this post was submitted on 12 Oct 2024
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Proton

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Empowering you to choose a better internet where privacy is the default. Protect yourself online with Proton Mail, Proton VPN, Proton Calendar, Proton Drive. Proton Pass and SimpleLogin.

Proton Mail is the world's largest secure email provider. Swiss, end-to-end encrypted, private, and free.

Proton VPN is the world’s only open-source, publicly audited, unlimited and free VPN. Swiss-based, no-ads, and no-logs.

Proton Calendar is the world's first end-to-end encrypted calendar that allows you to keep your life private.

Proton Drive is a free end-to-end encrypted cloud storage that allows you to securely backup and share your files. It's open source, publicly audited, and Swiss-based.

Proton Pass Proton Pass is a free and open-source password manager which brings a higher level of security with rigorous end-to-end encryption of all data (including usernames, URLs, notes, and more) and email alias support.

SimpleLogin lets you send and receive emails anonymously via easily-generated unique email aliases.

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I see this block every time I open my email. Is this a bug I'm facing or is this the new normal?

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[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 days ago (3 children)

If anything, this reply shows how normalized these practices are.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Not really. Them not using ads means they can't make money that way, so the only way they can make money is through subscriptions. Even a not for profit needs to pay people and pay for overhead. If everybody used the free service they would go under over night. As long as they continue to respect privacy they have every right to have these pop-ups. Especially since they don't force you to subscribe.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Quick note, Proton AG itself (the for profit company) still owns, operates and develops the Proton services as we know. The only difference with the non-profit structure is that Proton AG is owned by the proton foundation. Which basically is a protection against aggressive takeovers and the enshittification that would follow. Also, tax advantages, probably.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Which basically is a protection against aggressive takeovers and the enshittification that would follow.

OpenAI begs to differ.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

From what I understand since the proton nonprofit is established in Switzerland, it's more restrictive than the USA

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

That's a good point but I see nothing about that in their announcement. Could very well just establish a US-based non-profit.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

And for a damn good reason... Companies need money to operate. Proton may not be for profit like Google, but they are not a charity either.

Very little is free without strings, what's been normalized (in a bad way) is the concept that you can have free things that don't intrude asking for money. That only happens in the venture capital "get em hooked" stage (and we've seen a lot of it because the Internet is still relatively young). Even KDE is now asking for money (granted once a year ... but your usage of their desktop doesn't require them to run expensive servers).

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

If anything, this reply shows how entitled some people are.

[–] [email protected] -3 points 3 days ago

It doesn't. I didn't say that proton can't show me ads or it must serve me for free. But the fact that you are attacking me personally for asking a question about a product in a community dedicated to this product clearly confirms that my previous reply was spot on.