cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/69659577
Protonmail.uservoice.com is supposedly “The Voice of the Proton Community”. Well last week I was tracking a post that was rising rapidly to the top-most voted in the “general ideas” category. And this morning when I went to check if it was at the top yet, it’s just gone without a trace. No sign that it was ever there.
I’ve caught so much vitriol on this site for the past year or two for calling out this company as being run by a shitbag.
All I have to say is I fuckin’ told you so.
I’ll happily admit that I was one of those who dismissed earlier slip-ups as “misinterpreted” and even egged on by a smear campaign. Because of Proton’s former reputation.
I should have known better. I saw the pattern and chose to look the other way. But then this came out and quickly proved me wrong. Very wrong.
After nearly two weeks of radio silence and a complete lack of action from the Proton Foundation board, I called it quits yesterday. Cancelled my subscription, moved my custom domains to another provider, and sent an email to the Proton Foundation explaining exactly why I decided to leave and why his name is Andy.
I hope something comes of this, but my hopes are not high. I don’t trust Proton anymore.
Also something important to note: they can read email subjects. That’s something I was not aware of until very recently. Which begs the question, what else can they see that they aren’t telling us?
Big yup.
Proton fan boys are fanaticaly deluded.
Of course they did. What did you think would happen?
What did you think would happen?
I imagine that’s one reason they were tracking it.
I don’t understand responses like yours. This was an obvious outcome so you would prefer they didn’t confirm that it actually happened?
I have cancelled the automatic renewal of ProtonPass and I have a few months to see if I’ll switch to KeePassXC/KeePassium.
For now, Proton gives me no reason to stay except the fact that they are a swiss company (my country).
Nationalism is a disease, do not fall for it.
Yeah but my goal is to avoid foreign companies because digital sovereinty is important, just like buying local food which hasn’t travelled 2000km to arrive in your plate.
As a US citizen I liked Proton in part because it’s not a US company. I do not trust my government in matters of privacy.
Then open source is the only way. There is no sovereignty when you rely on the state, no matter which one.
Just checked, my votes and comments have disappeared… Not even like listed as deleted or something, no traces at all.
I think this tells us all we need to know about proton unfortunately.
Yup. I’m in the renovation month. I guess I’ll move to monthly payments for an extra month while i sort the addresses out, and then fully cancel.
Same here. Everything’s moved except for addresses I’ll give a month or two I might have forgotten and VPN. What services did you go with?
I’m testing Tuta, but I’m not loving their app so far. I might just go mailbox.org. Since it uses standard IMAP/POP etc, you can use any client you like instead. Not like I’m really gaining a lot by cyphering my email when they can easily read it from any other unencrypted destination the moment its sent or received.
mailbox.org was at the top of my list but ended up pulling the trigger on Thundermail. Time will tell if I made the right call lol
I started fiddling with zohomail.
I don’t know much about the service, but it’s free and not Google/Yahoo.
Though at this point I’d take Yahoo over Gmail
Zoho is an Indian corpo and their products have a rather crappy user experience. Only some features are free and it will keep pestering you to buy subscription.
Looks like they now going heavily into AI too.
eww, I’d really like to stop getting AI summaries of the things I am trying to read.
its like getting spoilers to something about 10 seconds before it happens.
Haven’t heard of that one. Gonna look into it, having alternatives is always good
I’m currently in the same process. Almost half of my accounts already moved from their mail addresses. This time I was using my own domain for all of them, to make further switches way easier.
I went for:
-TuTa (for mail + calendar)
-KeePassDX (with Syncthing) for password manager
-Filen.io for cloud storage (already had something there)
-iVPN for VPN (not switched yet), alternative would be TORvpn which is still in beta though (Mullvad is out, since their CEO supports a fascist party in Sweden)
I also went custom domains, KeePassXC/DX, and Filen. For mail I’m using Thundermail (been reading Tuta might be going the same route as Proton), calendar I’m gonna try and self host with Nextcloud and Thundermail/Fossify calendar. Still looking for a VPN. I need port forwarding, and it looks like the only comparable option is AirVPN, but it’s based in Italy. I’ve learned since the US went fascist and I stopped supporting American to just do my best and not let perfect be the enemy of good. I can accept having to stay with just Proton VPN for the time being. Using one service is better than seven.
I pay a VPN sub to proton, can someone explain what was discussed in the removed post and why?
their CEO is a dumbass that pushes AI usage above everything else, especially security. And is treating the employees like shit
https://www.404media.co/manifestos-fear-and-loser-thinking-inside-protons-ai-reckoning/
Pathologically online leftists tried to make a difference by spamming the company’s support site with a message that demands that they replace their CEO.
If you’re a similar kind of leftist, you may want to join the fun. If not, feel free to ignore the whole circus.
Ih come on… Not only is this a jerk move, the Streisand Effect has been know for decades…
Leave the typo, I wanna see if new filler word can catch on!
Where can I find a tldr of what’s going on with the CEO? I’ve only read bits and pieces and feel that I’m missing, the big picture.
Okay, wow thanks. I’ll have to check on when my subscription renews.
Here’s some background on the whole thing.
https://www.pcmag.com/news/security-over-privacy-russia-blocks-protonmail
They have successfully pissed off Russia which is why Russia weaponized a bunch of useful idiots in the west in an attempt to one-up them.
Looks like anything calling for Andy Yen to go has disappeared. Wonder how far they are going to go with this?
The post they removed https://web.archive.org/web/20261031004517/https://protonmail.uservoice.com/forums/945460-general-ideas/suggestions/51867423-andy-yen-steps-aside
Edit: Wayback seems to be crapping its lederhosen so I took a screengrab of the post and posted it below.
There is sort of a new one up calling them out. We ll see how long it stays up. https://protonmail.uservoice.com/forums/945460-general-ideas/suggestions/51894582-andy-should-step-down
Can’t vote, it’s been closed.
Voted again, 13 voted now
Cool thanks! It’s at 18 now as of 1:45 am Central time
Just tried, it’s closed. 06:42 central time
There were dozens of posts removed.
Ya I saw a number of them that were closed or outright deleted, but the link I posted I think was the main one with most of the votes. (At least of the ones I saw.)
I’m getting “This snapshot cannot be displayed due to an internal error.”. Removed this too?
Hmmm… just got that too, but reloaded a few times and it showed up again. I guess the archive is having some issues, but I took a snap of the comment when it came back up
It had over 2.500 votes last I checed.
Supposedly it hit over 3000 but I can’t find a pic of it at that point.
If they want to win back trust, deleting things like this really is not the way.
Yup, that bothers me almost more than stuffing AI into everything. How are you supposed to trust a company that is purposely hiding things from you.
Much appreciated, cos i’m still getting the same error. Might be a geo block or something
Could be. All nine of that page’s snapshots on Wayback Machine return with that error.
Fuck. my plan renews in a month, I guess I’m going to start looking elsewhere.
I replied to a survey thing of proton’s a few weeks ago, and as I put it I’m happy to pay people for a good service. I will not pay a computer for slop.
Can you switch to monthly so you have a bit more time to move?
I just downgraded to the free plan and under feedback I left this
I, like many others will not pay for Ai slop. I am happy to pay PEOPLE for (what was) a good service. I will not pay a fucking computer for sloppy code just because “Andy” is a lazy asshole that wants more money without having to pay his people for their hard work and experience. If he decides to fuck off with his AI girlfriend and go live in a data center (preferably one within striking distance of Ukraine), I’ll consider returning as a paying customer. This issue was brought up repeatedly in the forums only to be hidden and deleted, which proves to me that your CEO doesn’t care about his employees or customers or even having a good product, only about money. Maybe we are losers Andy, but at least we’re not you.
I might have to, just to buy myself some time.
Mine renews December as well. I panicked about the time crunch so I swapped to monthly and planned to go for a few months to transfer everything over. I’m using the credit I have for December and probably gonna roll the dice on any emails associated with Proton that I missed and cancel. Already moved everything out except VPN. Fuck 'em.
I’ve only got 35 pages of emails in my inbox to delete before I’ve cleared out my Proton mailbox. I already cancelled my subscription and cleared out my Proton Drive. Next thing will be to change my email from my SimpleLogin alias, since they’re “Powered by Proton”.
Thankfully I don’t have a lot of stuff to move, but it still pisses me off… been using them since 2019 but I refuse to pay for some AI coded shit just because of some delusional asshole that doesn’t want to pay actual people for a decent product.
Privatization is a bitch
I left for Tuta when he backed the current administration, however ended up back with them just because the UX wasn’t there for me. I hope I can find something privacy respecting and polished in the near future
FWIW I like infomaniak… only thing I miss is “mute thread”
Yes Infomaniak is quite good even if their Linux client has a few bugs and isn’t a Flatpak.
I’m happy with them and kDrive.
what! damnit, I gotta change all my accounts now …
I know Andy Yen is a dumbass. But frankly, IMO, Proton is still a better service than Google as far as cloud services go. Because Proton isn’t actively helping Israel commit genocide with AI tools among others. They’re not actively scanning all your emails and communications, photos, drive, everything on your mobile device, and your browser to feed an AI and to push your targeted ads.
I’d still pick Proton over Google.
And if you want to talk about other alternatives, sure there are other ones. But none are as integrated as what Proton offers, which gives then a big advantage. Also, there are allegations that Tutanote is linked to secret services. There was another privacy-focused company in Europe that was tied to donations to far-right organizations. So there’s that to consider.
Andy is a moron. Yes he may fuck up Proton. No I’m not happy with what he’s doing and I’m afraid he might break something. And YES I know he was in favour of some candidate that Trump had nominated for an antitrust department role. But he never made any donations to Trump or any other far-right organization as far as I know.
And honestly, it’s becoming increasingly difficult to find a company or a software where AI wasn’t involved in some fashion. Everyone is using it because everyone else is using it and no one wants to be left behind or at a disadvantage. I think it sucks, but that’s the reality.
If there are better alternatives, that’s fine. Go ahead and use them. Promote them. Tell your friends to switch to those services. But for me, I’m still going to stick with Proton for now. It fits my needs and the company is still far better than many of the big name services out there and even some of the smaller ones.
This isn’t a comparison between Proton and Google. This is a criticism of how Proton is becoming just like Google. A lot of us moved to Proton specifically to get away from Google, and now here we are, having to move yet again because the CEO turned out to be just like every other big tech CEO. The most damning part is that the Proton Foundation board has said nothing.
there are allegations that Tutanote is linked to secret services.
Any links or sources on this? First time I’m hearing it.
Tuta addresses this directly on their website. They deny these allégations of course.
Proton is actively partnering with the university ETH Zurich, which not only collaborates with Israel, but also criminally prosecuted students who peacefully protested against that collaboration.
If it’s the same situation as with the University of Geneva (which also works with Israel), the students had been camping for weeks in the University.
I don’t think you can expect proton to lose a client over this, especially because these universities are working with a lot of different countries, good and bad ones…
Providing services to a university in Zurich is not the same as actively providing services to the IDF. C’mon
False dichotomy
