- cross-posted to:
- privacy@lemmy.ml
- privacy@lemmy.ml
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The wallet is not, I think, surprising. Proton Mail is billed as a trusted holder of email that you want private. In the US, there are specifically some people who want an out-of-country provider of email service. A lot of use of cryptocurrency is from people who want private financial transactions. I will bet that there is overlap in userbase.
I also don’t know how they’re billing their LLM, but a thing that some people don’t like about LLM services – and I am among those – is that what you write can be data-mined. If they’re selling this as a service where they charge a fee not to do that, that might make a lot of sense in terms of their privacy company reputation.
I use Kagi as my search engine. They do the “we don’t log or mine your data, but rather charge a subscription fee”, so they’re gonna be selling to a market of people who are willing to pay something for privacy. And they also just started providing LLM service. I bet that they have the same rationale.
You can get your own hardware and run latent diffusion software locally. I have. But that’s expensive.
It saves a lot of money, if you only need the hardware computing N% of the time, to buy the hardware and share it with other people, both in compute capacity and cost. Then you only need to pay N% plus a bit for the service provider to make a return.
I suspect that a lot of companies have done the math, figured out that the economics work, and are aiming for that market – people who want to use latent diffusion software, want privacy for use, but don’t need them hot 100% of the time, and don’t want to pay to get their own hardware at home.
It used to be common, when all computers were more expensive, for all computing access to be sold like this, on time-sharing systems.
Yeah, sharing hardware is pretty cool, but right now, both cripto and LLMs have a very bad reputation (at least among those more tech savvy), and them releasing these products makes some people (like me) feel that maybe they are just grifters… (I was considering kagi search, as pretty much all free search engines are garbage, but now i’m reconsidering lol [it was ou of my budget anyway]).
So much for my plan of looking into a Proton mail account.
I expected more from them, even more so when they turned into a non profit.
I have no interest in it, but Bitcoin wallets aren’t necessarily private, and they say the LLM is also private. Given that pretty much everything is trying to mine as much data as possible from your digital interactions, this seems on brand for them.
I still have no interest in Proton Unlimited, but maybe enough of their customers want these features (or they think they will).
Yeah, but their llm doesn’t even disclose where it gathered its training data, very sus.
Techradar says it’s based on the Mistral 7B large language model. But they should definitely disclose that kind of information. It’s important to know how a tool works and what kind of mistakes, biases etc are to be expected when using it for important communication.
They is no chance they are the one training it. It costs hundreds of millions to get a descent model. Seems like they will be using mistral, who have scrapped pretty much 100% of the web to use as training data.
It has to be very good with porn stuff, in that case 🤔
Mistral modèles don’t have much filter don’t worry lmao
yes, you can download SD1.5 models that will generate all kinds of degenerate images for you and deneutered LLMs that will write the most disgusting smut you’ve ever seen. all of it locally, free and 100% private.
Nice 🧐 got to do some research
We asked for Linux native apps and collabrative office suites not this garbage.
They need Linux developers to do that
OK get Linux developers then. we pay for the Software and they asked us what we want them to work on. This is one of the rare cases where Linux users can actually feel entitled to developer attention.
You might be surprised to find out that, just like everywhere else, Linux users are a minority among the Proton userbase.
Except it’s cheaper to pay their existing non-Linux developers to do something than hire a team of new developers for Linux.
They need a simple GUI on top of rclone. The madlads of rclone fucking reversed engineered the drive APIs in record time. Now imagine if they were to tosh some money into that project, and then could focus only in GUI.
They didn’t have to reverse engineer the drive API. Proton created an open source library to use their API, which was forked to integrate with Proton-API-Bridge, so that apps could easily use it.
There’s no api, or there was, when rclone implement it.
This backend uses the Proton-API-Bridge, which is based on go-proton-api, a fork of the official repo.
According to that page there was an official API library, provided by Proton. They forked it and added features, it didn’t need to be reverse engineered.
Linux needs linux developers
Linux has developers. It just needs more desktop users.
Im trying!
It honestly probably has too many Linux developers. I’d love to develop for Linux, but the job market is super competitive, so I work building web apps (hosted on Linux). I have the skills to hack on Linux things (I build desktop Linux apps for fun), there just aren’t many job opportunities.
If I could get paid something close to what I’m making now, but to work on FOSS, I’d do it in a heartbeat. But the options I see are:
- fight like crazy to get one of the handful of jobs
- get paid almost nothing
- not work in FOSS
I don’t have the energy for 1 and 2 won’t work for my family, so I go for 3. I do plan to do 2 once I have enough to not need my current income (current projection is about 10 years).
Like this collaborative document editor they added a month ago?
Yes I am aware. Thats a great start but its pretty barebones and needs far more developement.
Time to bail. Not giving these guys a cent more.
Tech companies are committed to turning satire into reality.
Maybe my flashlight app can do it next.
It ain’t a real flashlight app if it can’t automatically flash to vibe with any songs heard from the background
All of this convinced me to give up on moving all my accounts to their service and just use the iCloud service I already pay for. Trying to get away from GMail and Google’s privacy policies, but it felt like these moves indicated greater change coming to a service I was sincerely optimistic about prior.
I won’t be using these features, but I’m not sure there’s cause for concern. The implementation seems very sensible and legitimately privacy-centric. The LLM runs locally and is meant as an very basic email proofreader. The crypto wallet is a likely an extension of the password management tech they’ve already developed, with transaction features that some people care about.
I can see why some people want these features, and I’m glad there are new alternatives.
Coming from someone who hasn’t gotten into the weeds with this company, my understanding was that they did email. I was considering migrating over to them in order to de-google completely.
This move, specifically, has caused me to reconsider and scrap those plans. Not every tech company needs to peddle ai and crypto bullshit.
… they do email, but they also do other things. They still do email better than the alternatives.
It’s kind of like if Chipotle came out with hamburgers and you were like “well I want a burrito but I’ll never get one of their burritos now, they’re just like all the other fast food now.”
Yeah, I actually quite liked their VPN and was thinking about upgrading, now its a no go lol.
Altho I wouldn’t recommend you to give up on your privacy, maybe you can create a NAS or something, but don’t give up on your rights!
They should stop adding more and more services and instead focus on making existing services better or - in some cases - feature complete first.
Like proton mail? The existing service that this update is adding a feature to?
Maybe they should get search working first? Or just contacts sync?
What’s wrong with the search?
Also, sync contacts to what?
What, sending bitcoin? That’s not really a feature of Proton Mail, rather it’s a feature of the wallet that happens to be able to send bitcoin via email (I suppose so that the recipient can then transfer the funds to a bitcoin address of their choice unless their email address is already linked to Proton Wallet).
Even if you’d consider this a feature of Proton Mail, how does this have higher priority than a proper iPad/tablet app, or the ability to add a .ics attachment directly to my (default, non-Proton) calendar without having to manually download the .ics file, open it with a file manager and then add it to the calendar? Filtered views (for example: view unread and starred messages but nothing else in one list)? A somewhat usable offline mode? The list goes on, and that’s just Proton Mail. Proton Drive still lacks a native Linux app (I know there’s “support” for Proton Drive in rclone, but that’s hacked together because Proton doesn’t even provide official API documentation and stability commitments).
I’d rather pay for the individual services that I can actually (somewhat) use, like Mail (even though it’s not great), but their Mail only tier severely lacks in features (only 1 custom email domain is my main problem). If they’d then commit the financial resources towards improving the service being paid for, that’d be great.
No, the LLM. The LLM is for use in ProtonMail only.
Crypto and AI, they went all out…
Waiting for sweet nfts to drop.
I feel like some people just hear “crypto” or “ai” and start screeching and clawing at the air.
Not every feature needs to be for you specifically, these features are optional and don’t compromise or even impact their other products. They seem to be on-brand in being more privacy-focused alternatives to some of the existing market options while remaining accessible, and keeps Proton in the game depending on how the landscape develops.
I don’t use Proton (yet) but I generally like what they’re doing and hope they succeed, and I don’t see any of these developments as negatives, just more competition.
I expected more from them, even more so when they turned into a non profit.
Two points to make:
- What did they do wrong here?
- Isn’t it better for these products to be provided by a nonprofit?
LLMs are expensive power hungry beasts of limited use.
Crypto is similarly a power hungry beast. It’s also primarily a niche pseudo currency that’s arguably more regularly used for crime than legitimate purchases.
“Feed what you wish to grow” applies here … and TBH I’m okay with what they’ve done with the LLM. The crypto wallet … I just wish we’d let crypto die. Bitcoin in particular is too unstable for the average person to use as some kind of normal currency. People also see it as an investment, but it’s a super questionable investment that is backed only by the arbitrary value we give it.
Nothing wrong with a crime currency, easier to get safe drugs.
It’s also primarily a niche pseudo currency that’s arguably more regularly used for crime than legitimate purchases.
That’s true for cash as well, but that’s because of a few factors:
- credit cards are more attractive due to rewards
- sales tax makes buying things w/ cash a pain in person
- you can’t use cash online, the closest you have are debit cards, but breaches make that unsafe
Cryptocurrencies can solve these problems. Since it’s digital, there’s nothing physical to carry around, online purchases are secure, and some vendors charge a lower fee for accepting crypto (e.g. https://based.win has a 10% discount for Monero). Since it’s distributed, you’re not stuck w/ 3-4 “networks” to process transactions, so transaction fees are generally lower (e.g. Visa/Mastercard/etc generally charge ~3%, whereas Monero charges a few pennies, regardless of transaction amount).
The reason it’s more often used for crime is because few vendors accept cryptocurrency as payment, mostly because demand is low. The more people that use cryptocurrencies for legitimate purchases, the more companies will accept it and the ratio between legitimate vs criminal transactions will go down.
I wouldn’t be surprised if cash is more often used for crime than legitimate purchases, mostly because cash is annoying to use. That doesn’t mean we should eliminate cash, it means we should make using it less annoying (e.g. include sales tax on listed price and not just calculated at checkout). I see cash used a lot more in states w/ no sales tax, and I hear Europeans use cash a lot more as well because VAT is included in the list price.
I know A LOT of people that still use cash and use it frequently for legitimate purchases.
There are also several places around here that are cash only shops, and several more that will charge you extra for using a credit card.
Cash is an official, government sanctioned, form of currency. Part of the appeal of cryptocurrencies is they’re a currency that’s outside of government management.
The problem with bitcoin in particular is volatility vs any other reference currency is insane. You might have enough to buy an expensive house one day, then a few months later you only have enough for a cheap car, then a few months later you can buy an even nicer house (or maybe not!). That’s just not practical for most people … I don’t think it ever will be practical for most people.
If we get a “stable coin” that requires low power draw … maybe? But is that really better than just using a credit card? Are online purchases really more secure? People get their wallet stolen in real life, getting your digital wallet stolen is something that can totally happen too. There’s no FDIC on your bitcoin, a bitcoin wallet isn’t a bank.
Crypto fans love to talk up crypto coins but … I just do not see them as a practical solution to much of anything. We would be far better off improving security of credit cards so you can manage your purchases in a system that’s more like PayPal’s where there’s a way to see “these are the things that are authorized to take money from you automatically” and “these are the things where we generated a one time token and this is how much you paid.”
The things I’ve seen about bitcoin at scale have also suggested it could never even come close to the transaction speed of VISA.
I just … I am so far from sold. I found Bitcoin when it was ~1 USD per bitcoin. I wish I’d bought just $50 of bitcoin back then and sat on it, but I don’t think bitcoin ever has soared because of its merits. It’s kind of like this AI hype right now, block chains have very limited practical usability.
If we get a “stable coin” that requires low power draw
I don’t know about power draw, but Monero is relatively stable ($120-$170 over the last 2 years; avg $157, and generally stays between $140-160) and is unprofitable to mine, so you only get enthusiasts who really like the coin doing it. I think, on net, it uses significantly less than Bitcoin, just because blocksizes are variable size and there are no mining farms (less competition should mean less waste), but that’s incredibly hard to measure or even estimate, and we’d need to take transaction costs into account as well (e.g. I’d be willing to spend more electricity if it meant less money going to bank profits). We could compare Reddit to Lemmy as a similar example, Reddit will be cheaper to operate per user (less duplication), but Lemmy is community driven and has no incentive to screw over users.
Ethereum uses proof-of-stake, so it has much lower power draw than pretty much anything else, but there’s still a ton of speculation that causes prices to change dramatically ($1100-3800 over the past 2 years). Eth has a higher transaction fee than Monero by a pretty large factor, so it’s not great as a currency either. But maybe it’ll encourage more coins to switch to proof-of-stake and drop energy use by the cryptocurrency market substantially.
People get their wallet stolen in real life, getting your digital wallet stolen is something that can totally happen too. There’s no FDIC on your bitcoin, a bitcoin wallet isn’t a bank.
There’s also no FDIC protection on cash. You should, IMO, be treating cryptocurrencies more like a pile of cash than a bank (though it’s more secure than cash). You don’t need FDIC protection on your spending money, but you should have it on your savings. My investments are at investment brokerages w/ SIPC protection, my emergency fund is at a bank, and my spending money could totally be in crypto, if I had more places to spend it.
Crypto fans love to talk up crypto coins
There are two main types of crypto fans:
- crypto scammers - pump and dump, jump from coin to coin, etc; their goal is to make money
- crypto enthusiasts - just want to use them to buy stuff
The first are very vocal and should be avoided at all costs, while the second just don’t want anyone (banks, governments, etc) to be able to snoop on their transactions. I’m the second, and I honestly don’t currently own any cryptocurrencies, but I’m interested in Monero to replace credit cards in online purchases (I have a wallet set up, still haven’t gotten to funding it).
The things I’ve seen about bitcoin at scale have also suggested it could never even come close to the transaction speed of VISA.
Well, the Bitcoin lightning network dramatically improves that and is competitive with VISA and other credit card networks. I don’t know the specific numbers, but initial verification of funds (basically what happens when you buy something w/ your credit card) happens almost instantly (seconds), but “settling” takes a bit longer (minutes to days), much like with credit card companies (i.e. “pending” transactions).
Monero is similar. Broadcasting the payment request takes about a second, and settling the transaction takes a few minutes. So for small purchases like a coffee, you probably wouldn’t wait for settlement, but you would for larger transactions (e.g. buying a car) because there’s technically a risk of double-spending within that block verification time.
Since vendors wouldn’t need to pay transaction fees for VISA, Mastercard, etc, I think they’d be willing to occasionally eat the cost of someone scamming them with a double-spend (pretty high effort for the scammer, esp. in person).
So cryptocurrency is ready today to replace credit card networks. You can use Bitcoin Lightning or Monero today and get near-instant verification of funds and reasonable settlement times (usually minutes, maybe hours). The main issue is vendors accepting it as payment.
I don’t think bitcoin ever has soared because of its merits
Agreed. I strongly discourage anyone from buying BTC as an investment. I don’t regret not buying BTC when I first noticed it, because if I made a good return, I’d think I know something about it and end up gambling it all away on crypto trades (also why I don’t buy individual stocks anymore). I have never and probably will never see cryptocurrency as an investment product, because I don’t see any reason for it to increase or decrease in value aside from speculation, whereas I do think things like stocks have understandable and predictable behaviors (on longer time scales, not short-term).
So I don’t buy any cryptocurrencies as investments, I’m purely interested in using them for transactions. I’d love to just use cash, but that doesn’t work online and is a pain in real life, so I’m hoping cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin or Monero become mainstream enough that I can do that. Given how many breaches there have been, I just don’t trust debit cards, since banks can put checking/savings on hold much longer than credit card companies do (banks make money by holding money, credit cards make money by you spending money).
So I’m sold on the general idea, I’m just limited by places to spend it. That’s why I encourage people to use it, so demand goes up and more stores start accepting it.
The issue is that they’re neglecting their core apps in favor of expanding their portfolio. There’s nothing wrong with creating these apps, but it should not be done until the core apps are industry leading and extremely refined.
The developers they used to create this wallet could have been used to fix protonmail bugs, or to bring protonvpn on Linux up to snuff. There’s still no first party CLI for Linux boxes, for example.
I will say, I disagree with this perspective as a developer.
Adding more people doesn’t inherently make the product better. You can have too many cooks in the kitchen and too many people stepping on each other’s toes.
It’s like the saying 9 women can’t make a baby in a month.
I think the other apps are moving at a reasonable pace. Though I do wish they’d put some more people on Linux desktop apps… Maybe even a Linux distribution “Proton OS” could be very interesting.
I don’t see much value in a “Proton OS,” there are already more than enough Linux distros to choose from. But better Linux compat is always welcome, I’d much rather see them put resources there than on a distro.
there are already more than enough Linux distros to choose from
Found the n00b.
It doesn’t seem proton is neglecting their core apps, instead it seems they are getting more people, so each service has enough people. https://proton.me/careers
So why does Proton work on multiple products at the same time? Simply because:
- throwing more bodies at existing efforts has a point of diminishing returns and then a point when it even becomes counterproductive
- given the lengthy minimum time it takes to perfect services, starting earlier lets us deliver more to the community over the long term
That’s why we bring new services to market earlier than some of you would like, but I can also say that it’s never done if we believe it would compromise an existing effort.
Proton is so based ngl like fr fr
I’ve been pretty happy with my swap to Proton lately, but this makes me nervous.
Not that I hate AI or crypto, but their mail app, the thing they’re known for, is not feature complete on all platforms. I still cannot set or edit filters on mobile, for example.
If your flagship app is missing basic features that users have reported for months but you just keep rolling out new shit, it starts to feel like too much like Google, yakno?
Agree on Crypto, but the LLM is literally a Proton Mail feature.
