4 ms·

Leaving Proton Mail

29 points by speckx 18d ago

3stacks 18d ago
An additional factor for me leaving was the board member (Rosemary Leith) who was part of the WEF. It seems to me that Proton has been co-opted
- deleted 18d ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 18d ago
  [deleted]
Sath52 18d ago
Honestly, the older the email service, the better. Drop Proton Mail.
claaams 18d ago
Disappointing. I'll need to find an alternative. I was hellbent on leaving google so I didn't care where I went.
- aryonoco 18d ago
  Moved from Proton to Fastmail a couple of years ago and couldn’t be happier.
  - 3stacks 18d ago
    I also made this switch a year ago, in part because I'm Australian and so is Fastmail. I miss some of the Proton bells and whistles, and my visionary plan had some great inclusions, but Fastmail is great. I just use the web app on my graphene phone and it works fine
    - protocolture 18d ago
      >because I'm Australian and so is Fastmail. That seems like the worst reason to use a product. If I had the funds for a non free mail host, I would choose one thats not going to be easy to target with a TCN or TAN.
      - Grombobulous 18d ago
        Mail just isn’t something that’s built in a way that it can be a private service. I think most people should choose a provider based on price and features. Yes, it’s nice that if everyone you know uses proton then you can send end to end encrypted emails with zero friction. But I consider that more of a side feature rather than a reason to buy it. Purely Mail is a nice provider in that regard. $10 a year! I do like FastMail a lot, though. Proton mostly makes sense if you’re going to use the entire suite, which helps spread the cost and make it a good value.
        protocolture 18d ago
        >Mail just isn’t something that’s built in a way that it can be a private service. No but theres a lot of daylight between "There might be intermediaries" and "The australian government can verbally request secret adjustments to this companies software"
        Grombobulous 18d ago
        I fail to see how that matters to the end consumer specifically in the context of an email product. It’s still ultimately a service dealing with plain text data that’s moving between providers in ways you can’t control very well to begin with. 100% of your email is read by someone else. You don’t send private information over email or store it in an email server. Sure, I wouldn’t personally be buying an end to end encrypted drive service from an Australian company.
        protocolture 17d ago
- cf100clunk 18d ago
  Tuta? https://tuta.com https://tuta.com
d3Xt3r 18d ago
[flagged]
- bbg2401 18d ago
  That’s really not how personal endorsement works.
franklymail 18d ago
[flagged]
hnaw 18d ago
This article is clearly written by someone who doesn't understand how encryption works. > What happens if I log out of all my proton accounts, travel to the other side of the globe, walk into the first library or internet café I find, and log on to mail.proton.me with my username and password? The keys are encrypted to your password, that's how you can access your data maintaining E2EE.
- j_leboulanger 18d ago
  That's exactly what I was telling myself, this guy doesn ot understand a word about encryption
- qwerpy 18d ago
  Don't be fooled by the technical-sounding article that leads with software/licensing/product-related rationale but buries the real reason: > After one too many PR scandals though, there was one that I just can't stomach as well as the rest. Which is... The CEO being a Trump man. These are starting to pop up on HN (another example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49585161 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49585161). Outright political posts get flagged here so the new tactic looks to be pretending to make a decision for technical reasons.
  - JuniperMesos 18d ago
    I was disappointed to learn that the article from 404 media about a "Proposed Nuclear AI Data Center" in Ypsilanti, Michigan wasn't actually a data center with an on-site nuclear power generator, just one that Los Alamos is partially funding and will use. Anyway I think the concerns of everyone opposed to data center construction in Ypsilanti mentioned in that article are stupid, I consider 404 media to be poltically hostile to my interests for writing about it with that editorial stance; and certainly linking to it doesn't make me more inclined to view Protonmail unfavorably.
    - deleted 18d ago
      [deleted]
    - 18d ago
metalman 18d ago
There was a brief moment when the Proton CEO published a whole self agrandizing article with pics of himself and the wifey and what selfless people they are, and how she had her own identity and everything, that and all about the servers sitting inside the swiss alps underground, but hey it was free, still is a free add for email services with an almost completely non functional email service behind the adds. I still use it for certain technical things, but it's broken for everday use in the free version The whole thing has the hink, hink with grue, almost like it's google with a different skin. I now have my own web space and email, which is half broken right now, but that suits me as whatever does get through is more work and other time consuming stuff than I can handle
- pogue 18d ago
  What specifically is broken?
sosodev 18d ago
Maybe Proton’s copy needs some work, but another page on their website very clearly explains that emails aren’t encrypted when an email leave the ecosystem. Because, as the author points out, they can’t be. Also, I hate Trump too, but a broken clock is right twice a day. It’s possible to agree with some of the things he says while not being a “Trump man”. Why should we be surprised that the company founded on anti big-tech principles would have a founder who is against big-tech? I think too that the only way to escape AI-written code in software products is to have written every line yourself. Which is obviously impossible because you’re not going to bootstrap the operating system.
- Grombobulous 18d ago
  Disagreeing politically is a perfectly valid reason to avoid a product, though the author will have a very hard time finding alternatives with CEOs that aren’t right-leaning. Not a lot of CEOs are on the side of labor. Sometimes you really have to pick the best available option after weighing all the factors. Sure, the CEO of Toyota wore a Trump hat to gain favor. That’s a heck of a lot different than the laundry list of distasteful things Elon Musk has done as a CEO of a Tesla like running an illegal government agency and trying to buy votes. I’d pick Toyota over Tesla just like I’d pick Proton over Google or Microsoft, and that’s not only a political choice but a product quality choice as well.
  - sosodev 17d ago
    Oh, I totally agree that it’s a valid reason. I just don’t find the authors gripe very meaningful. I say that as somebody who switched to Proton for political reasons too haha.
    - Grombobulous 17d ago
      As soon as Proton gains a Linux client for Drive I might be moving over. Bonus points if they get a photos app that’s more like Ente. Right now I’m stuck with Filen as the “least bad option.”
LennyHenrysNuts 18d ago
There was me, scanning away trying to find actual technical reasons and then... Bang. It's political. Opinion discarded.
anramon 18d ago
Slop article for justifying sloppy political stances.
tamimio 18d ago
Here’s some shocking facts: emails aren’t anonymous as a protocol, neither private too, stop trying to find an email like that. VPN as the commercial service isn’t anonymous either, there’s always a “trust us” factor, and in this ever changing world, your policy should be always zero trust. Neither proton, nor mullvad, nor signal, none of these popular platforms provide the anonymity and even the privacy you are expecting. If the protocol itself wasn’t designed with anonymity, privacy, and security in mind, everything follows is just marketing and maybe worse, a honeypot.
- dongcarl 17d ago
  Re: protocols with trust-minimization in mind, you may be interested in Multi-Party Relays (vs. traditional VPNs which are Single-Party Relays): https://www.privacyguides.org/articles/2024/11/17/where-are-all-the-mprs/#a-solution-multi-party-relays https://www.privacyguides.org/articles/2024/11/17/where-are-... With Multi-Party Relays you no longer have a trust a single entity not being malicious or compromised. Disclaimer: I run obscura.com, which does exactly this with Mullvad (our partner) as the Exit Hop.
Grombobulous 18d ago
There are two themes in this article that end up both being flawed: - Proton’s not an honest/forthright company in terms of open source and for-profit status - Proton is flawed technically and isn’t really encrypting your data. Starting with the former, I think the author is letting perfect get in the way of good. Proton has a whole lot of open source going on with their products and that is a whole lot more than anyone else in the space considering the breadth of their products. I don’t blame the author for misunderstanding some complicated technical concepts, but they are sound concepts. Yes, a service like this needs to make money to be viable long-term. Having a non-profit parent company is way better than being a public company with public shareholder pressure or being owned by Bain Capital. As far as the second theme here, the author is just plain mistaken on Proton’s encryption. The author is just misunderstanding the technical aspects of the services and goes further than that by accusing Proton of AI marketing copy, which I am personally not seeing. It looks like normal, sensible, and pretty easy to understand writing to me. I can understand if these concepts are difficult to grasp for the general public but I’m not seeing any problems, and there’s also a lot of third party auditing transparency as well. It might be nice if Proton offered a more user-friendly alternative to PGP encryption for non-technical non-Proton email recipients, like using some kind of secure temporary link inside an unencrypted email, but also, Proton doesn’t have to be the one to provide that service. The author is asking Proton to do the impossible and fix the flaws of email. And you still have a really nice benefit that every Proton user you email has e2e encryption baked in. There’s really no other service with as significant user base offering that. The author goes on to accuse Proton of spreading themselves too thin despite having a really strong product portfolio. There’s really nothing that their apps are missing besides strong photo organization in Proton Drive similar to something like Ente, Google Photos, iCloud Photos, Immich, etc. They’re pretty much a one-stop shop for everything you could want and are a drop-in replacement for big tech cloud suites with a very respectably better privacy footprint. Finally, I’ll address the political bit even though I shouldn’t: I’ll just say that a company’s CEO having opposite political beliefs of you is a very legitimate reason to not patronize that company. If the author feels like they can’t be a Proton customer because of public statements made by the CEO, good on them. That’s why CEOs pragmatically shouldn’t talk in a partisan way so they don’t alienate customers. With that said, good luck finding a company with a CEO who isn’t right-leaning. Sometimes a perfect choice isn’t available on the market and you just have to go with the best available one.

29 points by speckx 18d ago

An additional factor for me leaving was the board member (Rosemary Leith) who was part of the WEF. It seems to me that Proton has been co-opted

deleted 18d ago
[deleted]
deleted 18d ago
[deleted]

Sath52 18d ago

Honestly, the older the email service, the better. Drop Proton Mail.

claaams 18d ago

Disappointing. I'll need to find an alternative. I was hellbent on leaving google so I didn't care where I went.

aryonoco 18d ago
Moved from Proton to Fastmail a couple of years ago and couldn’t be happier.
- 3stacks 18d ago
  I also made this switch a year ago, in part because I'm Australian and so is Fastmail. I miss some of the Proton bells and whistles, and my visionary plan had some great inclusions, but Fastmail is great. I just use the web app on my graphene phone and it works fine
  - protocolture 18d ago
    >because I'm Australian and so is Fastmail. That seems like the worst reason to use a product. If I had the funds for a non free mail host, I would choose one thats not going to be easy to target with a TCN or TAN.
    - Grombobulous 18d ago
      Mail just isn’t something that’s built in a way that it can be a private service. I think most people should choose a provider based on price and features. Yes, it’s nice that if everyone you know uses proton then you can send end to end encrypted emails with zero friction. But I consider that more of a side feature rather than a reason to buy it. Purely Mail is a nice provider in that regard. $10 a year! I do like FastMail a lot, though. Proton mostly makes sense if you’re going to use the entire suite, which helps spread the cost and make it a good value.
      - protocolture 18d ago
        >Mail just isn’t something that’s built in a way that it can be a private service. No but theres a lot of daylight between "There might be intermediaries" and "The australian government can verbally request secret adjustments to this companies software"
        Grombobulous 18d ago
        I fail to see how that matters to the end consumer specifically in the context of an email product. It’s still ultimately a service dealing with plain text data that’s moving between providers in ways you can’t control very well to begin with. 100% of your email is read by someone else. You don’t send private information over email or store it in an email server. Sure, I wouldn’t personally be buying an end to end encrypted drive service from an Australian company.
        protocolture 17d ago
cf100clunk 18d ago
Tuta? https://tuta.com https://tuta.com

d3Xt3r 18d ago

[flagged]

bbg2401 18d ago
That’s really not how personal endorsement works.

franklymail 18d ago

[flagged]

hnaw 18d ago

This article is clearly written by someone who doesn't understand how encryption works. > What happens if I log out of all my proton accounts, travel to the other side of the globe, walk into the first library or internet café I find, and log on to mail.proton.me with my username and password? The keys are encrypted to your password, that's how you can access your data maintaining E2EE.

j_leboulanger 18d ago
That's exactly what I was telling myself, this guy doesn ot understand a word about encryption
qwerpy 18d ago
Don't be fooled by the technical-sounding article that leads with software/licensing/product-related rationale but buries the real reason: > After one too many PR scandals though, there was one that I just can't stomach as well as the rest. Which is... The CEO being a Trump man. These are starting to pop up on HN (another example: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49585161 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49585161). Outright political posts get flagged here so the new tactic looks to be pretending to make a decision for technical reasons.
- JuniperMesos 18d ago
  I was disappointed to learn that the article from 404 media about a "Proposed Nuclear AI Data Center" in Ypsilanti, Michigan wasn't actually a data center with an on-site nuclear power generator, just one that Los Alamos is partially funding and will use. Anyway I think the concerns of everyone opposed to data center construction in Ypsilanti mentioned in that article are stupid, I consider 404 media to be poltically hostile to my interests for writing about it with that editorial stance; and certainly linking to it doesn't make me more inclined to view Protonmail unfavorably.
  - deleted 18d ago
    [deleted]
  - 18d ago

metalman 18d ago

There was a brief moment when the Proton CEO published a whole self agrandizing article with pics of himself and the wifey and what selfless people they are, and how she had her own identity and everything, that and all about the servers sitting inside the swiss alps underground, but hey it was free, still is a free add for email services with an almost completely non functional email service behind the adds. I still use it for certain technical things, but it's broken for everday use in the free version The whole thing has the hink, hink with grue, almost like it's google with a different skin. I now have my own web space and email, which is half broken right now, but that suits me as whatever does get through is more work and other time consuming stuff than I can handle

pogue 18d ago
What specifically is broken?

sosodev 18d ago

Maybe Proton’s copy needs some work, but another page on their website very clearly explains that emails aren’t encrypted when an email leave the ecosystem. Because, as the author points out, they can’t be. Also, I hate Trump too, but a broken clock is right twice a day. It’s possible to agree with some of the things he says while not being a “Trump man”. Why should we be surprised that the company founded on anti big-tech principles would have a founder who is against big-tech? I think too that the only way to escape AI-written code in software products is to have written every line yourself. Which is obviously impossible because you’re not going to bootstrap the operating system.

Grombobulous 18d ago
Disagreeing politically is a perfectly valid reason to avoid a product, though the author will have a very hard time finding alternatives with CEOs that aren’t right-leaning. Not a lot of CEOs are on the side of labor. Sometimes you really have to pick the best available option after weighing all the factors. Sure, the CEO of Toyota wore a Trump hat to gain favor. That’s a heck of a lot different than the laundry list of distasteful things Elon Musk has done as a CEO of a Tesla like running an illegal government agency and trying to buy votes. I’d pick Toyota over Tesla just like I’d pick Proton over Google or Microsoft, and that’s not only a political choice but a product quality choice as well.
- sosodev 17d ago
  Oh, I totally agree that it’s a valid reason. I just don’t find the authors gripe very meaningful. I say that as somebody who switched to Proton for political reasons too haha.
  - Grombobulous 17d ago
    As soon as Proton gains a Linux client for Drive I might be moving over. Bonus points if they get a photos app that’s more like Ente. Right now I’m stuck with Filen as the “least bad option.”

LennyHenrysNuts 18d ago

There was me, scanning away trying to find actual technical reasons and then... Bang. It's political. Opinion discarded.

anramon 18d ago

Slop article for justifying sloppy political stances.

tamimio 18d ago

Here’s some shocking facts: emails aren’t anonymous as a protocol, neither private too, stop trying to find an email like that. VPN as the commercial service isn’t anonymous either, there’s always a “trust us” factor, and in this ever changing world, your policy should be always zero trust. Neither proton, nor mullvad, nor signal, none of these popular platforms provide the anonymity and even the privacy you are expecting. If the protocol itself wasn’t designed with anonymity, privacy, and security in mind, everything follows is just marketing and maybe worse, a honeypot.

dongcarl 17d ago
Re: protocols with trust-minimization in mind, you may be interested in Multi-Party Relays (vs. traditional VPNs which are Single-Party Relays): https://www.privacyguides.org/articles/2024/11/17/where-are-all-the-mprs/#a-solution-multi-party-relays https://www.privacyguides.org/articles/2024/11/17/where-are-... With Multi-Party Relays you no longer have a trust a single entity not being malicious or compromised. Disclaimer: I run obscura.com, which does exactly this with Mullvad (our partner) as the Exit Hop.

Grombobulous 18d ago

There are two themes in this article that end up both being flawed: - Proton’s not an honest/forthright company in terms of open source and for-profit status - Proton is flawed technically and isn’t really encrypting your data. Starting with the former, I think the author is letting perfect get in the way of good. Proton has a whole lot of open source going on with their products and that is a whole lot more than anyone else in the space considering the breadth of their products. I don’t blame the author for misunderstanding some complicated technical concepts, but they are sound concepts. Yes, a service like this needs to make money to be viable long-term. Having a non-profit parent company is way better than being a public company with public shareholder pressure or being owned by Bain Capital. As far as the second theme here, the author is just plain mistaken on Proton’s encryption. The author is just misunderstanding the technical aspects of the services and goes further than that by accusing Proton of AI marketing copy, which I am personally not seeing. It looks like normal, sensible, and pretty easy to understand writing to me. I can understand if these concepts are difficult to grasp for the general public but I’m not seeing any problems, and there’s also a lot of third party auditing transparency as well. It might be nice if Proton offered a more user-friendly alternative to PGP encryption for non-technical non-Proton email recipients, like using some kind of secure temporary link inside an unencrypted email, but also, Proton doesn’t have to be the one to provide that service. The author is asking Proton to do the impossible and fix the flaws of email. And you still have a really nice benefit that every Proton user you email has e2e encryption baked in. There’s really no other service with as significant user base offering that. The author goes on to accuse Proton of spreading themselves too thin despite having a really strong product portfolio. There’s really nothing that their apps are missing besides strong photo organization in Proton Drive similar to something like Ente, Google Photos, iCloud Photos, Immich, etc. They’re pretty much a one-stop shop for everything you could want and are a drop-in replacement for big tech cloud suites with a very respectably better privacy footprint. Finally, I’ll address the political bit even though I shouldn’t: I’ll just say that a company’s CEO having opposite political beliefs of you is a very legitimate reason to not patronize that company. If the author feels like they can’t be a Proton customer because of public statements made by the CEO, good on them. That’s why CEOs pragmatically shouldn’t talk in a partisan way so they don’t alienate customers. With that said, good luck finding a company with a CEO who isn’t right-leaning. Sometimes a perfect choice isn’t available on the market and you just have to go with the best available one.