Why treat Proton like it's the work of a single person rather than a large team?
this post was submitted on 15 Jan 2025
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Privacy
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There was a reply from the official proton handle on mastodon doubling down on the Andy's take.
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CEO's get to decide what to do with the money the company earns. The workers dont.
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Companies are monarchies.
A single person speaks for that company and drives the direction of that company the workers making the product have little to no say in the overarching ideals and principles of that product.
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Currently exploring my options, thinking of switching to Tuta. It sucks because I literally just paid for a Proton annual plan, looking if I can cancel it and get (part of) my money back...
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Before you decide to go back to Google or close your account, keep in mind that Proton became a non profit organization with the main mission of protecting your privacy. And as a non profit, they're not trying to profit off of you in any way.
Going back to Google is the worst solution you can use. Remember that Google donated $1 million to Trump's inauguration fund. Google also doesn't care about your privacy. On the contrary, they're selling your data and using it against you.
While the Proton CEO may be a nut case, he's only praising the choice that Trump made as the candidate for the antitrust department. While that's understandably stupid since I don't believe Trump is going up stick up for the little guy now that he's got Musk and Zuck in his pocket, at least he didn't actively donated and enabled Trump either personally or through his platform and spread misinformation.
Think about it.
At least with proton, the fact that you're different, that you're 2SLGBTQ+, is safe. Or at least substantially safer than Google.
Why are there so many responses like this, saying not to go back to Google? The OP didn't even mention Google as an option they were considering. I've seen zero discussion in any of the other posts around the fediverse where people have expressed any desire to use Google because of this. Why would anyone think that users who had already moved to Proton would find Google acceptable as an alternative right now?
This just feels like you're trying to discourage actual conversation about alternatives by acting like the only options are Proton or Google, so we all ought to shut up and sit down.
Also, if you think merely becoming a non-profit means a corporation can never exploit people and isn't interested in making money off of it's customers, then I've got a bridge to sell you.
Because I looked at the discussion threads for this post and I saw a few early comments where people mentioned they would go back or stick with Google.
I'm not trying to shut down or discourage any discussion. Just pointing out to the people who said they'd go back that it's not the best solution.
Yes, proton is about ten thousand times better than google, even with this board member's stupid fully factored in.
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God damnit I literally just got Proton going like 4 days ago.
Does DisRoot count ? It has a myriad of services that are all FOSS tools Has a "Hub-App" on Fdroid
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It seems there aren't any exact replacements, but this probably lists service providers to consider: https://www.privacyguides.org/en/email/
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I'll still continue using proton, as I haven't seen them staying from their goal just yet, but I'd love to see some alternatives non the less.
Server locations: Riseup is in the US (Washington state), so keep that in mind. Disroot is in the Netherlands (part of the EU).
Governance: Riseup: Look at their βabout usβ page. Disroot: Look at their βaboutβ page. The terms of service are more detailed. tl;dr: As far as I can tell, these are run by leftists.
Integrity/Transparency: I have no idea how to grade this.
Ease of Use: Subjective. Riseup VPN is just: install the client, turn it on or off. Disroot is much better with a mail client of some kind, so if you already use one, itβs probably a 10, otherwise, the webmail server isnβt that great. Disroot also requries manual encryption (Iβm biased here because I use Kmail which makes PGP really easy to use).
Pricing and Links: Free https://riseup.net/en/vpn https://disroot.org/en/services/email
tl;dr: Use collective-run services, not corporate-run services
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