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Proton is trying to become Google without your data

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131–140 of 185 posts

Re: Proton is trying to become Google without your data

#131

Asserting "private email" is a modern litmus test for someone's technical understanding and capabilities, or lack thereof. Snake oil companies will always hide behind "it's encrypted" and "it's hosted in Switzerland" tropes that mean nothing to anyone who has done a modicum of research. Real privacy is not the result of some product, especially not when its so desperately and obviously shilled.

Its the best you can get. Its fully end-to-end encrypted when stored, they don't scan anything, no ADs, no tracking, and they support laws and organization that improve individuals privacy.

Why wouldn't I support them ? If i care about privacy I should support companies that care about it too, no?

Proton is not perfect, the android mobile app currently doesn't have conversion view neither contact sync, and the desktop bridge doesn't implement Dav protocol, but its the best out there for people who want to protect their privacy.

And if you care about privacy, you shouldn't be using anything made in Australia.

Re: Proton is trying to become Google without your data

#132

It's kind of disingenuous to keep touting "Swiss privacy laws" as some sort of selling point on their homepage, when shit like this happens https://techcrunch.com/2021/09/06/protonmail-logged-ip-addre... Why's a privacy-first service logging IPs in the first place?

As the article states, they were forced to by Swiss authorities. They tried to fight against it, but in the end no reputable provider is going to put the whole company on the line for 1 user against a lawful order from their government.

Uh-huh. Then perhaps they shouldn't be touting Swiss privacy laws like they're some holy golden shield. And once again:

> Why's a privacy-first service logging IPs in the first place?

Re: Proton is trying to become Google without your data

#133
The problem with Proton email is that is full of fraudulent accounts this they domain and emails send via proton are blocked by many companies, ISPs and firewalls. I tried it and it was unable to send email to my wife’s work.

In short alot of dickheads use it for spam/scam and ruin it for the rest of us.

I do not know how they can overcome that…

Re: Proton is trying to become Google without your data

#134
post #37
post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you think the same thing about Signal?

Yes, especially since Moxi cashed out and bought a big mansion after they released their spy-coin cryptocurrency.

What do you mean by spy-coin?

Re: Proton is trying to become Google without your data

#135

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t know. I don’t think all “commoditization” of privacy is a bad thing. WhatsApp commoditized it, Signal; SSL/TLS; Tor; Privacy Coins; these all vastly improved the privacy of comms on the planet. One needs to determine outcomes rather than declaring it app disasters. maybe democratizing privacy is a better way to phrase than commoditization — which implies some cost savings rather than the just consumer availab…

Thanks for chiming in. I've been having some difficulty expressing my thoughts lately so sometimes I don't make the most sense. Yes, I definitely agree with you--democratization is a much better way to put it.

Please write and express yourself! You made sense to me and I wanted to add the conversation. I’ve thrown around many crazy ideas and the best ones seem to stir conversation and evolve or die. Ideas are better discussed in a room with many dissenting opinions.

Re: Proton is trying to become Google without your data

#136

It's kind of disingenuous to keep touting "Swiss privacy laws" as some sort of selling point on their homepage, when shit like this happens https://techcrunch.com/2021/09/06/protonmail-logged-ip-addre... Why's a privacy-first service logging IPs in the first place?

You always have the option of connecting to PM over tor [0] if you are concerned about this. You can also use any of the VPN services that are available. Get yourself an anonymous mulvad account, and pay with some laundered btc good luck to anyone that wants to track down your IP.

[0] https://protonmailrmez3lotccipshtkleegetolb73fuirgj7r4o4vfu7...

Re: Proton is trying to become Google without your data

#137
post #133

The problem with Proton email is that is full of fraudulent accounts this they domain and emails send via proton are blocked by many companies, ISPs and firewalls. I tried it and it was unable to send email to my wife’s work. In short alot of dickheads use it for spam/scam and ruin it for the rest of us. I do not know how they can overcome that…

I have never once in nearly 10 years had any problem with my emails getting through to anyone from PM

Re: Proton is trying to become Google without your data

#139
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The only thing that bugs me with Proton is that it's still very complicated to integrate with thunderbird (or any mail app?), which makes it practically unusable for my needs. Having a tab always open in my browser for my mail seems so wrong.

Their mobile apps are also very lackluster and devoid of basic features. I understand that they are unable to open up to other mail apps due to the encryption, but for the past few years there have been little to no updates to their iOS suite.

They did a facelift of their iOS mail app six months ago and this week.

Re: Proton is trying to become Google without your data

#140
post #118
post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is such a disingenuous retelling of what happened. Terms of Service don't trump lawful orders issued by a government. Never have, never will, for any service or company. They were issued a lawful order, did you expect them to just close the company instead? Whether or not you use Proton before or afterwards is of no matter, but please at least try to be honest with what happened.

> Terms of Service don't trump lawful orders issued by a government. No, obviously they do not. But misrepresenting your policies (i.e., lying) to your users ("we don't track IP addresses" was understood literally at the time) is a serious error and, especially if you're marketing to a privacy-aware crowd, one of your top priorities should be to maintain their trust or else your customer base is going to fall out fro…

To be clear, the part of the original post that I took issue with is this:

>Probably the whole "oops we actually DO share IP addresses despite our ToS"

Which conveniently left out the fact that they shared it when required to by lawful order. The way this is phrased (more, the intentional omission of that detail) implies that Proton is continuously sharing IP addresses with whomever asks for it. If you don't think that is a disingenuous way to relay the incident, I don't know what to say, we're probably at an impasse. They way you've relayed it is a more honest characterization of the incident, and one I don't take much issue with.

I would note that a small amount of networking knowledge would make the "until the government asks us to" part implied. A quick look at the user settings (specifically, the "Advanced logs" toggle) would also make it abundantly clear that Proton has the ability to track IP addresses upon request. Does that mean Proton is entirely off the hook? Of course not. But people should make decisions and come to their own conclusions based on all of the facts, not statements that omit material details.

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