else, and the cycle will repeat again.
Subscription services, cloud software, they all strip you of agency and control. You don’t have direct access to the files, you don’t control the GUI, they are filled with proprietary formats, you are at their hands if they decide to change something you like, or pricing, or if they simply go nuts.
Keep your things in your computer. Need they synced? SyncThing will do that for you on any device imaginable.
Totally disagree. Self hosting a mail server is a world of pain, and not all subscription services are equal.
If you’re a masochist try self-hosting your own email service. Otherwise, shop around and find a service that is compatible with your threat model.
Nah let them find out. Leave proton and host their own mail server
I give it a month max
The vast majority of people don’t know the difference between 2FA and passkeys, and you want them to manage their own self hosted solutions for everything? Yeah, keep repeating this I guess…
You might as well move out to the mountains and live off grid and pretend like that’s a real solution.
The vast majority of people don’t know the difference between 2FA and passkeys, and you want them to manage their own self hosted solutions for everything?
I didn’t mention self hosting nor do I think it’s necessary, unless you consider any service running in your desktop as “self hosting”.
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they replied to me, where i said “I used to self host those”, so it’s fair they suggested to selfhost some other service
Keep your things in your computer.
That advice is not helpful, though. Most of us used to store passwords on our computer: In our internet browsers. In plain text for anyone to grab. It was the dumbest idea ever and password managers became popular quickly in recent years as more people realized they need to protect their credentials somehow. So no, I genuinely do not believe in just storing passwords somewhere without any safety measures.
hat advice is not helpful, though. Most of us used to store passwords on our computer: In our internet browsers. In plain text for anyone to grab. So store them in a safe password manager in your computer.
See? You’re almost helpful. But I do have to ask you if that password manager has a name? You see, at this point most people would’ve already given up or just ask ChatGPT or Google AI about it, which in this case would be hypocrite but I digress.
See? You’re almost helpful. But I do have to ask you if that password manager has a name?
Sure, had you asked about a solution rather than trying to write some sort of gotcha. KeePassXC is a fully complete password manager, better than whatever subscription crap you’d rather push, and it stores everything into an encrypted local db file you control. Now guess what I’d recommend for syncing that file across other devices.
Need they synced
yes. at least desktop <-> notebook <-> phone. Also I want friends to send me files and vice versa.
SyncThing
I tried that when before i migrated from selfhosted nextcloud to proton. it was pretty annoying to keep running. And I couldnt easily use it to send files to friends. That was some years ago though. maybe things changed idk.
Will SyncThing sync photos from an iPhone to a Linux desktop?
especially password manager
KeePassXC on desktop, KeePassDX on a phone. The KDBX files are encrypted, and unless you store other files inside of there, they are also pretty tiny (<1MB), so you can put it anywhere. Of course, in that case, don’t store cloud login details in that password database.
can i sync pw between desktop and phone automatically?
I’ve heard someone using syncthing for that, but I haven’t used it. I prefer everything to stay manual.
Vaultwarden.
I don’t know yet, but I got 600+ days to figure it out 😬
I did this the first time he praised Trump’s cabinet picks.
What Email provider do you use now if I may ask? Do you use password managers and/or VPNs? If so where did you switch to? Because when I look at alternatives it’s damn bleak out there.
I canceled my renewal at that time but had just reupped for two years. I was hoping the foundation board would do its job and reprimand him if not oust. Their inaction and silence has been the most disappointing part of this and the real reason I’m following through on ending my 10+ year account with them.
I had missed that and that’s a failure on my part.
I also cited him back then. Interesting to pay attention to reddit comments but not to your own cancelling subscribers.
I had just swapped over to proton at the time so I didn’t want to go through that again but if both ethics and security aren’t priorities then I’m out I’ll probably just self host half the replacement services on my VPS anyway.
That’s when I bounced as well. Luckily that came out while I was still testing it out and before I spent any money.
Yeah, that’s very unfortunate. I just recently moved everything over to proton and I’ll be spending today looking for yet another alternative.
After decades on Gmail I finally stopped procrastinating and moved almost everything to proton over the last week. I had made a Lemmy post asking for service recommendations. Almost everyone said proton except two jerks who railed against it but had no interest in explaining and they made no alternative recommendation, just railed against proton.
Reading this article right now sucks.
Yeah, I don’t get why some people don’t elaborate. Just before I deleted tiktok and reddit, Proton and Tuta were the 2 everyone was recommending and I went with proton bc of the easy move feature which didn’t actually work for me for whatever reason so I ended up moving the most important accounts first and then all the ones that mattered one by one. I recall seeing some people do the same as you claimed; railing against proton without explanation but the looks of it and ease of use were what got me. Tuta doesn’t have that “easy move” feature either but it might be my go to. I thought all of their tiers were paid tiers but it looks like they have a free tier with twice as much space as proton.
Yeah, not only do people who do that not elaborate, they often insult you for even considering something they’re judgy about. Proton in this case. That was how both commenters approached it. Telling me I’m an idiot if I go with the recommendation that actually existed. They could’ve at least said what they use. One (non rude) person did mention tuta but I figured the bigger company would be more reliable to stick around 😭
Please do share what alternative(s) you end up with and what you like about the providers. I had a look at mailbox, infomaniak and tuta for mail and airvpn as a replacement. I think I’l be switching to mailbox.
For email, have you considered Mailfence, Posteo.de, Fastmail or Disroot?
I’m going to check them (mailbox) out first once I wake up a bit more. I already know I can’t afford tuta on top of everything else I pay for currently. Budget is about stretched to the max but I will update with which one I go with.
i finally deleted my ~20 year google account last week, finally migrating every single account that used that old email over to proton. and now, this
It’s still astronomically better than Google. People seem to be forgetting this.
True for now. But it seems headed down a path where it will be competing with Google in shittiness some time in the not so far off future (and I use Proton as well).
This. The Proton suite is very convenient in my use case, I wouldn’t like to switch to all saperate services
It’s not better.
It’s fine, at best, and free alternatives are fine too.
The only thing Proton has is their integrity and focus on privacy… Or was supposed to, anyway.
It is. The direction they are going is shit, but only in isolation, if you compare it to Google, they still look like angels. Perhaps you dont understand what Google is doing.
No, you’re the one that refuses to see where Proton is heading with a CEO like that.
The only reason I’m paying for Proton is their supposed values, but clearly under his leadership they’re completely opposite to what they claim publicly.
If Proton is going to use my money to push out slop, I might as well use any other email provider that at least won’t lie to my face about it.
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FUUUUCCCK. SAME.
And a custom domain so there was no automatic transferring. Had to do the obnoxious mbox import rigamarole for two accounts (mine and my tech-illiterate dad) and talk two friends through the same.
Whatever. I’m sticking with it for a couple years, I don’t have it in me to do it again.
I have yet to delete my gmail account but I soon will make a new one to run on my phone until I can get a new phone with grapheneos or some other OS that uses microg instead. I feel you on that 20 year account thing though. I think I made mine about 20 years ago as well. It was my very first “grown up” email after my silly kid named ones like Skaterpunkxxxxx@aol and such.
I deleted mine several years ago but my employer just added Google dependencies to their app so I can’t install through Aurora anymore and have to go and buy a new phone and a SIM card, and make a new Google account…
Cancelled my Visionary Plan. That gives a bit of time to migrate off the platform.
I remember when I used to lament not purchasing the visionary plan a few years back.
I’ve enjoyed Proton email, calendar, and VPN. So that’s only 3 out of 10 Proton services I use while paying for visionary.
I had poor experience with the password manager at launch so I moved back to bitwarden/aegis. And I despise Proton Drive its best described as cryogenic deep freeze not functional cloud storage. I’ve had a much better experience with Filen.io
I did exactly that a few days ago when I read about the AI interviews. Using Tuta now.
Tuta seems good, but it just don’t work in my language at all. Sounds like really, really stupid and it’s already hard to explain that proton-me is a real email… (“Tuta” or “saada tuta” would be like “you gonna get beat up”)
How is tuta getting money? I don’t see pricing info.
The “free forever” model is troubling.
The free tier is somewhat limited. Many users choose to pay. So with enough people paying, it really doesn’t cost them anything to give away small mailboxes for free to those who need it.
Pricing is available right on the pricing page: https://tuta.com/pricing
Thank you.
When I searched the first result is just a login/signup page with no links to anything but their privacy policy and apps.
You cannot use the search feature for messages older than a few months or so. You need to scroll through the messages.
How’s the Android app for it?
Good. Not as many features but I’m happy with it. You can make a free account to try it out.
lmao -1000 score
r🤢ddit link to a Yen comment
https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonMail/comments/1xilgwk/comment/19ru2qt4r4r5u/
What is the problem with that approach?
What? The approach to saying no context and then not giving any context?
I mean the approach he outlined in his post
Proton today does way more security reviewing than we have done at any time in the past. With the proliferation of AI tools, our code is also under more third party scrutiny than ever before. We see this across the industry, with critical software bugs (like the recent PHP bug) being found on an almost daily basis. However, several extra days of human review is not the correct way to confront this challenge. We still have human review, but now augmented by AI, has become exceptionally good at finding vulnerabilities in code. For some time now, Proton has also been using unaligned models with custom skills to do a thorough review of our code. This approach is better, and also faster.
I.e. AI augmented code review (if I understand that correctly).
Fuuck moving email is such a bother. Thankfully I do have my own domain, so it’s not that bad, but looking for a new provider sucks.
What’s the recommended alternative?
If you use an email alias software like addy.io, email basically becomes ephemeral. Change providers whenever you want and just change the forwarding address for the alias.
Also helps with internet hygeine to have a different random email for every account.
Since nobody mentioned it here yet, Mozilla has a similar service called Firefox Relay and it’s super straightforward and a joy to use. I used it to create an alias for every service (some 400+) that has my email address and now I can just block emails going to any alias of a compromised account and set up a new one.
Unfortunately that just moves the single point of failure to the aliasing service.
I use SimpleLogin, which was bought by Proton a while back.
I’m basically doing that with my domain. Have a vaguely corporate sounding domain, and just generate random firstname.lastname per service, on a catch-all address.
Migadu. They measure by quantity of email traffic and not by aliases or email addresses. Easy to set up a dynamic system of adddresses however you may want.
Been with them about 8 months. No complaints.
just write Andy Yen
It’s a for profit company in a for profit society. It was bound to work against morality sooner or later.
There’s only a small window where companies can make satisfactory profits without being evil. After that tiny window, it’s genocide, slavery, total destruction.
For email you can use Tuta, which seems fine for now. I don’t even know what other services Proton offers, so can’t recommend anything there.
There’s still a for profit company there,
And the foundation didn’t stop this, so I’m not sure its a big point anymore.
I was lazy and just pasted in the URL to the 404 story.
That’s actually a great idea.
