Proton Mail says it’s “politically neutral” while praising Republican Party

Just when I'm done migrating all my email shit to Proton, the CEO turns out to be a nazi. A classic.

Same. Considered getting a domain for my email, but ended up just switching directly to the protonmail domain. Regretting that now.
- Getting your own domain is the best thing you can do, regardless of provider - it means they can't lock you in anymore.
Only way to make sure your email isn’t run by a Nazi is to run it yourself.
Unless you’re a Nazi in which case FUCK OFF
- Even for the technically literate, running a mail server is an ongoing nightmare. If you think it's easy, you're not doing it right.
Dagnabbit - I went all in on Proton as well. Why is it so hard to find an email provider that respects privacy and isn't run by people with 'problematic' views (i.e. people who wish people like me didn't exist)
I guess I'm lucky he came out with this shit just as I was about to migrate.
I did some more research and this is no joke:
https://www.ibtimes.com/tech-ceos-europe-call-europe-first-mentality-following-trumps-us-first-advocacy-3751551
Globalism is bad, being fair is bad, Europe-first, huh I wonder where we've heard this kind of rhetoric before.
- The EU was initially a good idea, but it got too involved in national politics (anyone remembers the banana guideline that reads like a meme?). I still think, the EU is fine and we should keep it, but it should be a defensive alliance first and foremost and not some fucking merger that is advocating for the rich. Sadly, it's the rich that have the influence because, well, money and they are going to abuse it.
  A call for isolation and autarky is a massive red flag and nothing good will ever happen after that, it always leads to exploitation and violence. The reason CEOs don't like globalism is because it's harder to create a monopoly on a global market than regional and capitalism strives for those because it hates competition.
- Ar eyou saying Proton's CEO is a Nazi? Far as I can tell he isn't
  Edit: your message is confusing which is why I ask
#BigSame Friend.
I was looking at Tutanota for a bit. Guess I'm need to bust open that research again.
Signed up last month because I had something to protect. Looking into Tuta. Anyone know a comparable free vpn?
- I switched to Mullvad, works pretty well so far, for my needs.
I was at a similar crossroads when trying to de-google and pulled the trigger on Tuta Mail instead of Proton. Very happy with my decision now after reading this.
They usually are. Unfortunately.
While the comments were not welcome and left a sour taste, we are blowing it a bit out of proportion here.
- You don’t get to decide how other people feel and respond to the issue.

Yeah this is a masks off moment for them and people better be paying attention!

"If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse, and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality."

-Desmond Tutu

"If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse, and you say that you are neutral, but your CEO and official company social media accounts are publically praising the policies of the elephant, the mouse will not appreciate your alleged neutrality."
-iAmTheTot

I migrated literally everything from Gmail around 2021. Gotta tell ya, I feel just about dumb as shit right now. I kind of understand people with those "I bought this before he sieg heiled" bumper stickers on their Teslas.

I was planning to transition everything to proton this month. Now I don't know what to do.
- Tuta for mail, bitwarden for passwords, mullvad for vpn. You lose port forwarding.
  I migrated last week. I dont miss proton.
- Honestly the lesson I took away from this is to not vendor-lock myself if I can help it. Maybe it'd be better to have a domain through which you can route incoming emails to any inbox? That way you can just hotswap email services if their CEO turns out to be a cannibal or something.
- Tbh I think proton is solid. What the CEO said is just stating a fact of the situation 10 years ago and linking it to now. I don't believe that's right but he posted the message 4th of December which (if I'm not mistaken) was before it was clear all the tech CEOs were sucking his dick like we saw around his in inauguration.
  I'd still recommend it, the other stuff the CEO says on twitter is all very logical and positive for privacy and against big tech. Unfortunately someone says something that is remotely questionable (not like this guy has outright praised Trump far as I can tell) and sudetly Proton is a dead service not considering all the good they have done and will (probably) continue to do
Why do you feel stupid? None of this could have been predicted. If you switched to any other privacy focused provider it might as well have been them this was about. You did a logical thing at the time, as many others here did. I don't see how any of this isn't obvious.
I see how moving out of the Google ecosystem could be a pain, but moving out of proton probably shouldn't be that big of a deal?
Switching to another services for calendar, storage, or VPN should be simple. I kind of see how going to another email provider and not wanting to lose old conversations could be a pain though. In fact, that pain is what largely made me try to avoid using email for communicating with people in my life.
Either way, much less of a pain than buying a semi-luxury car only to see it lose basically all of its value because Elon is a nazi.
I understand the concern but it's not like the CEO is sieg heiling... He is stating how things used to be and his hope that Trump will continue that trend. He posted 4th of December which was far before Trump got all his big tech chronies to sit Infront of US allies at his inauguration
~~Check out the comment on this post by @pulsewidth, it provides some interesting perspective on this.~~
Rescinded! Thanks for the context folks
- Mmmhm, Republicans are more likely to tackle Big Tech issues by funding them with a cold hard 500 billion smackaroos for AI research, right? /s
  Gimme a fuckin' break. D being trash doesn't excuse this blatant endorsement of R. Never entertain the whims of the far right, no matter how sweetly they sing to you. History has taught us better.
- No, make sure you read the top response to that comment. Pulsewidth omitted the original post by the CEO. Not only that, this was Pulsewidth's first post. Not concrete proof of astroturfing, but it's pretty sus

Swiss company says "Nazi's aren't so bad."

The more things change the more they stay the same.

When they say they're "neutral" lets not forget what "neutral" meant during World War II. It meant making a fucking shitload of money at the expense of the rest of Europe.

Also, the geography of Switzerland is how they were able to convince Germany to not invade. A few US Nukes dropped from the sky make their geography a moot fucking point this time around.

That escalated quickly
- So does their geography!
You should open an history book or at least a good one.
Geography didn't do anything. Switzerland would collapse in a day and many there were not against Nazi.
Nazi didn't invade because they needed Switzerland to finance their regime. It was an economical decision.
Myth about WWII are legion like Austria being a victim (Austria was actually happy to be part of the Reich).

Yep, I moved to tuta the day Andy decided to out himself as a MAGA dipshit. The only way I’d go back is if he resigns or gets forced out. At the absolute minimum Andy Yen has shown extremely poor judgement in claiming Republicans are the party concerned with people’s digital rights. That tells me he fundamentally does not know what he’s talking about, and I do not trust Proton under his leadership anymore.

As a side note, If anyone’s looking for a VPN alternative, I highly recommend Mullvad.

What are your thoughts on Tuta so far?
- If your goal is basic mail, with standard features, Tuta is great. The free option is more than enough for an anonymous email.
  If you want to pay a little you can move your domain over and get a bunch more features.
  If you appreciate a simple interface, Tuta will be perfect. They have apps for desktops and phones as well as web.
- It seems like a good alternative but I honestly haven’t used it enough over the last two weeks to feel comfortable recommending it to people yet. Sorry I can’t be more helpful, but there’s a free tier so there’s no downside in giving Tuta a shot for a bit.
- Been running my own domain from Tuta for about a year now. Had no issues so far.
- Commenting so I can come back to this because hell if I'm going to remember to check it if I just save the comment.
  Thank you for your assistance on the matter.
- Been using the free tier of Tuta for years now with zero issues. The only thing is they delete your account after 6 months of not logging in (the timer resets every time you log in). Pretty sure that only applies to the free tier, though.
Same. It's little more difficult to say goodbye to simplelogin when my partner and I have like 150+ aliases and the subdomain use is SO convenient. Trying to eventually move the family to Addy.IO
- I just signed up for the cheapest paid Addy plan and so far I'm very impressed, especially since it seems to be a one-man show. The docs are good which has been a huge help, and the user dashboard website is easy to grok.
What are the political alignments of the Tuta CEO?
He didn't say that though, he thinks Republicans are the party more likely to fight for "small tech" against big tech in the antitrust space. You can still consider this bad judgment but it's purely an opinion that he motivated from his point of view with a few data points.
Digital rights are an indirect benefit that may derive for breaking big tech monopolies, but nothing was mentioned.
Edit: for those downvoting, this is factual. Just go check the tweet and the reddit comments he did. If you want to be pissed at someone at least choose what that person did or said.

The sort of Swiss neutrality that doesn't care whose teeth the gold is from.

Reason n1 why I never use Swiss services.

Wow. There's a whole lot of people here reacting to the headline, and not actually reading the story. That's important, because the journalist's headline is (shocker) a huge overstatement.

I was concerned as I'm a Proton user and have been for years, and hard left politically, and despise Trump. But maybe lets just read it before reacting?

Here's what the CEO posted on Xitter:

10 years ago, Republicans were the party of big business and Dems stood for the little guys, but today the tables have completely turned.

Yep. That's a bad look. Doesn't make a lot of sense either because the Republicans are very much the party of big business and corporate handouts and deregulation in oil, gas, energy, mining, manufacture, industrial farming etc.

Then here's what Proton's team said on Reddit as an explanation and expansion of the CEO's post (and then later deleted):

Here is our official response, also available on the Mastodon post in the screenshot:
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 coincidentally 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.
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.

First off, I feel like I've read from hundreds of Lemmy users total agreement that the Democratic party is captured by corporate interests, so I really doubt any disagreement with that section of Proton's post. My reaction to the remainder is that it's not at all praise for the Republican party, just the factual statement of the sad reality that Republicans with their very hard-on-Silicon-Valley rhetoric are more likely to actually reign in the big tech companies than the Democratic party - and Proton is in a good position to have seen this first hand. Zero of the statement praises Trump or praises Republicans, and there is in fact lament that the Democrats didn't stick harder with their left-wing candidates, even highlighting Bernie. I can see why they deleted it though, it's office chatter than never should have left the cubicle.

TL;DR: storm in a teacup, I'll be keeping my Proton mail account.

p.s. yes this is my first Lemmy post. I'm a longtime lurker though. I felt strongly enough about this to make an account to post, as nobody seemed to be actually posting the content of the article - just reacting. Edit: typos & formatting of the quote.

If by reigning in big tech you mean a cartel style system where companies need to provide funds to Trump to continue existing, sure. But there is no chance that the Republicans will reign in big tech : they are big tech.
You are leaving out the part where Andy Yen said that the tables have turned and the Republicans are now the party of the small people.
Andy Yen's statement is downright pathetic and misleading. People are right to stir up shit because that's the only thing corpos understand.
This isn't a storm in a tea cup, this is the CEO of a company telling us who he really is and people choosing to tell him to get fucked.
Your post reeks of astroturfing.
- the Republicans are now the party of the small people
  He didn't. He clearly meant small tech in that context, opposed to big tech\monopolies. Not only this is the only interpretation that makes sense, but he said this himself in a clarifying (personal) reddit comment.
Then here’s what Proton’s team said on Reddit
are you REALLY asking us to care about their PR damage control? They can literally cherry pick anything and say anything that's true and try to tie it back into their argument. What stands is his initial heartfelt public statement.
Zero of the statement praises Trump or praises Republicans

Great pick by @realDonaldTrump . 10 years ago, Republicans were the party of big business and Dems stood for the little guys, but today the tables have completely turned. People forget that the current antitrust actions against Big Tech were started under the first Trump admin.
On Twitter (your know, the fascist communication network)
Tagging Trump directly (ohh look at me, I'm a good boy, give me contracts, invite me over)
your definition of Zero and mine are WILDLY different.
I feel like I’ve read from hundreds of Lemmy users total agreement that the Democratic party
Yes, the standard far right argument, no no they're both bad so this isn't bad.
of the sad reality that Republicans with their very hard-on-Silicon-Valley rhetoric are more likely to actually
There it is, you're not even going to sugar coat it, No no, the Republicans WHO ARE DISMANTLING DEI AND MEDIA FACT CHECKING
are going to
ctually reign in the big tech companies (more )than the Democratic party
GTFO, or at least come up with a half reasonable argument. That's serious not even worth the time to post on..
TL;DR: storm in a teacup, I’ll be keeping my Proton mail account.
If you're for real, (and I expect you're just more damage control), sounds like you're in a good place with like minded friends not worried at all about their safety.
p.s. yes this is my first Lemmy post.
Ahh so more damage control. Gotcha!
Their PR Department can do better
- "Tagging Trump" because it was an answer (quote? Not sure what is the xitter term) to the tweer where Trump announced the pick for antitrust.
  I do disagree with the person you are answering to, he did praise republicans. He did in a very narrow context and for specific (although opinable) reasons and he praised Trump for having made that specific pick.
  Personally, I don't see what the big deal is.
Yep, a complete drama over nothing that got many people start a witch hunt. We already reached the point in which the guy is now a Nazi for having chosen a username with 88 in it, despite the fact that he is Taiwanese AND born in that year. Basically this is the well-meaning, internet vigilantes version of "bill gates injects 5g microchips with vaccines".
It's what happens when politics becomes faith.
Good first post
- Good catch. Someone else here in the comments detected a hint of astroturfing... perhaps they were onto something
  Edit: they opened a Lemmy acct to make that post, fwiw
Same for me. Was it kind of stupid what the CEO said? Yes, sure, but who the fuck does not do that from time to time?
I also hate this mentality, that if you agree with a decision a party / person made, then that means you agree with everything they stand for. Bitch, no!
Nicely said.
I had my doubts, I mailed Proton and they responded with a statement Yen his opinion isn't that of Proton, his comment while using the Proton account was a mistake which has been deleted and Proton changed to a foundation so no one, including a CEO like Yen, can change what Proton stands for.
Lololololololololol, bad look.
How about literally right wing propaganda
Due respect, your take is obtuse at best or you're a shill. The company, with current leadership in place, just cannot come back from the first statement, it illustrates a fundamental detachment from objective reality, to the point that you've lost any and all credibility, permanently.
In a business based on trust, this is just so clear. Poop
Thank you for the summary.
- I knew interacting on Lemmy would be hard but... Common people! Downvoting for a "Thank You"? Reasonable doubt for pulsewidth?
  Anyway, pulsewidth PMed me (and probably the other commenters under him) and I think he wanted to point out his good faith. He comes back on the praise point and admits his fault. He is a bit disappointed to have been straight up banned from !news@lemmy.world .
Thank you for clarifying!
Nice try, fed.
Sir, this is Lemmy's. We don't allow reason here.
- Reason is fine, doesn't mean everyone has to agree.
- I don’t get why anyone would stay on a site they thought reason wasn’t allowed at.
  I’ve been frustrated several times at what I perceive as Lemmy bias that borders extremism, but on the whole it’s perfectly reasonable. Essentially every response to the parent comment agreed with it (I have yet to see someone disagree but perhaps I haven’t scrolled enough).
  Lemmy isn’t big enough to feel you need to stay, as Reddit was when comments like this were plentiful.
- Look, reason my ass

My renewal of proton VPN is entirely dependent on who the ceo is when it's time for me to renew.

If fuckface is still there, I'll move on.

I'm fickle that way.

The number of places I can do business with is dropping drastically. I'm going to have to start making my own clothes in the near future.
I strongly recommend Mullvad. Exceptional performance, wireguard support and if you're really paranoid about anonymity you can literally send them money via post.
Same at this point. I just paid for the year in November.
Same plan here, bought Mail Plus for a year back in May. Although if they decide to enshittify everything before May I'll just bail early.

Yeah Proton already burned that bridge. "Politically Neutral" is no longer an option for them.

When I first saw the headline, I thought it sounded like one of those stories about how many Nazis are at the table or at the bar.
When you exist in a 2-party system, and one of those parties are mask-off fascists, and people suspect you of supporting them, saying you’re neutral isn’t a good look.

Good news for them, I’m “financially neutral”

Curious how so many people decided to ditch them and switch (vocally on Lemmy at least) and now they back pedal/clarify/whatever. Turns out we have power and using it works. Sorry not sorry. Edited: pedal instead of petal.

I am currently entrenched in Google. Slowly digging my way out so I could transfer to proton. I was probably within about a month maybe two or pulling the trigger. Zero chance that happens now. I don't like Google But I know what they're going to do. If I'm going to put the effort into move that critical data it's got to be with some place I can trust or I'm going to have to host it myself.
- I'm researching the suggestions that people have made here: tuta, bitwarden, and mullvad.
- yap I'm exactly on the same boat. I am testing the waters with proton to leave google... and then I see this... Can't find an alternative
- Personally going with option 2 on an old PC, learning a lot about docker lol
Im so sorry. I tried not to, but the pull was to strong. Ignore me please...
But...
The saying is "back pedal", not "back petal". "Back pedal" as in trying to pedal backwards on a bike. Not "back petal" as in trying to pick flowers at the back of a bush, maybe? Trying to not lie down on a bed of roses? Unsure.
- Oof. Kinda awkward, but...
  *too
- I really don't think there's anything wrong with a respectful and well-intentioned correction.
- I fixed that twice!
  Fist Curse you autocorrect! Fist

I think at this point in the USA it's very clear:

If you're "politically neutral", you're Republican.

I (and very many others) may not agree with the democrats, but since we only got two parties there, it's damage-control. And any sane person (that would like to have a non-dystopian future) votes against Trump...

they're Swiss
- Yes, I know, I'm also not from the USA from a "neutral" state (Austria)...
  Actually, especially if you're European, even the democrats are more right-leaning, i.e. comparable with the conservative parties here.
  No one is actually politically neutral...
Neutrality only ever helps the aggressors. Hitlers Europe strategy was predicated on the Swiss doing nothing in response to the annexation of Austria and occupation of France.
Ok Trumper.
- What did he mean by this

Imagine being so fucking brainwashed you believe Republicans are for "the little guy"

Okay, can someone help me, a tech illiterate, choose a new vpn, email provider, and password manager? I'd really prefer open source.

Vpn: Mullvad
Email: Tuta / tutanota
Password manager: Bitwarden or 1password
- DEFINITELY do not go 1password. They took a massive VC investment and it is only a matter of time before they find a way to monetize it. Ignoring the fact they absolutely destroyed the app.
  Bitwarden (you can host yourself with vaultwarden) or KeepassXC.
- Keepass is superior in my experience for passwords
VPN: Mullvad
Password manager: Bitwarden
(or if you are advanced user, KeePassXC + Syncthing for full control of your DB)
Email: I use Tuta, but I am honestly not that confident in it to recommend it, unlike the above.
- Airvpn has port forward i believe.
You might want to have a look at this site to study-up on available/recommended tools: https://www.privacyguides.org/en/ I use Mullvad VPN myself and am happy w/it. Ditto Bitwarden which works well and is cheap. I have a Tuta account but detest the UI and the fact that they don't support IMAP/SMTP clients, or PGP, so I do my own PGP encryption/decryption using Thunderbird Mail on desktop which has built-in support for it. Also I use Fastmail as a (paid) provider (no built in PGP but tons of other bells & whistles) though mailbox.org looks interesting and is well-priced. Finally I use addy.io for anonymous aliases/forwarding and they have good PGP support.
Bitwarden is a good password manager. Can't help with the rest.
- Keepass with rsync / unison or a local git server works pretty well too.
I would highly recommend 1password

I already switched from Proton Mail to Tuta. No regrets

I've been with tutan for two years now. The service is ok, but they still have some limitations that bother me a bit. Before this issue with Trump, I'd have considered move to Proton, but I guess I'll stick with Tuta.
- I'm considering switching. Would you mind sharing what bothers you?

I really don't understand why smart people put their eggs in the proton basket.

Big (shady) money rule Switzerland. A Swiss server or company isn't safer or more trustworthy. Quite the opposite.

Excluding Switzerland from the equation, most in the US don't have + or - for Switzerland unless it's banking.
You can never trust any company to put your needs first. A good moral company has at least its founders, private funders, employees, and vendors to look after before they worry about your wants and needs.
Proton was kinda small. 500 employees for a communications company isn't bad.
Good start.
Proton made a name for itself. WE ARE PRIVACY FIRST and they mostly delivered on that in technical capabilities.
So far, so good.
Then they doxed someone's IP (french?) due to a remote government order.
Not great, but anyone would do that. There have to be limits. That said, they now clearly play ball with governments.
All the other providers would do the same. They're now on par with most, but less likely to sell all my data down the river. But my needs are to keep my secrets state secret level. (or so I think)
Then he crawls up Trumps ass.
Now, I'm doing nothing illegal. Nothing immoral. Nothing questionable by the previous administrations standards, but what happens If I start to protest? If I subscribe to democratic news sources, is this jackass going to train an AI on my and hand my name address and phone number to the neo facists running my country now?
We put our eggs wherever we think they can best be served conveniently and for the best price.
You can also choose to not put your eggs anywhere. You can secure your email but not sending any.
we were trying to choose price+convenience+security.
knock one of those legs out, it's not a table anymore.
- This comment needs more upvotes inmho. This is exactly right. It’s how I followed this history myself. They built on Privacy first. Now there are red flags which were not clear before.
  On the hacker news thread: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42837181
  They discuss the topic and there is only a single reply from ProtonPrivacy, saying it’s miscommunication and blah blah.
  It was not enough to dispel my sense of unease and concern and a single comment isn’t exactly ‘fighting to set the record straight’.
  My 2¢.
Thank you! I was also very confused how all these privacy-conscious people warned against big corporations, and then starting using a product.... By a big corporation. Just because they say they're privacy conscious and nice and safe and whatever doesn't mean it's true. I mean, they might be substantially better, but there's no proof of that. Every company always makes promises, at first. I guess people really like to believe in an underdog.
It's like if someone warned you against eating sweets because they're unhealthy, but then pulls out their own bag of sweets saying "oh no, these sweets are fine because the company that makes them promised they're healthy".
- They're not big. 500 people at a communications company that develops their own stuff is relatively tiny.
Aside from the political stuff, I'm also concerned about proton from a technological standpoint. You can't use a standard mail client with proton, you have to use their own. So, if they wanted to, they could push out a single malicious update which would render all of the end-to-end encryption stuff pointless. You could argue that using Thunderbird + GPG + Gmail is more secure/private.
- You can't use a standard mail client with proton, you have to use their own.
  Part of the reason is that the protocol that's uses for retrieving emails (IMAP) is pretty old and doesn't support end-to-end encryption. JMAP is supposed to be a modern replacement, but it's not widespread yet, and also intentionally doesn't support E2EE.
  E2EE is hard, for example searching has to be done client side rather than having a search index on the server side (since the server is not able to decrypt the data to index it). I haven't tried Proton but I'm curious as to how they solve this... I guess they'd sync the entire mailbox and index it locally, like what (non-mobile) Thunderbird does.
  I really question the value of E2EE for emails, though. Communication between servers (e.g. someone on Gmail sending an email to a Proton user) uses TLS but is not, and will likely never be, end-to-end encrypted. Emails you send to other providers are also not likely to be encrypted on the other provider's end.
- You can if you use the bridge, which is not perfect but basically does the GPG encryption/decryption for you and exposes IMAP etc. (I think you can also do your own PGP encryption on top, not sure).
  The supply chain issue you discuss is the same with any tool, with the exception that with proton you have an automated update system (I.e. every time the page loads js code), while with more traditional tooling you upgrade based on your choice (more or less). You are likely not checking the code in either case, but a malicious update could backdoor or bypass your encryption either way. Technically you can build the proton client yourself but anyway, this is just theoretical stuff, nobody does that.
  Gmail + GPG is anyway worse, first of all from a UX perspective, where every device needs to be managed separately (GPG keys need to be available, you need to manage them, managing keys and keeping them secure is hard). Second, you will use GPG only with selected people of whom you have the key. With proton you will use it automatically for all Proton users at the very least and all proton users can use it with you automatically too.
  Then there is the problem with metadata. They cannot be encrypted of course, and with gmail you are 100% sure they are using them to profile you and mine whatever data can be mined (e.g., who you talk to), while with proton you can reasonably be confident they don't.
Yep and if you look at some corrupt sports bosses like Sepp Blatter, Gianni Infantino and Rene Fasel, all are Swiss.
What's the alternative in your opinion? Google, or something else, and why?
- Tuta has been good for me.
- I just set up a bunch of purelymail addresses on a couple domains I own. I bought into proton for 2 years just a couple months ago. So I'll transition away slowly.
- Anything + PGP + Tor + VPN.
  There are countless mail servers one can use. I use a mail server hosted by Swedish ISP Bahnhof (which I trust). You can also self host. But then you need to be on the dark webs if you really care about privacy (I dont recommend this).
  Or Delta Chat. Or Signal/Matrix/Session/Whatever. This is the preferred choise. EMail is legacy.
- Tbh it seems like there are no good alternatives to protonmail. You just have to host your own

My stance on Proton is my stance on GrapheneOS: just because the creator is bad doesn't mean the software is bad. As long as the software is better compared to the alternatives then I seen no reason to stop using it.

Note: better can mean more privacy-friendly, cost-friendly, sustainable, nice to use, open, etc.

Oddly enough, I found the opposite to be true with companies like Nestle: the news of them killing children makes me dislike their chocolates.

I don't know much about the creator of GrapheneOS. What's the bad about them? I know they're a little dogmatic, as security/FOSS folk can sometimes be, but I've not heard anything beyond that.
- This reddit thread has a nice summary
- All I could tell from my recent search into FOSS Android OS's is that they shit on competetitors like crazy. It's pretty funny, albiet concerning, to see the official Reddit account bash on the competition.
My stance on Proton is my stance on GrapheneOS: just because the creator is bad doesn’t mean the software is bad. As long as the software is better compared to the alternatives then I seen no reason to stop using it.
I think the major difference is that for a software package or operating system like GrapheneOS, theoretically people can audit the code and verify that it is secure (of course in practice this is not something that 99% of people will ever do). So to some extent, you technically don't have to put a ton of trust into the GrapheneOS devs, especially with features like reproducible builds allowing you to verify that the software you're running is the same software as the repository.
For something like Proton where you're using a service someone else is running, you sort of have to trust the provider by default. You can't guarantee that they're not leaking information about you, since there's no way for you to tell what their servers are doing with your data. Accordingly, to some extent, if you don't trust the team behind the service, it isn't unreasonable to start doubting the service.
- This is where audits come into place. Currently Proton only made the result of their security audit public, but you can also get an accounting firm to audit the privacy statement. Not endorsing them or anything, but PureVPN has been audited by iirc Deloitte on their privacy statement. I have verified this a couple year by then sharing the conclusion of the report from Deloitte with signature.
  Proton should do something similar and yearly and could have a lot more faith in them. An accountant isn't going to risk his career for something like Proton's privacy statement. At least I would hope not
The Porton Foundation is also the majority owner of the company these days which makes it a bit harder to do whatever you wish with the company

I just cancelled my subscription and moved everything to Tuta. Tuta also seems to have a political stance much more aligned with my own: diversity, privacy oriented, and eco friendly.

Yeah I'm very much now considering alternative options like Tuta now. Been a Proton user since 2020 and subscribed for over 2 years with them, and didn't have any intention of moving until now.

gonna quickly post here, since I don't know quite where else would be good, but I noticed sometime last year that the website, https://standardnotes.com/ (a product owned by proton) seems to use a massive amount of AI generated imagery.

also: I thought I was a fool for not getting lifetime visionary when I could, now a little less so :)

Standard Notes is owned by Proton? I didn't know it lol
- I only found out since I used standard notes before the ownership thing, I suppose I'm gonna have to look for a syncing note taking service again.
I don't actually dislike ai imagery, I think it can produce interesting imagery. However, I must concede that is an excessive use of boilerplate bog-standard AI imagery.
- I mostly agree, I think it's good for individuals and small businesses who just need some free copyright-free (though arguably this is debatable) graphics for things. It's not like the have the time/money to do it all themselves or get it commissioned.
  But I don't like it when >=medium businesses use it to cut costs or when it's used for something that is directly meant to make money (like an advert or the core of a piece of content your consuming)

I was considering signing up, any alternatives?

For VPN there's mullvad, for email there's posteo, for storage I recommend signing up with disroot, for password storage I'd recommend KeePass or BitWarden/VaultWarden depending on your threat models and needs
- The real pain is going to be having those services split up so much.
  Proton was really convenient for packaging those in a really convenient way.
  Guess there's a business opportunity here?
- FYI, if anyone is interested in VPN for torrenting, apparently Mullvad's VPN is no longer good for that. Something to do with port forwarding. Out of the three that are recommended on https://www.privacyguides.org/en/vpn/ (IVPN, Mullvad, Proton), only Proton apparently still supports that.
Tuta.com
I went with mailbox.org for mail, contacts, calendar. Keepass+syncthing for passwords. Still looking for VPN and file storage. I've been trying out nextcloud but there is a learning curve to host your own.
- Mullvad is great for vpn.
I've tried Proton mail and couldn't get comfortable with their UI. Have been on Fastmail for two years now and it's been excellent.
- I'm back with Fastmail too, after having quit to go with Proton a while back. I never ran into a single email where the recipient was encrypted, so I've come to see the whole encrypted email shtick as mostly marketing.
- I tried proton and I couldn't get into using their service since it kept asking for personal information. I ended up not using it.
- I really like Fastmail's web client - just the right mix of 1990s web and "reactive" eye-candy web. The phone client is OK as far as I can tell, don't use it much. The service itself has always been great and I've been a subscriber for 10-15 years, long before Proton existed.
I'm curious, too. It was the only decent free vpn.
Edit: Why downvote?

I cannot fathom being that stupid to believe that Republicans are anti-monoploy when they give huge corporation massive tax breaks and removes barriers for mega mergers

Biden: puts Lina Kahn in charge of the FTC
Lina Kahn: Goes after monopoly behavior, non competes, etc
Trump: Promptly fires Lina Kahn, day one
Protonmail: Clearly Republicans are for the little guy!
- Seriously. Kahn was actually trying stuff. I don't know how anyone could look at Big Tech falling in line with Trump and think that they're going to be tough on anti-trust, anti-big business.
  This is going to be 4yrs of looting and grifting.

Already started migrating away. Canceled my paid plan.

Migrating to what? Seriously I'd like to know.
- I could see mullvad for VPN. Not sure about mail/cal or password.

For me, the most-used Proton service after email is their calendar. What privacy-friendly calendar alternatives are there that you can recommend?

Both my new service candidates, mailbox.org and posteo, offer calendars. However, I’m in a holding pattern currently since they are German based. Fuckface is meddling in their elections now, which happen at the end of Feb. so I’m holding off to see how much ground the Afd gains.
Self-hosting Nextcloud with Calendar plugin...

Again privacy oriented companies that bend to demagogues and desperate profiteers cannot be trusted to handle sensitive data.

Switched from ProtonVPN to Mullvad and ProtonMail to Posteo. Wiped my ProtonDrive. I sleep pretty soundly at night.

I mean, if they are praising the orange cock, then whats to make you believe they actually deleted the data like you said, and dont have a backup somewhere.
mullvads good though, cheap and no issues with it.
- Exactly. It was a shit lesson to learn but now I've gone the way of encrypted local backups across multiple systems and no cloud bullshit.

Protrump Mail?

Welp... Just paid them 80€ for a year and was in the process of migrating my gmail accounts to it. I guess I just lost 80€ and I'm migrating to somewhere else then...

You should be able to cancel and get a partial refund. Reach out and ask.
- And also during that discussion with their support team, state your reason for leaving. That will get a lot more attention than the rest of us whinging online where we can easily be ignored.

More theater do to this today:

- Or the year before again etc. It's their 7th edition. Apparently the memory of outraged netizens has a very short time window...

Okay, I feel like the part that people are skipping over is the "cooperating with authorities on legal data requests" part. No. As a privacy company; You DO NOT save and store ANY information apart from what is crucially and imminently necessary to run your service. Anything beyond that is a blatant conflict of interests and should not be trusted. Corruption and data sharing that CAN happen, WILL happen when it comes to data security based companies. Full stop.

This is so disappointing. I've already migrated my passwords back to KeePass. Time to start hunting down other alternative. This is what I get for allowing myself the comfort of a centralized ecosystem.

I thought it was KeepAss

I cancelled my subscription and moved to tuta and mailbox.org in a couple of hours.

I don't consider this a nothingburger and I didn't like how it played out.

Dollar vote.

With this president flattery will get you everything. If you don't publicly praise him he will come for you and your users.

I am not saying that I love the endorsement, I do understand it.

I can see this for like Apple or Google, but…
Proton?
What beef could Trump and conservative influencers possibly have with it? And even if they did, it's not even an American company, it's Swiss.
But he has absolutely no reason to do so. That's like VPNs bowing to Trump.
The lack of risk, especially when the average Proton user is actively looking for privacy/security from tech companies who bow to government, makes this endorsement even more sinister than it should be.
Proton is based in Switzerland. If anything, I get the message that the only services that are Trump-proof are based in China or France, because everybody else has lost their fucking mind.
He literally had to say nothing at all lol

Maaaan, what the fuck?!?

Try using a @protonmail.com or another concealing email service to order online. Many websites automatically reject transactions made with these email domains because they are associated with fraudulent behaviour.

Bought a cheap domain and updated the MX records. Problem solved.
I use simplelogin aliases for everything. I have never had any problem with any purchase. So, I understand this may happen, but claiming that "many websites" do is just plain misinformation.
- So, try placing an online order with a @trashmail.com or @armylspy.com email address then tell us what happened.
  There are maasive lists of bad and dodgy email domains that are used to help screen out dodgy orders. Some of these lists include "privacy" domains like Proton.
  If a merchant is receiving an order from someone trying to hide their identity, wouldn't that merchant say "if I can't trust the email address, what else can't I trust about this customer?"

And today I got an email saying they're donating a million dollars to support non-profits for privacy and freedom. Timing, timing, timing.

They do that every year. The 2024 was the 7th edition.
- Yep, they said so in the email. That's nice of them.

Sure hope their praises don't include giving your data to their heroes

They would hand over your liver for an atta-boy and a small government contract.

I thought hosting your own mail server was difficult cause you need to be trusted by the incumbet mail providers or get blocked by them.

It’s bad but still so much better than google.

The Swiss just can't help themselves

Is this the story from a week or so ago re-reported or has he said something else?

The thing is, he raises a lot of very accurate points about the Democratic party. Dems are captured by corporations; they're unwilling to do what the people want, and what is in the best interests of the people, because that hurts their flow of money. And yes, tech companies are kissing Trump's ass because he's volatile enough that he could very well regulate them out of business if they aren't sucking his dick. Additionally, prior to his MAGA phase, Vance does appear to have been much more populist in his approach to corporations; he was saying some of the right things, even if his social policies were trash.

A lot of the dems are truly "captured" by corps. But that's not what he said, he said the Republicans, who are 100% managed by corps, are better. That's insane. And don't start with Vance misinformation, he is owned and run by Peter Thiel.
he was saying some of the right things, even
Vance consistently talks about of both sides of his mouth. He will tell whomever he is talking to what they/their viewers want to hear.
His autobiography is verified fiction.
He's not this kinda getting it but confused figure, that's the costume he wears to try to gather votes from the left.
- Vance really is such an obviously cynical piece of shit. Most politicians are of course, but he really takes the cake.
Lololololololololol, just pure lies and bullshit, not one fact, literally the opposite of reality

Oh ffs, I just made the move to Proton with some stuff a few months ago. I'm really keen on switching the address out on a load of accounts.

It does make sense that a country located in Switzerland has this type of being "neutral", it's seems very similar to what the country was doing in WW1 and WW2.

Anyway, I'll be keeping my Proton account. It works pretty well and I have more faith in the laws in Switzerland than in the EU. Saying that I still have more faith in the EU than the rest of the world if it comes to privacy. If anything changes in the future I'll be moved in about an hour or two.

- Exactly my point.
  Considering Porton AG is owned by a foundation it is harder for the CEO to get rich of it so Ill just wait and see what happens
Interestingly, if I set my VPN location to Switzerland, I can watch YouTube videos without logging in. Everywhere in the US requires me to log in and be subjected to advertisements first.

Correction; the CEO posted a rather tone deaf message. while this is incredibly dumb, it should be little reason to burn the company to the ground

Having said that, people should start looking at email again how it was designed to be: have thousands of open providers instead of the tiny fee enormous ones we got now

We owe no fealty to any company.
You seem to be downplaying it and skipping the part where the companies initial official response strongly backed the personal view he posted and was very nakedly partisan. They later retracted and deleted that official response and had Andy go and argue on Reddit direct. It was a mixed bag.... maybe not worth deleting your account over but it didn't look great and looks worse every day Trump is in office.
I have my subscription for another 6 months. If Andy is still in a leadership role by then, I'll probably cancel. I stopped ignoring red flags in my 20s. I'm not going back now.
have thousands of open providers instead of the tiny fee enormous ones we got now
With distributed/federated services, people still always gravitate towards the largest providers. We see that on Lemmy and Mastodon too.
I agree with you though. I've been self-hosting my email for many years now, using Mailcow. I use an SMTP relay for outbound email though - it's a hassle to deal with IP reputation otherwise, especially if you don't own your own IP space.

What would be a good alternative? I refuse to support this. Thankfully, I have my own domain, so anything where I can use it would be great, and moving shouldn't be that hard. Bonus points if I can use wildcards, or at least have a few emails, like spam@mydomain and other.

Oh, and it has to support "+" emails, such as mail+whatever@mydomain.com

mailbox.org works great for me.

Thank you for sharing this

Yeah I definitively know which service is not getting my donations or subs this year. I'll continue using their free service for a while until I can migrate most stuff. After all it's all their cost. If they want to be nazis, the least I'll be is a load to them.

You gotta kowtow to America when Trump is in charge, its the nature of doing business.

Any good alternatives for ProtonVPN when visiting China? ProtonShield looks pretty promising and with 10 devices for 9,99€ a month my whole family (8 people) would get it for our trip

nice advertisement.
Maybe just don't worry about connecting home and getting mail / news while you're vacationing.
Shadowsocks is free and what most people there use.
Search engine: what Vpn's work in china 2025
There's no limit of reputable alternatives.
I don’t think ProtonVPN works in China, last I can recall. I live in China and use Mullvad and Astrill.