Proton Mail says that the new Outlook app for Windows is Microsoft's new data collection service
Proton Mail says that the new Outlook app for Windows is Microsoft's new data collection service - gHacks Tech News
What part of Windows (or Microsoft software in general) is not a data collection service?
When I look at my Pi Hole dashboard while my girlfriend's Mac is booted, I'm surprised by how many requests are blocked, given that apple somehow has the reputation of respecting their user's privacy.
And when she boots into Windows 10 MS's data stealing gets downright creepy.
I am lucky enough not to have a Windows 11 PC on my network but I think I would see even more denied requests.
Proprietary software is very creepy
Hey Proton how about you quit privacy-washing and actually prioritize and release feature parity products for Linux so your customers aren't being herded onto windows' data harvesting platform just so they can use your supposedly privacy forward products
I mean, can’t you just package your app in flatpack or even snap? Bam, your app works on 99% of distributions for little effort. That’s what Spotify does, and I’d argue they have even less incentive to support Linux than proton does
Variety of distributions doesn't affect the effort in coding, it adds overhead for package management. Only rarely does it require the developer to add some extra code for either an edge case or some specific library requirement.
On top of that, Flatpak and AppImage exist to solve this issue if you don't want to deal with it.
This is a pretty rich statement coming from Proton who has very publicly given out "private" info about its users to law enforcement without even so much as a hint of resistance. I doubt they would want to spend any resources on cross platform if they don't even back up their claim about true privacy.
Even zoom has a lazy script that packages their app in literally every possible format possible because it runs the exact same on every distro. It is not that hard. Literally the only way this doesn't work if you hired some 3rd party MSFT dev to create some insane C++ app with pure Windows API calls instead of using a library.
That's a bullshit excuse. Looks at Arch's AUR. Look at Gentoo's guru. What happens for proprietary stuff is a deb or rpm package is downloaded, extracted and files copies where they should be. That's it. And it works, because the cornerstone of the system is libc and the kernel. And these, for the overwhelming majority of applications, behave exactly the same on all distros.
I think the bigger issue is the variety of distros that end up not being compatible. Even if you overall have a lot of Linux users if they, for the sake of argument, distribute evenly between all distros then it's still a lot of effort to code. The only difference is that the argument will change from "Linux has a small userbase" to "Distribution X has a small userbase".
Linux doesn't just need more users to be worthwhile to develop for, it also needs a distro agnostic solution to run software. That or significantly reducing (or streamlining) the amount of distros so the developers would have far less configurations to account for.
Edit : okay yea i fd up guys anything to support women was only thinking of the slezzers
I don't use proton so forgive me if this is a stupid question...
But do you need an app? Can't you just use whatever browser you want for their services?
Of course you can access everything through the web on Linux. I really like Proton's web mail interface. Unfortunately, Proton does not have a Linux analog to their windows client that provides automatic file syncing. I think that what the commenter is complaining about.
There is a dedicated Linux client for Proton VPN and in my experience it integrates quite well on Debian-based distributions.
Also, there's Thunderbird if you NEED a fat client for your email. Except Proton's strength is where the service is located and the security of access. Having a full copy locally on your system kind of defeats that.
You need a special app that they call a "bridge" because Proton doesn't support normal IMAP and SMTP, so you have to use the bridge to be able to use normal email clients.
But they are now porting their webmail as a cross-platform desktop Electron app, after which they'll just likely discontinue the bridge "for safety". And so this issue will become moot.
I finally said screw it and am leaving Proton for a proper paid service. I never upgraded Proton to a paid tier because it never matured enough for me to use for real. I never once migrated contacts over to it (just a couple people who understood I was testing it).
Yea, so there's a connection to my credit card. At least it's with a professional org that has proper modern mail management (something post-2000), and gives you tools to manage your email.
I really wanted Proton to work out so I could recommend it to friends and family. But it's a terrible user experience. I missed 50 emails because it keeps moving them to spam even after I set the sender as not spam. Oh, and spam management requires (according to support) logging into the web, not thru the mobile client. 🤦♂️
Can you imagine telling a customer this with a straight face and not seeing a problem with it? I'm using your app and can't manage spam?
Don't worry, they're preparing to discontinue all their desktop-native apps in favor of webmail (and webmail running in Electron).
After which I expect they'll start squeezing their paying customers, since they won't be able to leave anymore. Or sell the company, get out with "clean hands" and a wad of cash, and let someone else do the squeezing.
No shit. There's a reason they are killing the nice and simple Windows Mail app; it allows you to sync with your email without Microsoft servers between.
Also, the biggest issue for me is the UX. I use outlook for my work email and like to separate my work and personal life, so soon I just won't have an app for my personal email on my PC.
If anyone knows of a similar windows mail app with good touch support and without such a traditional mouse designed UI, please share it.
I've been using Thunderbird since forever. It's not perfect but I like it better than bloated and laggy Outlook.
I thought Thunderbird was getting increasingly shitty and slower/clunky, until I realised it was actually my ISP's mail server getting increasingly shit. This became immediately obvious the day that emails started taking 12-18 hours to land in my inbox. Reallllll handy for those time limited account reset emails. Funnily enough, they were planning real soon to outsource their email to another company for the low, low cost of just a few extra dollars a month, opt in now!
Transferred my IMAP inbox to my own domain, everything is now awesome again.
But better for touch and simpler than windows mail?
I am only using Outlook for work email.
I've been paying for mailspring for a few years now, and I love it. It has touch and gesture support, is open source, and is available on Windows, MacOS, and Linux.
Its paid plan includes some nice features like email tracking - which you can't really get from just a simple client and (needs a server to track who has opened an email and when) - and id lookup, for things like quickly seeing the LinkedIn profile of a sender not in your contacts list.
Definitely my favorite desktop client by a wide margin, and one I would recommend wholeheartedly.
Edit: Just to be clear, it's available for free as well.
I really liked the mail app, the outlook one sucks
As a guy who runs Windows 10 LTSC on one of the machine, yeah I agree it do suck ass
Not only it’s UI design doesn’t fit at all with overall Windows 10 UI design, it also runs significantly slower than the old Windows Mail app
And in the typical Microsoft fashion, they’ll shoved that garbage into everyone’s throat despite nobody ever asked for it
Fuck that
What especially galled me was as I was updating my laptop before flashing to Linux the new outlook will not work unless edge installed, I had just uninstalled that pile of garbage.
Ah well, at least pop_os works great 😃
If you're still using Windows 11, they're still collecting your data. Sure, no need to give them more, but maybe that's the push you need to move elsewhere. There are really good options.
I'm waiting for Microsoft to bring back the option to move the taskbar to the side of the screen before upgrading to windows 11 from 10.
I may switch to Linux if IT forces the update and I can't stop it.
Wino Mail has a pretty good UI similar to the Mail app. You can find it in the Store.
Thank you for actually reading my comment and suggesting something appropriate instead of whatever gets you the most karma ("use thunderbird/Linux!").
I don’t know any of the alternatives that have similar UI to the Windows Mail app
But it is possible to get back the old Windows Mail app by obtaining the dumped package file for the app (either by looking for it online or leeching it from the official Microsoft Store website using store.adguard.ru) and then install it using Powershell
At least that’s what I do with one of my systems running Windows 10 LTSC, since that version of Windows doesn’t came with Windows Mail and MS Store pre-installed
Thank you for actually reading my comment and suggesting something appropriate! I'll have to figure out how to get the package file myself, thanks!
Outlook honestly was not that bad for a while, but of course Microsoft does what Microsoft does. I've been using Thunderbird for about a year now and it is very full featured coming directly from outlook.
I use Outlook on my work Mac, and am forever amazed at how hard they pushed on getting me to switch to "New" Outlook, but how many features they never bothered to port over. Like, I can't export my mailbox without having to switch it back to 'old' Outlook. Calendars straight up don't work half the time and there's no obvious button to switch from a list of events for the month, back to a monthly calendar view.
Outlook for Mac is a fucking mess. I really do need to switch over to Thunderbird.
Mail was so clean thunderbird isn't as nice
For me, Mail was a little anemic. It's nice to have a more full-featured option, but I agree that it's a mistake for MS to can the Mail App that met 90% of people's needs.
What was the hardest thing about the transition?
Personally, i got pretty used to the focused view from Outlook. Other than missing that, it's been pretty great.
Like all open source software, there's more of a build-it-yourself ethos. I was able to customize it to my liking to replace most of the functions of Outlook. Someone here mentioned the focused View which was hit or miss to be honest, but it did a good job of filtering out most of the nonsense.
It took a little bit of time to get the settings, layout, and add-ons that I wanted for my workflow. The best thing about switching is honestly how quick it is, how easy it is to have all my emails open in one window with tabs, and above and beyond all, a super powerful, super quick search. I feel like modern searches across all software are doing away with Boolean operations, thinking they can replace it with AI rankings. A straightforward search that lets me find exactly what I'm looking for and nothing I'm not feels like a superpower in this day and age.
I tried the new outlook for about 30 seconds. They injected ads into my mail.
Instantly uninstalled it.
I hope you changed your email account passwords after. What many people don’t realise is that when you fill out the “configure your email account” form, the details aren’t kept local to your PC. You are giving Microsoft the login details to your email account. This is a major departure from how Outlook and Windows Mail used to work.
So you’ve uninstalled the app, but how can you ensure they aren’t still polling your emails?
I mean, if it's an Outlook email and not from another provider using Outlook as a frontend, it's part of Microsoft's ecosystem anyways. Unless your whole inbox is encrypted (and it's probably not if it's not being advertised as such lol), it's on Microsoft's servers and they have control over it anyways.
That said, definitely change the password if you just used Outlook as your email client at some point!
I use the old outlook, so M$ still has my info.
I Sincerely hope you logged back in to outlook.com after to reject all permissions and tear out your data/accounts
Nope. But I think I’ll do that now. Thanks for the prompt.
It was so broken when I tested it that if you dragged a folder two levels deep it would disappear. Had to roll back to get that folder out.
I got a popup saying "wanna try the new Outlook app"? So I did and the fucking thing immediately inserted ads that resembled email into my inbox. If this is the future I'll install Thunderbird.
For a few years, I had hope that Microsoft would become a respectable, user-oriented, even FOSS-friendly company, but they finally seem to have settled on AI enshitification as their main business model.
FOSS friendly company
I'm not sure what you are smoking but you're high as balls dude. If there is any company that has as it's motto "fuck and destroy open source" and as slogan "fuck everything for money", then it's Microsoft.
Microsoft paid SCO to make false claims against Linux in an attempt to destroy Linux and extort large companies away from Linux. The destroy part failed, but they got multiple large companies to steer away from Linux. Normal people would go to jail for that, Microsoft execs not so much.
To be fair, Microsoft is a big company with various divisions. Parts of Microsoft are doing really great work in the FOSS area I would say, but really only if you're a developer. As a general user... they do kind of suck yet.
WSL was a good start, change comes slowly to monoliths but they always have shareholder value as their defining principle so it’s a real tightrope.
I mean... Yeah.
Thats what i thought but holy shit its so much worse.
Its not even data that is needed for outlook but like pretty much everything on your pc.
including your username and password, send in clear text
I agree with the article’s statement. How the fuck is this legal.
TBH when I got this exact pop up on my last windows laptop (dell xps13) I actually panicked and installed PopOS on it.
I didn't feel like distro hopping, I just needed it to work. I guess that shows how I feel about PopOS at the moment.
As someone with an iCloud account, every time I try to use Outlook it randomly deletes emails from my iCloud account. I’ve posted this multiple times on Microsoft support site with others confirming and since it’s been more than year with no acknowledgment or fix I am convinced it’s a feature not a bug. YMMV.
I wasn't asking for your advise but was merely pointing out experience that others may not want to repeat. I don't use Outlook at all.
You sure you did not use POP3?
Yes I went over all settings multiple times with Outlook support. It's a bug/feature they are not interested in fixing.
It’s basically gmail. It’s a web/email server that you give your creds over to . It has an offline mode that I guess makes it an app.
Yeah they read your shit.
For consumers, yeah they scan your shit to sell advertisements to you. For Business customers —that could get real illegal real quick.
MS has much better privacy for licensed customers. It’s well documented and in their MSA.
Yeah, that update was the final push that moved me to Linux on my primary computer. I’ve used Linux for about 20 years on everything that wasn’t my gaming PC and between the advancements made by Valve and the increasing invasive nature of Windows put an end to my relationship with Microsoft.
I am aware this comes from a competitor and they want to go all out. However, what is unclear to me, does this also happen to paying users?
For my small business I use Office 365 Business Essentials, whatever it's called now, the cheapest one. Been using it for many years and for the price/features, it's pretty unbeatable. I use the new Outlook on my workstation since a few months, it's pretty slow and not feature complete but was ok. I'm in the EU and haven't been prompted with that window where it talks about advertisers. Will check Monday if I see a list of advertisers but I think for paid users it's not the same.
For personal mail, I use Thunderbird, I even donated to them. I like it but would have been great if it had a view like Outlook. At the moment it has table view and cards view. Wish the cards view would more customizable.
Proton has a business plan, too.
I know but I don't see any benefits to switching. It's a little more money for fewer features and it's still a somewhat new product.
I've read some reviews and a lot of people complained about their mails not being sent/received. Might be a limited thing but my email is working so I don't feel brave enough to start messing around with it and clients not getting my emails.
Uninstall that shit.
Edit: if you HAVE to use Outlook (because of work, etc), use the web version of it exclusively.
I give the web version credit, it's pretty swell.
The web version and the new version look and feel nearly identical for me. Been using it at work for 6 months now.
Or the PWA version if you're so inclined.
What's the privacy conscious, and future-proof way to have email, that isn't as crazy expensive as Proton?
This is why I don't get excited when I hear some software that I already use and works fine gets an update. More often than not the update makes the software worse.
It used to not be the case, but as of the past decade or so, it seems like more and more software is getting lower quality or substantially bug ridden. Not just on windows either. It's everything now.
Back in the day, each update used to fix bugs, add genuinely useful features, and were eagerly anticipated. Now, I get to do lovely things like RMA a bricked steam deck on stable channel or listen to New Teams' ringer doubling, once before a call is picked up, and ringing again after the phone is answered. I wish I was joking for either of these.
As if the old outlook app wasn’t as …. Oh Shit! This is more egregious
It's almost as if Microsoft doesn't do that already!
On that topic, is there an alternative for a mail client + calendar for Win 11 that doesn’t look and feel like a Windows 95 exe named Thunderbird?
Thunderbird did get a UI overhaul semi-recently so it might offer what you're after now.
I also liked eM Client which has a free version.
I must’ve missed this by a thread when I gave Thunderbird another shot six months ago. Cool!
This looks like Win 95 to you?
Of course, this is what I see /s
To be fair, that is the concept art, the real thing looks more like this:
Certainly not Windows 95, but not as good as the concept art. Yet people still complain A LOT, because it breaks theor two decade old CSS and "looks like a electron app" (whatever that means...).
There’s surprisingly few standalone email clients for normal people on desktop platforms as far as I know.
Reading through their mail merge tutorial, their method looks insanely risky: putting all addresses in "to" and rembering to click another button.
eM Client is the absolute best I've ever used.
I liked Windows Mail for its simplicity but between the ads and the tracking for Outlook I guess I'm moving to something else. Now I understand why my mail accounts give Oauth or temporary passwords to external clients, because otherwise M$ would have them.
Of course it is, it doesn't support pop3, only IMAP through their server
Same as it's always been
The Magic 8-Ball was right all along.
Is there a solid alternative that isn't as prohibitively expensive as Proton? It's like, stupid expensive, even for basic email service with very small storage
No sh*t.
But, TBF, email as a system doesn't need ProtonMail too to be kinda private.
PGP, mixmasters, all those things born around the same time as me.
That's if we lived in a world where "key party" weren't perceived as related to sex.
Unlike proton mail , microsoft offers basic IMAP POP functionality of its desktop app for free, Maybe proton should offer the same "essential" email functionality for free before criticizing Microsoft. there are many ways to monetize a service without rendering the free version legless.
there are many ways to monetize a service without rendering the free version legless
Like Microsofts data collection for targeted advertising?
Proton encrypts and decrypts your data on your machine. The secure key for this lives on your machine and never leaves. Proton do not have a copy of your key because if that key is shared with anyone, human or program, then it is no longer secure. In order to build the feature you're talking about, that security would have to be broken. Not changed: broken. Made ineffective. Thus defying the entire point of the product.
I recommend further study. This will get you started: https://www.eccouncil.org/cybersecurity-exchange/cyber-novice/free-cybersecurity-courses-beginners/
It's in the works, paid users can test. Then it'll be a free desktop client.
They have had desktop bridge app for years but it is only accessible to paying users.
Email is outdated. I hate that it's required for anything, no one uses it for anything other than a high speed fax machine for boring business communique
Should we start running our business on tiktok?
No
I feel the same about SMS auth. Considering many services block voip and Google Voice, it's impossible to use the broad majority of web services without a cellphone.
You mean, other than being the most widespread method of account identification on the internet?
You need to have a method of uniquely identifying (and verifying) accounts and the other widespread method (phone numbers) is extremely privacy invasive because it's much harde or practically impossible to change phone number for most people.
I'm surprised that the developer of a privacy-focused product would accuse its competitor of not being good for privacy.
Fair point, but invalid point when they are right.
PROTON WORKS WITH THE FEDS PROTON WORKS WITH THE FEDS PROTON WORKS WITH THE FEDS PROTON WORKS WITH THE FEDS ProtonMail Gives Up Logs on User, Then Scrubs Website of No IP Logging Claims it gave out thousands of ip adresses over the years
You understand how the internet protocol works right. This argument has been going for a long time now. Yes, they gave up IP address because they couldn't win in court. They're like the only company who will fight tooth and nail for you in court but the feds ordered them to do so, so they had to comply. The messages were all end to end encrypted and other than what metadata was requested, they didn't get much.
Edit: Additionally, if you use protonvpn, mullvad, or any no-log vpn, you would probably be immune to this.
Yeah, based on a legal request - that's how it should be. Our problems are not police listening in on criminals but unwarranted mass-surveillance.
That's my problem with proton as their marketing would lead you to believe their email is completely encrypted. Their marketing really needs a asterisk that tells you exactly what is encrypted and when.
They did not disclosing any content of any email. They disclosed the very little they have. Once they have been forced to log IP addresses and that was turned to law enforcement, another time they were forced to disclose a recovery email address. These facts if anything should help build trust in proton, as they show how little they collect and therefore can disclose. With signal is the same, they collect super minimal info (the time you last logged in and a couple more data points, I think), and that's what they disclosed in the past.
It's a non-news.
Yeah no shit, and you do think I have a single goddamn bit of influence over my corporation's choice of email client??
They can leech all the data they want from my employer. I don't give a fuck. Never use company assets for personal business as an addendum.
Just be a little more careful with your own stuff, s'all.
Depends on your sector of work. Imagine you’re a therapist or a lawyer…
Why is your corp using the free mail app in windows??
Because it's free in windows.
Let me introduce you to https://davmail.sourceforge.net/
Yes it works pretty fine with stupid O365. You can basically use whatever mailclient you desire with it.
pretty sure when you bring that up to your company, that another company will have access to internal communication, that they will do something against it. It's a willing data breach.
There's no other company with all the required certification that can replace Microsoft office suite so all corporations are stuck with it and tbh nobody cares.
Corporations will just have a contract that guarantees no harmful use of their data and not care about the details. They just want the lines to be able to sue if there's an issue in the future. And honestly, I don't see the issue with companies agreeing to collect data on each other. The issue is with private life, which should never be shared on company tools.
Worth noting that Outlook the Office suite component, and Outlook, the freebie mail client that comes with Windows, are not the same thing. They're just named the same because yadda yadda executives yadda yadda name recognition yadda yadda brand synergy.
Unless your employer is one of the very few that doesn't provide Office to its users, this isn't about the version you are required to use.