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Proton Wallet – a safer way to hold Bitcoin

proton.me

11–20 of 37 posts

Re: Proton Wallet – a safer way to hold Bitcoin

#11
post #5

This and their AI thing they released a week orso ago, makes me considering another Email Provider. Not sure which one yet... They invested time, effort, and money in hype industries. No thanks. They could have used that time to make their core products (email, calendar, address book) better. My money went to the wrong things. :-(

I’m happy with Proton products personally but I see so many feature requests from users sitting for years on their core products. If anything I feel like the effort that goes into this instead could hurt Proton by branding them as “a crypto company”.

We most certainly are not a crypto company. We don't run a crypto exchange, didn't create a cryptocurrency, and don't speculate in crypto. We're an encryption company, but don't lump that in with crypto.

Re: Proton Wallet – a safer way to hold Bitcoin

#12
post #5

This and their AI thing they released a week orso ago, makes me considering another Email Provider. Not sure which one yet... They invested time, effort, and money in hype industries. No thanks. They could have used that time to make their core products (email, calendar, address book) better. My money went to the wrong things. :-(

Fastmail is a good choice, they just do the one thing.

No end to end encryption. No thanks.

Plus as an Australian company the government can backdoor it without anyone legally being able to speak about it.

Re: Proton Wallet – a safer way to hold Bitcoin

#14
Even in this cost of living crisis, over the last six months I've been ever so slowly been putting money aside by not dining out, cancelled my streaming services, cutting down on utility usage (heating) and even started collecting aluminium cans to scrape together the USD191.76 I have due on 26th August for 2 years of service. I don't make the big bucks like everyone here but to me my privacy is worth every cent and sacrifice.

I would like to try this Proton Wallet out but don't have the liquidity right now to buy bitcoin but I wish them the best of luck.

Two side notes: I'd pay more to access this and their Scribe offering (yes, I got their wayward email blast and apology on it) but what would a single guy do with six accounts on their Visionary tier?

I also think Proton could acquire Kagi and it would a perfect fit.

Re: Proton Wallet – a safer way to hold Bitcoin

#15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m happy with Proton products personally but I see so many feature requests from users sitting for years on their core products. If anything I feel like the effort that goes into this instead could hurt Proton by branding them as “a crypto company”.

We most certainly are not a crypto company. We don't run a crypto exchange, didn't create a cryptocurrency, and don't speculate in crypto. We're an encryption company, but don't lump that in with crypto.

Care to explain how you ignored the results of your survey where most users wanted more email or calendar features and you decided to work on an AI assistant that more than 66% of your user base didn't ask for?

Re: Proton Wallet – a safer way to hold Bitcoin

#16
post #5

This and their AI thing they released a week orso ago, makes me considering another Email Provider. Not sure which one yet... They invested time, effort, and money in hype industries. No thanks. They could have used that time to make their core products (email, calendar, address book) better. My money went to the wrong things. :-(

I had a big problem with them once I signed up and they shoved their ads down my inbox. Then they created a survey asking what their users would like to see in Proton, and while a majority voted for calendar and email features, they made the AI section biased: you either are interested in AI, never heard of it or won't use but are interested. They purposedly didn't include an option "heard of AI but won't use it" because they know most of their users don't like it.

And now they're launching an AI assistant. How ethical they are proving to be. The company that portrayed itself as privacy-first is showing its true face.

Re: Proton Wallet – a safer way to hold Bitcoin

#17
post #5

This and their AI thing they released a week orso ago, makes me considering another Email Provider. Not sure which one yet... They invested time, effort, and money in hype industries. No thanks. They could have used that time to make their core products (email, calendar, address book) better. My money went to the wrong things. :-(

I'm honestly glad I am not (no longer) seemingly the only one thinking this. When I read the reactions to Scribe, I was a bit surprised there wasn't much skepticism/concern about that.

While I applaud their transition to being a Non-Profit/Foundation, the "tech fad chasing" of the last weeks definitely concerns me about Proton, looking at the backlog of "common sense" additions and even the lack of proper Linux support.

While it will be fine for most users, I'm more leaning to skepticism regarding generative AI and (pushing) crypto by a corporation. The former being due to copyright abuse, with the latter being a weird thing to push for in the current age where usages of blockchain are met with skepticism instead of hope.

I'd recommend looking into Tuta (formerly known as Tutanota). They recently got interviewed by Techlore indicating they wanna release "Tuta Drive". Seems to become a proper replacement for Proton, if you don't care about VPNs, crypto wallets or Cloud password storage.

All in all, Proton's features can be replaced by other services. Mullvad's well known for their straight forward "gold standard" VPN. Crypto wallets can best be held locally. Password storage got Cloud (Bitwarden) or local (KeePass and its derivatives in clients) options. Only "hurting" missed feature is Proton Docs, which launched not too long ago and is also missing quite a few features. Self-hosting or getting a service to host NextCloud is an option, however, but that'll eat into costs.

Re: Proton Wallet – a safer way to hold Bitcoin

#19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fastmail is a good choice, they just do the one thing.

No end to end encryption. No thanks. Plus as an Australian company the government can backdoor it without anyone legally being able to speak about it.

They also got rid of most of their US based unionized employees recently.

https://union.place/@fastmailunited/112672408714595554

Re: Proton Wallet – a safer way to hold Bitcoin

#20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m happy with Proton products personally but I see so many feature requests from users sitting for years on their core products. If anything I feel like the effort that goes into this instead could hurt Proton by branding them as “a crypto company”.

We most certainly are not a crypto company. We don't run a crypto exchange, didn't create a cryptocurrency, and don't speculate in crypto. We're an encryption company, but don't lump that in with crypto.

You surely are turning into one which as a long time paying user, this is a real shame that you're putting most of your loyal users under the bus.
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