this post was submitted on 26 Feb 2025
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Does this have anything to do with the CEO expressing his support for Trump? I can't imagine how, but there are some odd decisions being made at Proton lately.
Almost certainly, yes.
People on Mastodon are not happy about those statements, and called Proton out on it relentlessly with every post Proton made. This is Proton running away with their tail between their legs, back to platforms where they have more control and/or are already full of right-wing nutjobs.
If anyone's looking for secure email, look at tuta.com instead. The email service is very similar in terms of UX and offers better encryption. They don't offer the rest of Proton's suite, but...maybe that's a good thing? I mean, do you want to get locked into an ecosystem?
Never Forget
Like doge having our social security and Treasury wallet+keys? >.>
He can suck my ass and nutts.
From a historical perspective, he wasn't wrong. The republicans were looking more at big tech cause, in the past, big tech was very left leaning. Things have obviously changed but your quote misses that he was hopeful that Trump would do something for big tech. His hope is obviously miss placed after big tech started sicking his dick but doesn't mean he couldn't be hopeful
It was still a completely naive and idiotic thing to say and doesn't show the forethought and strategic thinking that comes with being a good CEO, especially one of a service that could literally put people's lives in danger if jeopardized.
So it's naive to voice his opinion on what a Trump presidency could mean for the tech industry? Looking back to trump's previous term big tech shunned him and Twitter even kicked him off the platform by the end of his presidency. Back then it pissed Trump off and he threatened all sorts of shit. I don't think it was that crazy to think that he would still be upset about it and try to do something at the begining of December when Proton's CEO made that post.
If you look at what proton is trying to do in terms of becoming a complete non-proffit that would have many safeguards in place to undo that change. I think it does show he has some level of forethought. The one caveat being that they have not completed that process and implemented everything yet so we'll have to see if that promise follows through
complete bullshit.
Their damage was already done with that CEO statement (for me), since after those remarks I cancelled my VPN plan with them. I'm not someone who's going to then follow them around and post negative comments on their Mastodon, X, reddit account whenever they post. I'm just going to walk away.
So, they will move to where their base is, just like trump did and they can sell there stuff to a smaller percentage of the market if they want. I will never understand why a company would actively try to cut their sales base in half or whatever.
They also can't control the narrative on Mastodon like they do on Reddit and Lemmy through "volunteer mod" Nelizea. I'm glad I quit using them — they are becoming tech bro chuds (or maybe always were but just hid it better)
Especially since reddit is quite ban happy about political narratives right now, gearing the site like with Facebook, who only pushes right wing.
How do they control the narrative around here?
They control moderation, as they also do on Reddit. I don't know about Lemmy but I have personally been shadowbanned on their Reddit sub. They can't do that on Mastodon.
Reddit allows more control and is much aggressive in banning people sitewide as of recently. If you attempt to report a comment on reddit, you can get banned instead by the mod
Tuta is really good. The push notifications work perfectly without delay on de-googled devices. top.
In what way is Tuta's encryption better?
Proton does not use end-to-end encryption for email headers. That includes the subject lines, senders/recipients, and other potentially sensitive information.
Tuta uses E2EE for email contents AND headers.
Consider for a moment what someone with access to your contacts and subject lines would know about you. For me personally, they would know which political campaigns and causes I donate to, and when. They would know when I see various doctors, and who they are. They would know my travel dates and destinations. They would know what newsletters I read (many of which are also political). Etc.
Tuta it is then.
Sender and recipient can't be encrypted e2e. How would the server know to whom deliver the email if those are encrypted and not visible to it?
AFAIK tuta encryption extends to the subject line only.
Still a nice addition, don't get me wrong, but I believe you misunderstood something.
From their own doc:
Contacts and everything else is encrypted similarly in all "secure email" providers, including Proton.
Thank you for the correction.
"End-to-end" is a bit of a misnomer in this case. Both Proton and Tuta apply encryption after receiving email in the general case, since email is not sent with E2EE across different providers (in general). Both Proton and Tuta can see your incoming email (body and all) from external servers in the general case — they just don't store it that way. (This is different when sending email between two Proton users or two Tuta users.)
Yes, that's absolutely true. Assuming a full PGP flow, (e.g., proton to proton) even in that case the recipient and other metadata (in tuta, excluding subject line) is still visible to the provider.
Hopefully the more people move to secure providers, the more the general case will be transparent PGP, but we are a long way from there...
I used tuta for a while, while they are working the best they can, I ended up leaving the platform. The app, ui, desktop app are really annoying to me. I found their antispam really lacking too.
However their work is still very impressive and they were always honest.
Imo it's more like leaving the town full of bullies.. completely understandable, I would do the same. Insane amount of hate, for one mistake. People can only see black and white these days..
"One mistake" would be if he didn't double-down on it, and if Proton addressed their customers' concerns in any meaningful way. Instead, they deleted posts and are now withdrawing from the community entirely, and directing users to three of the worst corporate hell-holes on the internet.
With US aligning with Russia and North Korea and their party taking Kremlin talking points of refusing to say Russia is the aggressor it shows a huge lack of foresight that you'd expect from a CEO. Not like the party hasn't been accused of being pro Russian years prior or stuff like Project 2025 plans to kill democracy.
This is some amateur stuff.
Agreed. I don't support their decision to leave mastadon but I totally understand why they did it. Proton is on our side (as much as a company can be) so I don't get why people keep ripping into them for something that isn't true. He wasn't saying he supported Trump, he just hoped the republican party would do something about big tech. Not gonna happen but we can all agree we hope it'll happen
If you read the whole thing again, he is supporting Trump and the Republicans.
Here is the CEO's post along with a link to an article with the twitter link.
He is supporting Trump's pick for a roll, fair enough. But the rest of the post, he is talking about how he hopes the republicans will do something about big tech. He isn't endorsing Trump himself or his stance of policies. Far as I've seen he never has. He it literally just stating what the republicans used to be about.
No, he literally STARTED by stating what the republicans used to be about and then added a wildly inaccurate statement about what the republicans are about now.
But Trump was the first president (since the US tried to break up Microsoft) to seriously start thinking about fighting big tech. Obviously for dumb reasons (they hurt his feelings) but still, I don't think that statement is inaccurate. However, it is true he isn't the first politician to say something against big tech. Even so, he was in a position of power to potentially do something about it (even if he never did and likely won't now given how much they are bending the knee)
And he didn't even need to say anything at all which is the ridiculous thing lost in all this. It was amateur hour showing a huge lack of foresight you'd expect a CEO to have when it comes to things as simple as PR.
Regardless of what we think of his comments, it's good that he is vocal about his opinions. Makes him seem like a person than some faceless CEO they says nothing.
He just got spicy with this 1 post and it hasn't worked out for him and now the open source community Proton is a part of hate him. There is so much hate that they are leaving Mastodon which is a huge shame
Just like Musk back in 2018 could be a face dropping moment enough to cast doubt, so for consumers a good thing to know if the person in charge is potentially problematic enough to cast doubt in usage of the product over alternatives.
You must be new to the internet. People make a drama out of every little shit.
Little shit like praising literal hitler for some other things he did, besides the genocide.
Lol, here comes the drama. And I say that as a person on the opposite spectrum of Trump.
Your words, they smell of lazy deceit.
Just FYI, I'm not a Proton supporter (I find the way overrated), nor an American citizen, nor a MAGA supporter (quite the opposite, actually). I just use common sense. If you're so stupid to believe otherwise it's exclusively your problem. Keep crying and jumping from service to service for every little shit. Have fun.
Enjoy wailing at whatever enters your imagination.
:D apparently yes. it's still sad to see. There wasn't a single post done by proton that didn't immediately derail into people blaming about "the issue", and they just couldn't stop. Not a fun time, and there isn't anything the company can do to convince these people otherwise, they are just a lost in hate
I don't think I'll be renewing
Check your renewal date. Mine auto-renewed today without any prior notification that it was coming up.
Did he directly express support for trump? I only saw something along the lines of "the Republican party is better than the Dems because they will address big tech". Albeit that statement itself is misguided in many ways, but curious about what his actual post said?
That aged like milk.
Yea agreed