In an unexpected mask off “secure” email and VPN provider Proton took the stance of siding with the fascist MAGA Reps. Proton’s services are no option for me and many others any longer. Let’s collect and discuss alternatives (E2E encrypted email and VPN) here 🔐👇
Always try to provide:
-Server location (jurisdiction)
-Governance
-Integrity/trustworthiness/transparency
-User experience/ease of use (grade 1 to 10, lets take Proton as a benchmark with an 8)
-Pricing and links
If you know alternative setups, feel free to share, too.
#ProtonExodus
Background: https://lemmy.ca/comment/13913116
Edit:typo
Abandoning the Proton subscription now. How stupid and irresponsible. In fact, are running away from all your principles.
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 “about us” page. Disroot: Look at their “about” 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, it’s probably a 10, otherwise, the webmail server isn’t that great. Disroot also requries manual encryption (I’m 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
I use mailbox.org its pretty sweet
this idea of if you use a product you have to support every belief the company have is absolutely insane, like why can’t you recognize that a company’s products and it’s beliefs are two separate things? yeah the beliefs do effect the product but not all of them (especially not in this case like bro its ceos personal belief), why are we living in a time where you either have to %100 support something or you have %100 be against it? the fact that even a small political stand that someone dont agree with can turn them against a company or even a person is crazy to me
There’s plenty of alternatives for mail out there. As for me, what happened isn’t enough for me to consider leaving Proton for another service. There isn’t anywhere else that offers all the services Proton does for $8/month.
been using https://migadu.com/ for a few months now and its pretty great
Wow, lots of people on Lemmy just look at screenshots of text and dont read anything anymore.
I dont think he said anything controversial. Read what he wrote.
He’s not supporting Trump or the Republican party in general. He is calling them out for selecting someone good on antitrust. That’s not controversial.
Tuta.com is similar to Proton Mail + Calendar.
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Location: Germany
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Governance: Private GmbH (German corporation, similar to an American LLC)
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Integrity/trustworthiness/transparency: Better than Proton IMHO. All their apps are open source and available on F-Droid. They encrypt email headers (unlike Proton, who are weaselly about this in their marketing materials).
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User Experience: Ehhhh…6? I’m not in the best position to compare because I do not have a premium plan, so I am not able to examine features like inbox rules/filters. Much like Proton, it doesn’t support full-text email search unless you have it cache your entire mailbox locally (either via the web site or app). They do not support POP or IMAP, but do offer their own desktop and mobile apps.
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Pricing: €3/month for 20GB, €8/month for 500GB. https://tuta.com/pricing
Yep, I’ve been using Tuta for email for years now, just the free version.
No IMAP is a killer
Thank you!
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Wow!
Of all companies, this is one I didn’t expect.
Damn.
the good news is this is a lesson to never trust any entity whose role in the world is to accumulate capital
What’s insane is that didn’t Proton just recently announce they were converting to a non-profit?
Yes, they did: https://proton.me/blog/proton-non-profit-foundation
deleted by creator
There is absolutely no way to verify any of Proton’s privacy claims. Why should I trust one for profit company over another?
... ... ....,, .
Why would this be unexpected?
Proton already handed over the IP of a climate protester to authorities several years ago, while boasting that they had a no log policy.
https://therecord.media/protonmail-forced-to-collect-an-activists-ip-address-in-police-investigation
Every time, in the past few years, that I bring this up, everyone just acts like I’m setting an impossible standard and no alternative exists.
Proton has been shady for years.
From reading that article it looks like they were only using and able to log the IP address when the person logged in to their protonmail account specifically - not VPN.
They even state that VPNs can not be forced to log under the same legal order and are treated differently so in this case it seems the activists were not using the VPN while accessing their emails.
Although I dont agree with even the logging of the email IP, it appears like the user shot themselves in the foot like that other case where someone used their real name in the username and that obviosly has to be logged in some way.
I wish I had heard of this earlier, that combined with these new political statements is enough for me to find something else.
I didn’t know about this. I haven’t followed Proton closely for a while, but this…wow. Kinda lousy.
My personal recommendations:
https://uberspace.de
- Server location (jurisdiction): Germany
- Integrity/trustworthiness/transparency: About-Page
- User experience/ease of use (grade 1 to 10, lets take Proton as a benchmark with an 8): 6
- Pricing: Based on solidarity, but recommend minimum is 5 € per month
https://www.hostsharing.net
- Server location (jurisdiction): Germany
- Integrity/trustworthiness/transparency: well, you own part of hostsharing if you use it (collective-ownership)
- User experience/ease of use (grade 1 to 10, lets take Proton as a benchmark with an 8): 6
- Pricing: 64 € onetime payment + 10 € per month (cooperative)
Other recommendations:
- mailbox.org, systemli.org, riseup.net, posteo.de (as far as I know all of them are located in Germany)
Systemli requires an invite code last I checked? Disroot does not.
Excuse my ignorance, but why is Germany a good place for privacy vs proton’s Sweden?
And also eg, versus a non EU nation ?
TLDR: The Gestapo and Stasi
“uh uh. you aren’t doing that shit to me again”
meanwhile, on the other side of the atlantic
“spy on me daddy”
US never had fascism, so they’re experimenting and learning the hard way
oh man. we’re the og fascists. our policies inspired european fascism. we’ve done all the key components of a fascist regime before: the forced labor, the death camps, the mass surveilance, the overt militarism, the desperate need to expand and get rid of the people who were already there
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.
LMAO! This is the type of person who would leave Steam if Gabe endorsed Trump.
God damnit I literally just got Proton going like 4 days ago.
Stop switching to every new “cool” and “encrypted” service every time the previous one disappointed you a little bit. This is not helpful neither for your time, nor for privacy community overall. We should lean on most developed and best platforms we have right now (Proton, Signal etc.) and get everyone to switch. Unless we know we have market dominance, dispersing our efforts is futile.
And yep, answering your question, Tuta Mail is fine
- Germany (I think)
- Politically leftist
- Very nice people
- User experience 8, works fine and people put a lot of effort in
- It’s free, but you need an invite code
