Official statement from Proton, after I filed a complaint:
Hello, Thank you for contacting us. We appreciate you reaching out, please be informed that we have shared a response to the community feedback which can be found here: https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonMail/comments/1i2nz9v/on_politics_and_proton_a_message_from_andy/ We hope you find this information helpful. Should you have any further issues, questions or perhaps a concern that you’d like us to address, please do not hesitate to let us know.
Kind regards,
Ethan Customer Support Proton Mail
My response:
Hi,
Thank you for your response. I wish this would clarify everything, however, the comments he made on Reddit were done with the official Proton admin account, therefore making his personal comments an official Proton statement. https://snoo.habedieeh.re/r/ProtonMail/comments/1i1zjgn/comment/m7ahrlm/ Next to the fact that he posted his personal believes as an official Proton statement, the claims he made are factual untrue, making Proton spread fake news (as noted in the comments under Yen his statement). If it indeed it is just his personal opinion, he should have posted everything from his personal account only.
I have my personal opinion which I don’t mind sharing with others, but I won’t use a company account to make these claims as that could get me fired.
Andy Yen didn’t make Proton a part of his opinion by just sharing it, but by sharing it as Proton. I believe Proton should take action if Proton doesn’t want to be affiliated with Yen his personal opinions and with the fake news he spreads.
I would like to know what Proton will do about this incident and how Proton will ensure this doesn’t happen again in the future as incidents like these make Proton look unprofessional and breaks trust with its customer base, one which holds privacy and security high. When the CEO is so easy to manipulate by populists and fake news from another country and makes this official Proton statements, how can the company ensure what it stands for.
Kind regards,
W
Cancelled my yearly subscription. Mozilla, for all its faults, is at least doing things for a better and more open internet that provides a semblance of privacy. Most importantly they are smart enough to not bootlick in public.
Gonna migrate my passwords to Mozilla pass manager and move my vpn to something like Mozilla vpn or mullvad or something.
So is this an intentional or unintentional get off of proton message? Maybe it’s a subtle "we are compromised but warrant Canaries don’t work message? Lol…
okay cool beans, time to cancel my protonvpn subscription 💀
Enshittification in high gear mode. The other day they’ve been exposed for backpedalling on their promises to spare inactive accounts that were created before 2024 until next year from the inactive accounts deletion policy.
When people “turn” conservative the things they say never make sense. It’s like they’ve been slowly turning into a subhuman and something happened to exist right when their mind reached out for an explanation.
I’m a huge fucking racist piece of shit… because David Lynch died! LOOK AT ME!
So disappointing that idiots like OP make the left look so unhinged.
This is why we lose elections, folks.
Toeing the party li(n)e.
They gave a more nuanced answer afterwards
People forget that the current antitrust actions against Big Tech were started under the first Trump admin.
So shut the fuck up Andy, you’re out of your element.
Trump doesn’t go after big tech to help the little guy. Trump goes after big tech to bring them to heel.
The dumbass CEO has fallen for the MAGA lie that these billionaires are working for the the “little people”. They work for no one but themselves and their loyalists.
Is it true though? Not sure it’s the case: Lina Khan was nominated by Biden.
Is it true though?
Yes. AG William Barr sought to force backdoors in encryption in 2019. You can read all about it in the article I linked to.
I think they were asking about the actions against big tech starting under Trump. My memory ain’t what it used to be (& it was never very good), but even if something was started under Trump there have been various actions taken against big tech going at least as far back as the Internet Explorer near-monopoly days - so it’s not exactly like they did anything new, special, or unprecedented.
EDIT: Can some kind soul take pity on me and explain why I’m getting downvoted, instead of just a hit & run? What did I get wrong?
explain why I’m getting downvoted,
Oh, don’t bother! Sometimes it feels like even asking for people to explain their downvotes invites more downvotes for some inexplicable reason.
Oh, don’t bother! Sometimes it feels like even asking for people to explain their downvotes invites more downvotes for some inexplicable reason.
Without referring to the specific post in question, I have some comments about that.
Different people downvote for all sorts of different reasons. Some downvote if they disagree with a statement, some downvote because they don’t like the way the statement is presented (eg. I often downvote posts with huge embedded memes, even if I like what the meme says); some downvote because they don’t think the context is appropriate (even if they agree with the ideas said, they might be seen as the wrong time / place); some downvote due to a misunderstanding or perhaps an ambiguity in the post. etc. etc. And very often, posts with more than one idea in them are downvoted by people who agree with part of it but disagree with another part (even if the second part is minor and insignificant).
So then, if someone says something like “I’m being downvoted because xyz”, they’ll almost certainly be downvoted by a heap of people who had a different reason in mind. If a person says “show me where I’m wrong”, that apparently ignores the other possible reasons for downvotes - and can sometimes imply arrogance and stubbornness - which of course will invite downvotes. And if someone just asks “why am I being downvoted?” it might be interpreted to mean “I don’t deserve to be downvoted” - which of course will also invite more downvotes.
Thanks for laying it out. Yeah, I’ve thought about this and I do get it that we’re all different. I wrote that out of exasperation from the inconsistency and just plain old pettiness that seems to underline some of those motives that leave people confused.
My criteria is: does this contribute to the conversation in any meaningful way and is it grounded? So to me things like downvoting because of some arbitrary reason that only serves the voter feels selfish and shallow and pointless. It’s almost destructive, even, when previous voting scores hold some momentum and impact how the thread is perceived. For example, some folks have been downvoted to hell because someone misinterpreted their comment and replied with a popular opinion totally missing the point, framing the first person a moron but without critically looking into what they’re saying beyond first the impression. (Man, I wish I could find that one exemplary thread easily.)
I know, I know, the points are made up and don’t matter, but sometimes they mean something to those who receive them.
But anyway, thank you for your synthesis, you sound like a very smart cookie.
donvotes dont mean you’re wrong. they mean you made someone mad. sometimes this is because you said something they know is incorrect. but more often its because what you said may be true, and disagrees with their worldview or ideology.
Very true. Funny how OP’s comment was just referring to a completely different argument. Instead of answering the question if the argument brought by the Proton guy could by chance be true, they again referred to their derailing…
It’s pretty rare for even entirely innocuous comments to have zero downvotes. It doesn’t bother me but it is funny the things that some people will choose to get upset about.
Yes it’s true. The Trump administration initiated the first major antitrust lawsuit against Google in 2020.
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/10/20/justice-department-antitrust-case-google-430281
But it doesn’t make up for the myriad of other shitty things he’s done. Keeping Lina Kahn on would have been the absolute easiest way to assuage public concern, if he actually gave a fuck.
Or like, telling Musk and Zuck to get fucked.
Mostly I remember him getting angry at all the fact checking bots (election, Russia, etc) that Twitter, Facebook, and Google introduced and that was one of the ways to go after them.
I don’t really care what the reason is, personally.
Well sure, but if he’s going after then because they are big corporations, fine. But it’s another thing if he’s going after certain big corporations because they are an inconvenience/opposed to him. He’s going to stop going after the big tech companies once in they are in line with him… Like stopping fact checking and what not.
What does ths forced backdoor have to do with the text you quoted?
Because Andy was saying something that people forget and OP is pointing out something Andy is forgetting? It is pointing out Andy’s bias or ignorance to make Trump look good
Getting real fuckin tired of having to always find ‘alternatives’. Can’t yall rich bastards just stop being weird and be content with making good products. Just cause you have money, doesn’t mean you need to have a public opinion on anything, ever
This is what I feel is the core problem of out-of-bounds capitalism today. 50-80 years ago there were fabulously wealthy people as well, but they were taxed out the wazoo and were still fabulously wealthy. And even though every corporation’s goal is, and always has been, to make profit, it feels as if it’s gone from “profit” to “maximum possible profit at ALL costs, including the damnation of life on the planet”.
We have plenty of examples of hypercapitalism destroying us in fiction (cyberpunk etc.) but our current reality is really really close to that hellscape. In some ways it’s actually worse because of the insidiousness and banality of the evil that lords over us daily.
Sorry im not from the US… what is a “wazoo”?
Feel free to steal that one. It’s fun to say. It’s an older slang though
It’s written as “up the wazoo” or “out the wazoo.” “Wazoo” in this context means “ass” and the meaning as a whole is “in large amounts.”
wazoo = anus
It’s just a figure of speech to denote “completely”, or “very much”.
Where a kazoo goes.
Man have I been using mine wrong
Anyone who becomes rich will work to protect that wealth.
Gotta support FOSS alternatives.
Buy your own domain and use a service like mailbox.org which is in Germany.
Also super easy to move to a new email host later when you have your own domain.
Does posteo support “catchall” addresses?
I corrected my comment, I was thinking of mailbox.org which supports custom domains and catchall too.
They didn’t a few yeara when i looked into it, thats why i switched to proton
Sounds like you might enjoy Apple products.
Welllll Tim Cook did personally donate $1M to Trump’s inauguration fund…
I can deal with Andy Yen being a dumbass in his own time, but the official Proton reddit account doubling down on this shit is over the line for me.
I literally just renewed for 2 years a couple days ago. I will be looking for alternatives and hopefully I can get a partial refund or something.
Was about to pay for proton. Not now
I’m glad I never did. I looked into proton a few months back and was highly suspicious of their non-profit status. I could never put my finger on why but felt off.
Glad I never fully committed to it.
Non-profit is a tax status not a business plan.
There’s Mullvad.
Unfortunately I made the mistake of really digging myself into the Proton ecosystem.
My current plan is:
VPN -> Mullvad
Mail -> Tuta
Pass -> Bitwarden (not sure if I want to host yet)
Drive -> Nextcloud (Self-Hosted)
Calendar -> Nextcloud (Self-Hosted)
Standard Notes -> Memos (Self-Hosted) (already done)
Simple Login -> no fucking clue, I am dreading migrating these.
I just migrated all of my aliases to addy.io, but I was also fortunate in that all of my aliases were based on a domain that I own. It was a simple as exporting the alias list to a CSV, formatting it a little for addy.io, then importing it!
If all of your aliases are based off of simple login domains, then that’s gonna be a lot harder. You’ll have to change your email on all of your. If that’s the case, in the future, I would definitely recommend getting a second domain for generating these aliases so that migrating is the problem in the future!
As for addy.io, I honestly love the service. The Lite plan is plenty for my needs and only costs $12 a year. That and Bitwarden are a steal imo.
I was also fortunate in that all of my aliases were based on a domain that I own.
I’m in the same boat luckily, so maybe this won’t be as bad as I’m expecting. I’ll take a look at Addy.io as well, thanks for the recommendation!
I was JUST about to take that plunge myself.
Great guide! I believe Tuta has the simple login functions.
I looked into this because I’m considering switching to them, and it seems like they only support it for custom domains.
Is there a reason you’re not planning on migrating both mail and calendar to Tuta?
Mostly because if I’m going to go through the trouble of maintaining a Nextcloud instance, I might as well use its calendar to maintain more control of my data. If Nextcloud gives me trouble down the line (as it tends to do in my experience) then I’ll give Tuta’s calendar a try.
I’m optimistic for Nextcloud though, the latest AIO docker versions seem solid.
I have a Nextcloud Instance that’s been pretty solid for me for a couple years, but I don’t use their all-in-one image so I can’t comment on that. I do use Radicale instead of Nextcloud’s calendar/contacts though and I removed basically all of the Nextcloud apps except the file sharing. Idk why. I just don’t like when everything is in one thing lol
Do you happen to know any alternatives for their email? Some security guy on YouTube was talking about how their email aliasing is better because if you lose a single email/password combo, you’re not subject to any other breaches.
I mean I already use a password manager since I adopted KeePass like 15 years ago and use Bitwarden now, but I still like that concept.
Posteo or tuta or fastmail.
Depends on if anyone you message uses proton. If they do, you can always get their pgp key and save it to thunderbird. If nobody you know uses proton, there is no benefit to their service over the above.
PurelyMail is also nice and cheap, but it’s not E2E encrypted.
I have heard Tuta is good.
I can vouch for Mullvad working well on Android and Arch in the past years.
This is one of the reasons I will never fork over so much cash for a yearly subscription to anything. I pay monthly on everything I subscribe to, because you never know when that service decides, “Yeah. Fuck it. Let’s go downhill, full sprint!”
Mentioning that Democrats are trash on dealing with corporations is just fine. Good, even.
Lying through your god damn teeth that Republicans are going to do anything other than lie to gain more leverage for their jihad to fuck over their fellow man is delusional at best.
Oh Andy, the Republicans won’t think of you as “one of the good ones” and protect you from their white America policies.
I dunno what’s worse. Lying about Republicans being “for the little guy”, or actually believing it. Both point to significant logic, reasoning, and judgmental flaws in Proton’s leadership.
I’ve been calling America a corporate dictatorship for well over a decade, so Yen/Proton realizing the Dem’s are captured is welcomed, but the belief that R’s are better in 2025 is completely insane.
I’ve got 18 months left on my current plan, so that’ll give me time to see how deep this clusterfuck goes and transition away if need be.
I’ve been calling America a corporate dictatorship for well over a decade,
Have you heard of inverted totalitarianism?
Thank you for being one of the saner takes in this thread.
Call out the bad and insane parts of Andy Yen’s comment. Also call out the good. Don’t fall for the same trap that Yen himself got caught in by painting the entire thing as “full MAGA”. The characterization from this post’s title feels similar to me as Yen himself saying “all Democrats bad and care only for the big guy”.
I’d like to know what maga is going to do for the little guy besides more grifting.
Point at different things and try to blame what they’re doing to them on it.
Transfer wealth upwards.
i.e. Take all our worries away by leaving us with nothing to worry about.
Comments like his seriously confuse me. You see the incompetent cabinet picks. You see the richest man in the world buying himself the presidency. You see the talk about annexations and war.
This is gonna be great for the little man, yes sure.
Further disposess and enrage them to uh… ‘build character.’
Here is our official response […] the reality is that Republicans remain more likely to tackle Big Tech abuses.
lol
how? explain how you even come to that conclusion. big tech is running the republicans!
I’m thinking that they must mean tackling the abuse of big tech. Like taxes, and regulations, and pesky things like the justice system. Accountability is woke.
To be fair, they are also running the democrats, the independents, etc, etc.
I mean Elon Musk is the president now, and he wasn’t before. I don’t think it’s exactly the same.
Yeah but we’re talking a different between being on a leash vs a full on, hand-up-the-ass sock puppet.
I could handle it if it was the CEO’s personal position - still gross, but whatever. To have this be the company’s official political position, though, I think I’m out.
Recommendations for alternative email and cloud storage providers? Mullvad seems the way to go for VPN
Tuta seems to be the closest competitor for email.
Check out Posteo. They are awesome.
I’m not good at security stuff but: I use Mullvad since it seems to be the most ethical VPN provider. All the others have advertisements everywhere.
As for emails, I would go with Tuta or Runbox but I’m using Fastmail for the moment and I don’t have time to switch. I would go with Runbox for reasons I can’t explain. Both are like 3 euros per month and have aliases and personal domain support. Anyway, the best is at least to have a paid account to make sure there is some kind of security for the future of the company.
Mullvad for VPN. For drive, mega. For email, disroot.
The only big tech firms Trump is going to crack down on are the ones that didn’t “donate” $1m to his inauguration fund. Apple, Amazon, Meta, and others… They’re all going to be just fine.
I wonder if Andy paid his tribute yet or if he’s hoping some virtue signaling might save him from the incoming shit storm. Let’s see how this plays out. 🍿
Frankly I’d say the virtue signaling is worse. The million sucks ass, but you know why they’re doing it. Used to be a mafia thing in NYC.
This guy is smiling and bending the knee, way too loud for me to feel comfortable relying on their services as I have for more than 5yrs. Is he placating, or is he serious? I’m not trusting my privacy to a privacy-centric org which is potentially corrupted at the top.
Yeah, “abuses” like DEI and other equality, sustainability, etc initiatives.
