OG title: We need to talk… about the Proton ecosystem
Ecosystem is a trap. It lures you in with the promise of convenience, only to lock you inside a walled garden. Like Google and Apple. They start with a good product, but then force you to use the whole suite to get the full experience. This is dangerous.
Ecosystems are concentrating all of your data and your digital life in the hands of a single entity. An entity that grows so large and powerful that it will start making compromises against your rights only to find more ways to profit or protect their business. The larger the ecosystem, the bigger data harvester it becomes. It becomes a bigger target for hackers and the more products it offers the more data it has to give to the surveillance state.
We know that the big tech does this, because their only moral value is the shareholder value. [4] But when a private company starts quacking like a duck in the steps of the big tech, it should worry us the same way. That company is Proton. The maker of the most renowned privacy products that have always been meant as ethical alternatives to the big tech.
Today, Proton resembles more and more the ecosystems of Google and Apple than it does its noble origins of fighting the big tech. This is a problem. It’s a problem for your privacy and it’s a problem for the whole community. But you probably never of heard of this perspective, because none of this is talked about enough. There is a reason for this.
You see, most content on Proton you’ll find, is coming from sources that are sponsored or affiliated with Proton. And I know how lucrative Proton’s deals are, because Proton even tried to pay me. Of course, I refused their offer, because taking their money would incentivize me not to recommend against Proton products. I am uniquely positioned to give you a nuanced critique of Proton and how to solve this problem.
Some good points to be said. I find the overall argument a bit weak as it is mainly one of user erorr of sorts. Btw THO has some pretty good back log of videos on privacy; check out their stuff on burners phones and anonymizing yourself at a protest.
Yeah maybe… But Proton is a private company which shields them from much of the external forces the big guys are always scrambling to please. The Proton ceo can still choose not to enshitify and keep his job. Time will tell I guess.
I have a full plan that expires this year and not sure if I’ll renew. Mail and VPN are good, but the other services I could live without or self-host.
Drive is especially disappointing with the dismal Linux support and I’ve run into issues even on better supported platforms. I technically have 3 TB of storage I’m supposed to be able to use and I wanted to use it for server backups, but they don’t have an object storage API. The rclone support for their private API didn’t work worth a damn, so I ended up also paying for iDrive e2. Not really sure what the value is of their encrypted drive when I can just use Restic with any cloud storage provider.
I just use them for my email and calendar.
How do they force you? I just use them for email and VPN.
I get where you’re coming from but it was all the result of user requests. People were asking Proton to make more services and apps for years
I stepped away from Proton as soon as they started pushing more than just mail and VPN and started bombarding me with prompts to subscribe to one of their plans.
I dont appreciate things like my protonmail app icon being changed to say “Black Friday” on it thank you very much.
The average person is not going to sign up and pay for 10 different things, even if it’s slightly more private. Proton is similar to Google in that it’s free and has a lot of things with one account, but vastly different in the way the data is handled, probably the most meaningful difference. I mean the best thing you can do is self host but it’s obviously not something everyone can or wants to do. So there’s nothing wrong with taking the next best thing.
They’ve been known to respond to legal requests to log IP adresses of the users of their VPN. I wouldn’t trust them.
No matter what any company says if they get an order to log a user’s up they’re following it.
i stopped trusting them when their ceo voiced support for trump.
Andy Yen (the CEO) supported one single choice trump made, because he felt it would be good for little tech and bad for big tech. He never stated he supported trump or even the republican party as a whole. The whole thing got blown out of the water by redditors attacking the comment with no regard to context because every single thing a republican (and especially trump) does has to be evil, even if it’s good for us. Ignoring the fact that Proton has publicly criticized trump on a number of occasions and donates millions to liberal organizations.
Here’s a great analysis made with sources and reasoning provided throughout the whole thing, with the author ultimately concluding that they believe Andy is far more likely to be a liberal than pro-trump or MAGA. Again, with actual sources and reasoning rather than one context-less tweet.
Proton is targetting enterprise who would love a secure alternative to Google Workspace. A normal consuner don’t need to put all eggs in one basket. I don’t think Proton is forcing you either. I just use their paid email service.
I’m also a fan of spreading eggs into multiple baskets, but I’d be happy to see someone go full Proton if it means they leave Google
Perfection isn’t always feasible for everyone. Sometimes harm mitigation is the right step.
You’re not locked in. I can transfer everything in 10 minutes.
Doubt.
Proton export CLI utility takes 13 minutes.
Agree but nobody forces you to use anything except ProtonMail or ProtonVPN. In fact I have a visionary account and I mostly just use ProtonMail. I do use ProtonVPN but I also have WireGuard. Also my ProtonMail addresses are behind domains I host. If tomorrow I decide to switch away from Proton, I can.
So… sure Proton is not perfect and centralization is bad but IMHO it’s like saying Firefox is imperfect so it’s fine to use Chrome or Chromium browsers. Imperfect alternatives to BigTech and surveillance capitalism is better than relying on the things you hate until something “perfect” never comes along.
I don’t disagree, but until I start self hosting, I would rather support the competition.
I would like to see Proton have more support for Linux and Fdroid. It is one reason why de-googling my email has been left to the end.
The Protonmail app works fine for me on PopOS
I’m no power user. The VPN client works fine on Ubuntu. For everything else on Ubuntu I use a web browser.
Some of the proton apps are on f-droid.
For everything else on Ubuntu I use a web browser.
I guess I just care about the desktop app and such. Perhaps I should re-evaluate if I still care.
Can’t you just use Thunderbird as desktop app?
Proton Mail Bridge + Thunderbird works fine yeah. That’s what I use.
I’m full time on linux and have no problem using email and vpn without a desktop client
Yes, yes, and yes. But will it ever happen? 🤔
One big and important difference for Google and other similar ecosystems is that usually they are free and they profit of selling your data and ads. Proton is different since to use their ecosystem you have to pay to get in so they are not as incitevized to sell data since they already have that cashflow. That’s not to say that can’t change as we all know for profit companies tend to try other means of profit if they can.
I left Proton after the weird comment made by its ceo. I now have my email hosted with my own domain.
Since when did it become unethical to express an individual’s opinion? Andy (Proton CEO) is just like any other human. He has his own flaws and opinions. What you need to look into is whether Proton products are secure and private as they claim.
Unlike Sam Altman, who made OpenAI a for‑profit company from a non‑profit, Andy turned Proton into a non‑profit from a for‑profit. I don’t see many people appreciating that. But when someone expresses a political opinion, they’re canceled for life. I wish cancel culture would die away.
I now have my email hosted with my own domain
I hope you don’t mins me asking for more details on this. Is this like Tuta where you can buy a domain and direct it to Tuta. So in essense you’re using Tuta’s servers, but just using your own domain?
Or have you gone completely self-host Lome hosting your own mail server, etc.
Yeah, that kind of thing never goes away. Still probably better than Google and the like, but don’t be surprised when they start walking in line with the fascists.
He said that Republicans were more responsive on privacy than the Democrats, there’s nothing weird about that. Though it is pretty clear that the Republicans were responsive for all the wrong reasons.
Disagree. Having all of these products means you can get them all under a single subscription for a reasonable price.
I paid for 2 years of Proton family to Jumpstart getting my family away from Google, with a domain for the family. Having said that, there is nothing ‘reasonable’ about their prices. Additionally, not too long ago they started nickle and diming, which is just a different type of enshittification (agreed that nothing as bad a Google, Microsoft or apple, but still).
Now that my family is ‘mostly’ off of Google, I’m already showing them how to sync all their stuff to my server while I handle the 3-2-1 backup. It’s a tortuous road, but we’ll worth it. By the time the 2 years are up, all I’ll have to do is move to Mullvad for VPN, Tuta (or something else, haven’t decided yet) for email, and we all use Bitwarden in my Vaultwarden server for Password Manager already
Proton is very good so far, still trustworthy for privacy, but their colors are slowly starting to show, so I’m sure they’ll eventually bend to the live for money over the reasons they claim we’re why they started Proton in the first place.
I got a year of ultimate plan for half price and moved everything over. Now im having to move away because its way to expensive for what it is and this is while they’re still fighting for market share.
That’s right. I got a good deal for the 2 years, but at renewal it will double the cost, assuming they keep the current prices. But that gives me enough time to set up a good infrastructure for everything I can self-hosted, and find better alternatives for the rest, with the added value of not having all eggs in the same basket.
