this post was submitted on 24 Mar 2024
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Free and Open Source Software
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Been using them for a while before switching to their paid version. Of course they are closed source and a business, so any hype and over the top praise is misplaced. That said they are indeed one of max a handful companies that never did anything to make me feel that my trust is misplaced. Their service is great, the products are well polished and reliable. Development is slow and they aren't cheap. Their target audience is very security and privacy aware so any betrayal of trust would be punished incredibly hard. In that light, their own self interest should be a good insurance, should you be uncertain.
They have open sourced their client software and libraries, but the core of what they provide is closed source software that runs on their servers.
https://web.archive.org/web/20210710030151/https://twitter.com/ProtonMail/status/1309380464118030342
and
https://libreddit.pussthecat.org/r/ProtonMail/comments/b847n7/it_has_been_7_months_since_protonmail_said_we_are/ejysilb/
Have a look at their Wikipedia article as well:
"The source code for the back-end remains closed source.[26][27] However, Proton Mail released the source code for the web interface under an open-source license.[28] Proton Mail also open sourced their mobile clients for iOS and Android,[29][30] as well the Proton Mail Bridge app.[31]"
EDIT: people seem to get mad if I post anything from Restore Privacy, but in any case here's their take on Proton: https://restoreprivacy.com/email/reviews/protonmail/
EDIT EDIT: looks like I should have done some homework before posting 🙄 oh, well...
Thanks!
I wouldn't really call the BE service "core" to what they provide. All the truly interesting code is in the clients. The server just an email service that stores the email in an encrypted format and talks their custom API.
An open source ProtonMail back-end won't help you in any way unless you're trying to host PM yourself I guess?
Wait, they are or aren't closed source?
Some of the tech they developed and use is open source. But the core tech is closed. For me, that's good enough as long as they keep up acting with integrity they do.