I’ve been a paid Proton Unlimited customer for several years now and aside from a few small complaints, I’m generally very happy with the services I’m paying for. I agree that there is too much focus on “sidequests” like Wallet and Meet before core products are fully rebuilt and meeting expectations. I agree that Linux versions and some feature implementations are taking a long time. However, I have a fully functioning suite of Mail, Drive, VPN, Calendar and more that meet 95% of my needs. To be fair, I’m sure the zero-access/zero-knowledge encryption aspect makes development much more difficult.
If you’re worried about political affiliations/interests, I’ll give you that Andy Yen has made a few worrisome comments. I’m not sure what to do there. Assuming there aren’t repeat occurrences, I’m satisfied with their statement about the French political figure sponsorship.
If it’s the FBI cases and subpoenas, it comes down to understanding the difference between privacy and anonymity, and knowing what strategy is required to achieve actual anonymity.
So why (especially on Lemmy) is there so much Proton hate/relunctancy? Eager to hear some non-biased, fact-driven thoughts here!
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There are a couple issues I’m aware of that tend to make people wary of Proton.
First is Andy Yen’s open support of fascists. Which you mentioned in your post. I know that he has tried to walk back his comments and claim they aren’t political, but anyone claiming the GOP is anything other than fascists and oligarchs is either too stupid to trust, or dangerous because their beliefs are aligned with those fascists.
Second is that Proton continues to expand their suite of services and are trying to get people to buy into all of it, much the same way that people bought into the google suite. This centralizes many services, which is problematic if the company makes changes that do not align with the users wants and needs. So many people push to avoid this. Centralization in general opens users up to enshittification that is difficult to extract yourself from.
There may be more, but that is what I’m tracking. And it’s why I ended my subscription with them, and moved most of my things away from Proton mail.
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It wasn’t just praising an appointment. “By working on the front lines of many policy issues, we have seen the shift between Dems and Republicans over the past decade firsthand,” Yen wrote. “Support for cracking down on corporate monopolies is popular on both sides of the political spectrum. Unfortunately, corporate capture of Dems is real, and in the end, money won. It is hard to see how this changes, and Republicans are likely to lead the antitrust charge in the coming years.”
He is praising the party as a whole. The party that is full of fascists and pedophiles. The dems are corporate shills, but in what fucking reality can any sane person claim the Republicans are better? That is why I framed it as open support to fascists. During the controversy, when people had already expressed disappointment and highlighted the problematic nature of his original statement he doubled down.
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I’ve noticed that there’s a peculiarly dogmatic approach to antifascism here, and I think that colors a lot of the discussion around Proton.
Could you elaborate further or clarify specifically why this approach “colors” the discussion here? Almost all approaches to antifascism kinda have to be dogmatic in my view
I didn’t understand how you’re supposed to be measured about fascism. As if fascists are equally charitable and deserve measure.
Of course. It seems that one of the foundational truths of antifascism is the approach that fascism, operates in all tenets of life, not just on the debate floor, and so if one resigns themselves to only confronting fascism using the establishes channels (i.e. voting), they are “leaving the back door open”, so to speak.
This leads to a certain suspicion toward all things; for example, not accepting trump’s dismissal of project 2025, because it is a forgone conclusion that lying about something that is exactly something a fascist would do.
However, I think that worldview can complicate (and at times create tension with) other discussions, i.e. Proton. Someone who may not consider themselves fascist or antifascist, and just wants to degoogle, may look up Proton and feel as if they don’t have the tools to separate the stuff which isn’t in the scope of their inquiry from the stuff that does, which what I think is going on here.
To put it another way, it’s like someone saying they want a burger and asking if mcdonald’s is good, then being told that mcdonald’s sucks because their food is unhealthy, they facilitate factory farming, and they take advantage of the economically disadvantaged. While those data points are important to the person sharing their opinion, and may very well extend to the life of the individual asking, it doesn’t say anything about whether the food tastes good or not, thereby leaving the initial question unresolved.
So while the data points about proton’s CEO (and anyone else who may be implicated) may be true, and while there may be wider implications as well, it can serve to muddy the waters for those who are coming in perpendicular to the conversation.
So in 2024 he is praising the republican party about anti-trust, which even you admit he is wrong about. So he is spreading misinformation, or possibly disinformation depending on whether he knows he is wrong. And he really should have known that the republican party rabidly supports mega corporations at that point, with the only exceptions being any that oppose their agenda. And he is ego stroking Trump. Which is what a bunch of other tech billionaires have done as a prelude to climbing into bed with him and going full mask off techno-fascist. So I don’t really see why you’re surprised that this is a giant strobing red flag for a bunch of people that are privacy focused, and largely fall on the left.
I’m not calling for everyone to boycott Proton. I’m answering the original question of why people dislike proton. And I said that it was enough for me to personally cancel my subscription.
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Mamdani didn’t spout obviously false republican talking points on a public forum, and then double down in defense of the republican party when called out on it. The republicans don’t support the little guy. Anyone that pays attention to anything the party has done since st least Reagan should know that. So what Mamdani did was not the equivalent, and it seems disengenuous to claim such an obviously false equivalency.
And I’m not saying divest from everyone that is wrong about anything. I’m saying that spreading obviously incorrect information that aligns with fascist talking points should be scrutinized. It should get called out. It should make people question your beliefs and motives.
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Just adding that Mamdani talks mad shit about Trump both before and after meeting with him. He’s extremely principled in his approach.
It’s little things piling up over the years. I was an unlimited user for several years too. They seem to be more worried about expanding than getting their core services right. That stinks of google’s business model.
They are not open source. The video conferencing app they just launched isn’t chock-full of reasons not to use it, its very framework is full of big tech spyware.
Their email encryption can easily be captured and decoded due to them using cloudflare as the man in the middle.
I’m sure others will chime in…
Could you expand on what in the Meet stack is spyware?
I meant IS* chok-full…
My app isn’t letting me edit my original comment.
It’s really all about proportionate response. You need to do what your situation demands.
People who criticize Proton often have very high standards. Maybe they self-host everything and expect you to do the same. Maybe they live under constant threat of torture or assassination because of their political statements, and they assume you face the same risks. As long as those unspoken assumptions hold true, their advice is actually pretty solid. Next time you see comments like that, try digging deeper to uncover the invisible but foundational assumptions behind them.
Honestly, those are extreme circumstances, and most people don’t need to meet such strict standards. Just check your personal cybersecurity threat model and act accordingly. If you don’t even have one, you’re definitely not in the same boat as those guys.
If you live in a some backwater dictator land stuck in the dark ages, your need to take these things seriously. If your life is at risk, your threat model likely requires you to take security and privacy very seriously. On the other hand, if your threat model is all about giving the middle finger to Big Tech for philosophical reasons, you need something else. For example, switching from being a Google product to paying for Proton products is probably the right and proportionate move, given your your situation and goals.
Security and privacy also involve balancing convenience with your goals. A solution needs to be convenient enough to be practical. Your personal tolerance for inconvenience and your desire for privacy and security should guide your choices. For many people, using Proton for everything is a convenient option, and that’s why it’s the right choice when their threat model doesn’t demand stricter measures.
I’ve also previously written a comment about Proton hate.
This might be it and is why I suggest proton because not everyone is tech savvy and a good competitor to big tech with a good track record is well needed.
It’s definitely a lot better than what most people are currently using. It’s also good enough for most cases, so I think it’s a pretty solid starting point.
I know you asked for facts, but as someone who moved from Proton I can at least explain my reasoning. I like to split my services amongst multiple vendors in general. I felt like they were pushing the suite too hard, so I used that as an opportunity to move the couple of services I had with them to different providers.
I don’t think there’s anything inherently wrong with proton, but I like being able to move to a different service without having to move the others.
Proton is trying its best to be big tech; it looks different from other companies, but the way it’s developing hints there will not be much difference later besides good messaging, good public relations ( despite an awkward ceo) and a small increase of privacy.
This be a better option for many people , but it’s not that much better
Because many (most?) Lemmy users prefer to ignore that - if you look too close - most stuff they use was created by people that they would absolutely hate in person.
In my mind the ideal product maintainer for an Lemmy approved product has to be part of the LBTQ+ community, has to be some people of color, atheist, vegan and must subscribe to the EXACT same flavour of leftism the individual Lemmy user has sold his soul to.
SILENCE BRAND
Honestly, some people just moan. Nothing is perfect but things can be good
If we leave some of the more scandalous headline making stories to the side, people on Lemmy tend to be the de-googlers of the world. And when they sign up for Proton, they discover Proton is a quarter Google in a trenchcoat. They want you in their ecosystem and they want you to stay there. So you wake up one morning and you’re out of the Google frying pan but into the Proton frying pan. So some of the hate is disappointment.
I’ve recently needed a “shared” new account and I’ve tried Proton. I regret it.
- Their calendar will NOT work with open technologies from F-Droid and such. They require the use of their proprietary app, or their web version, or paying. Paying is actually generally fine for me, but not when I have a feeling that I’m just paying for more of their proprietary development.
- Their email system will NOT work with open technologies. Same as above, you won’t get it to work with Thunderbird or K9mail out-of-the-box.
- As an implication of the above, paying them will NOT, in any way, help open standards and open technologies. You’ll be only helping their business.
On the plus side, they have at least not requested my phone number upon registration. That was the only plus for me.
In total, if you want true ownership, open technologies, distributed technologies where the power and infrastructure is split across great many parties, then you should be against Proton. I personally chose disroot for now.
There are still situations where Proton makes more sense to recommend, such as to a political activist. I believe this group is niche though, as 99% of people really want ownership, freedom to share and less money to pay I think. It’s not a business need, it’s a human thing.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but, regarding the first point, in what way are the calendar clients proprietary? Unless I am missing something, the clients for iOS and Android are open source and licensed under GPLv3 while the desktop client (part of the mail app) appears to be licensed under AGPL v3.
The email system not working with Thunderbird etc. out-of-the-box is true but that is kind of understandable, considering that the emails are only stored and transmitted to the first-party clients in an encrypted form that other clients couldn’t work with? And you could use the mail bridge (which is also open source, if I am not mistaken) to expose them as a local server to be used by Thunderbird etc., right? Maybe not ideal but I’d agrue it’s “fine”.
I do agree that there are things to dislike about Proton but those two don’t seem like problems in my opinion…
Correct me if I’m wrong, but, regarding the first point, in what way are the calendar clients proprietary?
When I say that “their calendar will NOT work with open technologies from F-Droid and such”, I mean that their calendar system does not support webdav or similar sync-ing technologies. Actually no single app from F-Droid is compatible with their unpaid service, and their own app is not on F-Droid either. If you pay, it all of a sudden becomes possible, but… see the points above.
Same thing if I want to integrate a calendar from Proton into any other calendar or set of calendars by the way. Which is my use case. In the end, I open some calendars natively in my system, and just that one Proton calendar in a browser - separately, detached from the rest of the world.
The email system not working with Thunderbird etc. out-of-the-box is true but that is kind of understandable
I see your point. Though I could imagine at least some form of IMAP access working. For example, there’s an *already-existing* technology to automatically encrypt incoming emails with a person’s provided public key. This is compatible with the standard IMAP protocol - just encrypt it server-side upon receiving the email.
The inability to add the account to a standard email client is why I stopped using them. Electron Mail exists now, which is an improvement, but I still have to download each email and import them into my client.
They’re using full end to end encryption for most things. There are no open email or calendar standards that handle encryption. So interoperability limitations are a natural consequence.
I’ll take private over open every time.
There are no open email or calendar standards that handle encryption.
That would be a nice sounding argument, but actually, if you pay them, then all of a sudden calendar exporting becomes possible:
“Share calendar
Upgrade to a Mail paid plan to share your calendar.”To confirm, click https://calendar.proton.me/u/0/ then click on the cog near your calendar on the right -> Click again the cog Settings button on the right for your calendar -> Share calendar
Shareing a calander is very different. That’s simple.
I thought you wanted to use an open source calander app.If that’s all you need, then you only have to pay for the service, it’ll work fine.
I ideally want full sync of course. “Well at least they have an export function” I thought, and found out it’s paid.
Anyway, I think we understand each other - just re-wording the information differently. Proton’s offering in that regard is clear.
At the end of the day, Proton is good enough for 99% of people. If your risk profile necessitates something even more robust, then go find it. I’ve been generally very happy.
I self-host NextCloud myself, which provides shareable calendars, contacts, drive space, photos and collab office suite. It doesn’t do email. For email, I have my own domain and point the MX records at whatever service I currently happen to be using.
Proton seems to be trying to do all of this, but I don’t want one org holding all that personal data of mine, even encrypted. The only people who need access to my NextCloud data are my family, which is much easier to manage than thousands of accounts.
I’ve always been Antiton. /s
Because most of what you said is true but Lemmy is, unlike the most popular platforms, full of very selective individual. The overton window is different here than the mainstream. We half very different threshold and here in the Privacy community even more so on that topic. It might be “good enough” for most but if it’s not entirely open source, or rather free software, and with reproducible builds, and self-hostable, and federated, and built by people with impeccable background, and… and… and… that starts to be quite a bit.
I said this in numerous other posts, IMHO what matters is doing better, not “best” that unattainable. For some people Proton is better than what they had until now, e.g. GMail, but for others who move away from GMail to Proton and now self-host, it’s not good enough anymore.
So it depends on where you are on a multidimensional spectrum that is unique to your needs.
Not exactly. The overton window here is normal, it’s rather others that often have an extremely warped view, being indoctrinated to worship impoverishing themselves, to support oligarchs and surveillance capitalism.
That’s not my understanding of the definition of the Overton window. If I check Wikipedia it’s about mainstream, “The Overton window is the range of subjects and arguments politically acceptable to the mainstream population at a given time.” which is precisely why I contrasted our own “local” Overton window to the “normal” mainstream one. Also “normal” means what is now the norm, it’s now about what’s “right” or “wrong”.
Sure I would prefer our local Overton window here in the Privacy community of Lemmy to be the “normal” one, the mainstream one, and I do how it is shifting this way, but until they actually match, if they ever do (which I doubt) then I think it’s important to distinguish what we want versus what is.
Well, I don’t care. If the “mainstream” has radicalised to supporting fascism (while we have not), it’s not the mainstream that’s normal, but us. It’s on them to normalise.
So… how can we help them?
I too am not particularly convinced that the CEO is MAGA. Just because he did some lobbying with Republicans, that doesn’t actually mean he’s conservative at all. When you lobby for a cause, you can approach both, even if you don’t agree with one. I know someone who lobbied a republican for LGBTQ stuff. They were unsuccessful, but you get the idea.
I do have other complaints about Proton though.
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They sent notifications of my proton emails with revealing information to my old gmail account. Had to change alt email in settings, but it still sucks because google can now associate the email content with me, which defeats the purpose of them not having all my data. (This one pissed me off)
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The ecosystem is nice but I tend to be nervous about using one company for everything because look how google is. Not a complaint I guess but more cautionary.
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They attempt to force you to import all your gmail spam when you sign up.
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Warrants happen and they are at risk of retention laws. Don’t like retention laws, could be a problem.. Tuta doesn’t have retention laws, but I think they’re in the 5 eyes or 14 eyes. I guess it doesn’t matter if they don’t retain data.
That being said, getting away from Google to use Proton is still good because it causes competition. I moved to Proton until I could find my forever email home. Good job degoogling everyone!
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They take governments at their word, and allow those governments to ban people from proton for bogus reasons with no pushback, no review or appeal. They can slander you behind your back, for Israel or whatever, you will get your account frozen, no way to contest it.
Fuck proton.
That’s literally the opposite of what they do. They don’t even entertain information requests from any government accept the Swiss, since that’s where Proton is.
Bruh they’ve got lawyers on hand fighting subpoenas
Can you link to any examples?
Besides personal experience, there have been a couple articles in the daily news, including this:
https://theintercept.com/2025/09/12/proton-mail-journalist-accounts-suspended/
Proton is garbage, I am speaking from the experience of actual people I know, fuck every single one of the proton boosters that always defend this organization, they haven’t regulated against them yet because they suck at words, in truth.
Also this: https://theintercept.com/2025/09/12/proton-mail-journalist-accounts-suspended/
But there was another article, enshitified search is not pulling it up, just this winter I think it was. If you read the daily news you would know that already.
