In an unexpected mask off “secure” email and VPN provider Proton took the stance of siding with the fascist MAGA Reps. Proton’s services are no option for me and many others any longer. Let’s collect and discuss alternatives (E2E encrypted email and VPN) here 🔐👇
Always try to provide:
-Server location (jurisdiction)
-Governance
-Integrity/trustworthiness/transparency
-User experience/ease of use (grade 1 to 10, lets take Proton as a benchmark with an 8)
-Pricing and links
If you know alternative setups, feel free to share, too.
#ProtonExodus
Background: https://lemmy.ca/comment/13913116
Edit:typo
this idea of if you use a product you have to support every belief the company have is absolutely insane, like why can’t you recognize that a company’s products and it’s beliefs are two separate things? yeah the beliefs do effect the product but not all of them (especially not in this case like bro its ceos personal belief), why are we living in a time where you either have to %100 support something or you have %100 be against it? the fact that even a small political stand that someone dont agree with can turn them against a company or even a person is crazy to me
anyway i understand you made this choice and even tho i dont agree with the reasoning ill also provide 2 alternatives for vpn: mullvad and ivpn, both dont require email for account creation and accept monero payment, you probably heard them before
for email i suggest hosting your own if you have the time, there is this great project named docker-mailserver and its really easy to setup, but if you dont want to go through the effort feel free to check numerous alternatives others provided
I agree with you but I also think it’s reasonable to not do business with an organization that you disagree with for a lot of reasons. One of the simplest reasons is that you’re giving someone that you disagree with more money.
I’m not a vegan myself but I understand and I appreciate how far vegans will go not to support animal cruelty. It’s the same thing really, you invest in businesses that don’t harm animals and so you’re doing your part even if at the end of the day the slaughter houses are booming.
People feel like the only vote they have that matters anymore is the one they can make with their wallet. You can’t tell people their politics are separate from their products when the CEO’s control the government through donations and lobbying.
this idea of if you use a product you have to support every belief the company have is absolutely insane
Where do we draw the line?
I thought kissing the ass of Trump was our canary.
If it was just a political stance, I’d agree with you, but…it’s fucking Trump. That goes further than “Oh, it’s just a minor political difference” to me.
This may sound drastic but really I think the only move for Proton is fire Andy. They’re a non-profit, the board need to step in. He has single-handedly cost the company both current and potential customers by just not being smart enough to keep his mouth shut. This makes him an idiot, and an idiot as CEO is not a good look (see: anything musk)
Andy Yen really dropped the ball especially because he hasn’t done anything significant to really establish trust in his leadership and the biggest thing he does is tank the company image.
Dude had the easiest job in the world — shut up, look smart, pretend to care and delegate. Instead, he jumps head first into left vs right of US politics on Twitter of all places 🤡
Why treat Proton like it’s the work of a single person rather than a large team?
CEO’s get to decide what to do with the money the company earns. The workers dont.
And is there a risk he may invest money further into fascism?
of course
Companies are monarchies.
A single person speaks for that company and drives the direction of that company the workers making the product have little to no say in the overarching ideals and principles of that product.
I don’t think any CEO I’ve ever worked for speaks for me…
Imagine it like a pyramid scheme.
I use mailbox.org its pretty sweet
If they think Dollar Store Hitler is going to stand up for small businesses then they’re about to have a rude awakening.
I just got settled for fuck’s sake
The CEO “apologized” this morning (after being duly chastised, I’m sure):
Hi all, last night, a post from last year from my personal X account suddenly became a topic of discussion here on Reddit. I want to share a few thoughts on this to provide clarity to the community on what is Proton’s policy on politics going forward.
First, while the X post was not intended to be a political statement, I can understand how it can be interpreted as such, and it therefore should not have been made. While we will not prohibit all employees from expressing personal political opinions publicly, it is something I will personally avoid in the future. I lean left on some issues, and right on other issues, but it doesn’t serve our mission to publicly debate this. It should be obvious, but I will say that it is a false equivalence to say that agreeing with Republicans on one specific issue (antitrust enforcement to protect small companies) is equal to endorsing the entire Republican party platform.
Second, officially Proton must always be politically neutral, and while we may share facts and analysis, our policy going forward will be to share no opinions of a political nature. The line between facts, analysis, and opinions can be blurry at times, but we will seek to better clarify this over time through your feedback and input.
The exception to these rules is on the topics of privacy, security, and freedom. These are necessarily political topics, where influencing public policy to defend these values, often requires engaging politically.
The operations of Proton have always reflected our neutrality. For example, recently we refused pressure to deplatform both Palestinian student groups and Zionist student groups, not because we necessarily agreed with their views, but because we believe more strongly in their right to have their own views.
It is also a legal guarantee under Swiss law, which explicitly prohibits us from assisting foreign governments or agencies, and allows us no discretion to show favoritism as Swiss law and Swiss courts have the final say.
The promise we make is that no matter your politics, you will always be welcome at Proton (subject of course to adherence to our terms and conditions). When it comes to defending your right to privacy, Proton will show no favoritism or bias, and will unconditionally defend it irrespective of the opinions you may hold.
This is because both Proton as a company, and Proton as a community, is highly diverse, with people that hold a wide range of opinions and perspectives. It’s important that we not lose sight of nuance. Agreeing/disagreeing with somebody on one point, rarely means you agree/disagree with them on every other point.
I would like to believe that as a community there is more that unites us than divides us, and that privacy and freedom are universal values that we can all agree upon. This continues to be the mission of the non-profit Proton Foundation, and we will strive to carry it out as neutrally as possible.
Going forward, I will be posting via u/andy1011000. Thank you for your feedback and inputs so far, and we look forward to continuing the conversation.
Original post: https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonMail/comments/1i2nz9v/on_politics_and_proton_a_message_from_andy/
Am I being paranoid when I notice that the binary at the end of his username translates to 88?
Wow, such a generic nonpology.
Oh, I’m so, so sorry I was caught red-handed. I apologize for anything you guys blame me for, please keep using your product.
First, while the X post was not intended to be a political statement
Not intended to be a political statement? Even setting aside agreement vs disagreement, how is this (below) not a political statement?
10 years ago Republicans were the party of big business and Dems stood for the little guys, but today the tables have completely turned.
Again, regardless of whether you agree or disagree it’s like a textbook example of a political statement.
Someone in the comments there make a good point:
It is so disingenuous to say “last year” when it was a little more than a month ago.
His excuse that the social media team posted it from the official account instead of his account is farcical. This whole thing is too bad a taste in my mouth.
To say “I made an apolitical statement last year” when we can verify that the statement was both political and within 30 days is bizarre. He thinks we’re idiots, to boot.
In the comments of the post, he says that 88 is the year he was born.
Yeah fuck that, it’s tuta time.
I have been on Opalstack since they started. I like them. I pay for hosting monthly. I’ve self-hosted several apps there (or tried to, sometimes; I couldn’t make everything work all the time). Nextcloud is dodgy; I like it, but it’s a pain in the ass for someone like me (not a dev, not a coder) to deal with the almost inevitable problems every 2 or 3 times I need to upgrade. And I’ve never been able to get an office suite working well. Much of this could be because I’m trying to run NC on shared hosting; even opalstack’s support doesn’t fix all of that.
Email: opalstack has email. I use it. I don’t actually know what service it is, but I have three or four mailboxes linked to a couple of domain names I own, and several hundred email addresses* Thunderbird does great with IMAP on my laptop, desktop, and phone, with opalstack as the server.
*lots of emails because when I sign up for something I create a new email address just in case they sell my stuff and I start to get spam.
Nextcloud is much, much less trouble by using AIO docker master container. I’ve ran Nextcloud for almost a decade, and the AIO is by far the lowest hassle way to do it.
I don’t think that works on shared hosting (at least not without similar workarounds and tweaks), but I hear that the AIO method and snap both work really well if you have root access on the machine.
I think I would wait for changes in their mission and policies before I start moving anything.
Truly unhinged that they decided to come out on this. Fellas, you are fucking Swiss why throw yourself under the bus for the US election
Remember when businesses stayed the fuck out of politics so they didn’t alienate their customers because they like money? Pepperidge Farms remembers.
Remember when businesses stayed the fuck out of politics
Taking a neutral stance is also political;<br> Also when people say that “they don’t like politics in X,Y&Z” they mean politics that they don’t agree with
That’s never been the case.
Is “staying out of politics” even possible for a company?
I feel even just the creation of a company already has political repercussions (and I don’t mean that as in them being necessarily bad).
Server locations: Riseup is in the US (Washington state), so keep that in mind. Disroot is in the Netherlands (part of the EU).
Governance: Riseup: Look at their “about us” page. Disroot: Look at their “about” page. The terms of service are more detailed. tl;dr: As far as I can tell, these are run by leftists.
Integrity/Transparency: I have no idea how to grade this.
Ease of Use: Subjective. Riseup VPN is just: install the client, turn it on or off. Disroot is much better with a mail client of some kind, so if you already use one, it’s probably a 10, otherwise, the webmail server isn’t that great. Disroot also requries manual encryption (I’m biased here because I use Kmail which makes PGP really easy to use).
Pricing and Links: Free https://riseup.net/en/vpn https://disroot.org/en/services/email
tl;dr: Use collective-run services, not corporate-run services
disroot, Holymoly they run this all on this budget??
Abandoning the Proton subscription now. How stupid and irresponsible. In fact, are running away from all your principles.
Trump’s terrible politics aside:
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the Republican party is pushing legislation which requires you to identify yourself to view porn
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you can get around this with a VPN
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proton is a VPN (nonprofit, but still).
I’ll be switching email providers when I can… I can’t remember when my subscription ends.
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Misinformation. OP is advocating that you shoot yourself in the foot.
The CEO said something silly on Twitter which revealed either that (a) he shares an exceedingly banal opinion with literally half of America or (b) he’s not above a bit of preemptive sycophancy to advance his (positive) anti-trust agenda.
There’s nothing particularly scandalous in the offending tweet:
- Implying that the Democrats are now “the party of big business” is arguably true (and very boring)
- Implying that the Republicans now “stand for the little guys” is dumb but also arguably true, unfortunately - the working classes swung to Trump in the recent election while the Democrats are fast becoming a party of high-earning elites (which is why they lost)
- Saying that the antitrust actions began under Trump I is, well, true
Proton is not owned Zuck-like by its CEO. It’s controlled by a foundation with other stakeholders on the board, including the inventor of the Web himself. In its niche it is still by far the best option. Ditching it for a nebulous non-existent alternative because the CEO expressed a dumb and extremely commonplace opinion is just silly and self-defeating.
PS: to be clear, OP is peddling misinformation because it’s not true that “Proton took the stance” of anything. It’s the personal opinion of the CEO that’s at issue. It’s a major distinction. I find it disappointing that people interested in privacy would have such little respect for a private individual’s right to have their own thoughts.
PPS: to be extra clear, my comments are about the post above, not stuff that people are reading elsewhere. But the substance stands. See discussion for detail.
I largely agree with what you’re saying, except the official Proton Mastadon account doubled down on that personal opinion. That seems pretty clear that it’s endorsed not just by that one individual on the board.
Link to Mastodon thread: https://mastodon.social/@protonprivacy/113833073219145503
Archives in case they delete it:
https://web.archive.org/web/20250115165213/https://mastodon.social/@protonprivacy/113833073219145503
Text copy of their post:
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 coincidently 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.
Looks like backing up the post was a good call.
This doesn’t seem bad? Its true dems embraced the corporate side. The republicans suck and are only going after tech until tech bows down to them (like zuck has been doing) but the post isn’t really outrageous or worse than the first tweet
This doesn’t seem bad? Its true dems embraced the corporate side.
Are you trying to argue that R is less entrenched with rich oligarchs and corporate money than the Dems? Because I musk object if so.
No I’m saying Dems moved to the right and aren’t representing the people who historically have voted for them because they’re chasing the corporate donors and right wingers
Republicans have always been worst and still are.
No I’m saying Dems moved to the right and aren’t representing the people who historically have voted for them because they’re chasing the corporate donors and right wingers
Well on this specific detail we agree entirely!
Can you screenshot it? The link doesn’t load
Looks like they deleted it. @HiddenLayer555@lemmy.ml posted these archive links above:
https://web.archive.org/web/20250115165213/https://mastodon.social/@protonprivacy/113833073219145503
deleted by creator
You have to look at their comments/replies or whatever. Someone above already posted the link.
Sorry, their comment hadn’t been posted when i loaded the thread. Much obliged.
No worries!
Significant if true. But still. Proton has a great product and a lot of stored-up goodwill. I think the reasonable thing to do here is to wait and see, and to judge them on actions before words.
I’m not jumping ship yet and am waiting to see what, if anything, happens from here. Maybe it comes out that the same person has access to that official Mastadon account and echoed their opinion there… and maybe it comes out that his comments/actions are disavowed by the rest of the organization.
I’ll wait and see. But it’s not a great start.
Fair enough. But this whole drama is still completely substance-free. The air of US-style thought-policing bothers me.
I love how you’re claiming misinformation while posting misinformation. It’s not the CEO, it’s a board member. That said, the company also officially posted these ideas on their Bluesky account.
This isn’t a “CEO” expressing a belief, it’s the board, and now the official company line.
I’m not disagreeing with their post particularly on corporate dems, but this is a company and not a persons sole belief.
Also, if dems are the party of big business then why are all these big businesses donating to Trump? Does that just mean republicans are the party of even bigger business?
Their bullet points are spin-doctoring.
Also the comment got a few dozen upvotes almost immediately. Suspicious.
I was thinking the same thing. In all the threads about it. It just seemed oddly suspicious and not typical of what the digital privacy community has typically believed… I mean, I’m also not going to homogenize a community like that though and Proton has been a mainstay.
Both parties are the big business parties. Big business is “donating” (bribing) Trump now like all big businesses have done to both parties since citizens united passed.
This is all over the place.
My comment concerns the post above. OP cites a tweet and states a falsehood about it. No, “Proton” did not “take the stance” of anything in that tweet. Yes, Andy Yen is the CEO. Yes, that tweet is in his name and not in the name of Proton. I was not responding to other things that you’ve seen elsewhere.
Now, as for those other things elsewhere, I stick by the substance of my point. Sure, it’s more of a problem that dumb things are being said in the name of Proton rather than just it’s CEO. But look at the detail of those things. There is nothing scandalous. People are getting their underwear in a twist about extremely common opinions being expressed on Twitter. Personally I don’t care if a CEO voted a different way to me, or even if a whole board did. This should not have any bearing on Proton’s product or what makes it better than others. This is just another typically American culture-war drama. It’s boring.
This is all over the place.
If you click the link in this post it takes you to a mastodon comment from the official Proton account stating exactly the same beliefs as this board member. If that isn’t in the name of Proton what is?
People ARE looking at the details of this. If this company starts cozying up to an alt-right “dictator for a day” government then when/where does this stop? There’s nuance beyond just Proton and Andy said something scandalous here. It’s layers of political issues that spell a privacy focused company having an inability to actually keep the government out of my shit.
Culture war would be if they took a stance on DEI. This is political and has actual consequences.
Why are you trying to defend a fucking corporation? When has a company ever not become evil as they look to grow? It’s just the nature of the beast. The people here, and the OP specifically, have called out Proton is over for them. They’re not saying you should do the same. Just that they’re going to take a step back and others expressing they’ll join.
Personally I don’t care if a CEO voted a different way to me, or even if a whole board did. This should not have any bearing on Proton’s product or what makes it better than others.
I won’t have a friend who supports Trump, because to do so is to support a regressive, bigoted, jackbooted view of the world and how things should be done. I don’t speak to my Trump supporting family members except when family situations force us to.
WHY ON EARTH would I trust my privacy to a company whose entire board supports that view, much less their CEO?
Implying that the Republicans now “stand for the little guys” is dumb but also arguably true
No, no it isn’t arguably true. It’s just flat out incorrect. 100% of people could vote for him or others like him out of fear of disappearing in the night if they don’t. That doesn’t make him or the party “for the little guy”.
It doesn’t matter that 51% of the country votes for the Republicans. The party has consistently shit all over “the little guy” and made him eat it for over 40 years, telling him he’s eating shit and then said only the party can fix it.
All the while the party’s been giving tax money to their friends and saying “don’t worry, we’re here now. you can feed him as much shit as you want. we’ll find someone cleaning up shit and make the “little guy” think that person was making it instead. that way when you get caught doing it no one will believe it”
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It isn’t misinformation.
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Someone like this board member being a traitor to his species isn’t covered by “opinion”. No normalizing nazis. It’s such a low bar. He couldn’t clear it.
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He blasted his treachery over the public airwaves. His privacy isn’t being violated.
This whole comment feels like an exercise in using all the best words to miss the point. We know, as does this probably-lying board member, that Republicans are only going to go more authoritarian, and the only reason they would pretend to care about big tech abuses is to grab the steering wheel from them to commit far worse abuses. No company that gets into bed with traitors is going to become the new center of my digital life.
Tuta for email, syncthing for photos bc I’m not self-hosting, mullvad for VPN.
You have to self host if you use synching
Sorry but I won’t participate in this juvenile trivializing of the word “Nazi”. Yes, I know that’s become almost a meaningless slur at this point, but personally I just will not take seriously anybody who throws it around like this. Perhaps because I’m European. Perhaps because I studied history. It’s not serious.
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Implying that the Democrats are now “the party of big business” is arguably true (and very boring)
While true in some scenarios, in anti-trust Lina khan’s ftc has done significantly more than trump ever did. Biden keeping her over the protest of countless business execs and daily articles in the wall street journal on how she’s ruining America shows some commitment to prosecuting big tech.
Meanwhile, trump’s anti-trust moves were mostly based off petty issues he had with the ceos or the platforms having a “liberal bias”. Now that every big tech ceo has fallen in line and given him $1 million for his inauguration I doubt we’ll see much movement on that front.
Completely agree on all that.
YOU POSTED the comment he’s rebutting. And your reply to the rebuttal of your own comment is “completely agree?”
Implying that the Republicans now “stand for the little guys” is dumb but also arguably true
How is it true exactly? Republicans do not care about the little guys in any way lol
Not American, but there is this regarding the third point: https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonMail/comments/1i1zjgn/comment/m7b1wib/
Any thoughts here?
To me this whole demonizing proton ceo thing seems a bit overblown. Sucking up is actually pathetic and funny
If you’ve got an argument, make it.
Well the reddit comment says completely opposite of what you said - that trump didn’t really increase / start with antitrust, but rather did the opposite.
Well it’s either true or it’s not. Did you bother looking it up to check?
I find it disappointing that people interested in privacy would have such little respect for a private individual’s right to have their own thoughts.
Ding ding ding.
It seems the vast majority of people do NOT want to allow speech they don’t like, no matter the consequences. That requires too much forward thinking. Excuse me while I watch history repeat itself…
I don’t wanna give money to people who would hate me for who I am
Then you don’t really like free speech!
Ok bud. I’m not gonna weigh in with my actual opinion on the matter being discussed, I just wanted to point out that you’ve taken a few too many steps with that assumption lol
Not who you replied to, but how so?
I don’t know anything about you, but for the sake of argument, imagine you’re part of a marginalized group. Now, imagine that you use a product. The owner of said product has openly stated that they hate your very existence because you’re part of that marginalized group. You have decided that this is a good reason to stop giving them your money.
When does free speech come into this? How does one person’s money/profit affect another’s right to speak? It doesn’t. Choosing where you spend your money is you utilizing your freedom to express yourself via your wallet, just the same as they chose to express themself via words. Both the objector and the CEO are saying “I disagree with your views on the world and as such no longer desire your business”. Well, maybe the CEO still wants your business.
Well I must have misread the context of your comment because I didn’t need that explained and agree with you.
owner of said product has openly stated that they hate your very existence
Of all the things that didn’t happen, this didn’t happen the most.
Sure, they just said they strongly support someone who has openly said that. Totally not the same thing
Yes I tend to share your analysis.
