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Protonmail can delete the wrong email and nobody cares

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Re: Protonmail can delete the wrong email and nobody cares

#171
post #139

Some years ago, I evaluated Protonmail as a replacement for my personal gmail account. When came the steps "can I easily move from this service?", I realized you have to _pay_ to export all your emails from the service. They make it super easy for you to open an account and receive emails, and then makes you pay if you want to get a copy of your own data. I contacted the support to tell them it is likely illegal unde…

Try harder. You can run their bridge to expose imap and use any client to export your emails. Also, your info from "years" ago is out of date as they are a small company that has been working on product/features all those years.

Re: Protonmail can delete the wrong email and nobody cares

#172
post #139

Some years ago, I evaluated Protonmail as a replacement for my personal gmail account. When came the steps "can I easily move from this service?", I realized you have to _pay_ to export all your emails from the service. They make it super easy for you to open an account and receive emails, and then makes you pay if you want to get a copy of your own data. I contacted the support to tell them it is likely illegal unde…

Try harder. You can run their bridge to expose imap and use any client to export your emails. Also, your info from "years" ago is out of date as they are a small company that has been working on product/features all those years.

Their point was about having to pay to export your data. Afaik Bridge is still to this day only available to paying users. Still, their statement is no longer true since exporting in bulk is permitted for free with the Import-Export app.

Re: Protonmail can delete the wrong email and nobody cares

#173
post #139

Some years ago, I evaluated Protonmail as a replacement for my personal gmail account. When came the steps "can I easily move from this service?", I realized you have to _pay_ to export all your emails from the service. They make it super easy for you to open an account and receive emails, and then makes you pay if you want to get a copy of your own data. I contacted the support to tell them it is likely illegal unde…

You have to pay to receive a service? Good heavens!

Exporting an XML file from a database of already existing emails is very likely a query that takes milliseconds to run automatically.

If it's true they require you pay to export emails it sounds like borderline extortion.

Re: Protonmail can delete the wrong email and nobody cares

#174
I am a long time paid user of Protonmail. This isn't the first issue I've seen. It's is really annoying I have to use a bridge at all to be honest.

That being said, I've evaluated other providers like Fastmail. While their service is good I am not a fan of reducing my privacy. So people like me are stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Re: Protonmail can delete the wrong email and nobody cares

#175
post #139

Some years ago, I evaluated Protonmail as a replacement for my personal gmail account. When came the steps "can I easily move from this service?", I realized you have to _pay_ to export all your emails from the service. They make it super easy for you to open an account and receive emails, and then makes you pay if you want to get a copy of your own data. I contacted the support to tell them it is likely illegal unde…

You have to pay to receive a service? Good heavens!

that's obviously a strawman. What's being critized is the heroin-dealer model of doing business, i.e. "the first dose is free" but you'll be locked in, which seems increasingly popular among a lot of services that try to compete with the big players.

Re: Protonmail can delete the wrong email and nobody cares

#176
Yeah, Protonmail Bridge is my main source of buyer’s remorse wrt. Protonmail. I moved my family e-mail set-up to Protonmail, so I can’t just move away without having to migrate everyone else too. So now I’m just stuck with it. Weird sync issues, random CPU spikes, having to use the web-UI for anything important, etc.

Not sure why they can’t make it work, but I guess trying to make their custom encrypted mail set-up simply doesn’t translate well to IMAP’s weird idiosyncrasies.

Re: Protonmail can delete the wrong email and nobody cares

#177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to pay to receive a service? Good heavens!

Exporting an XML file from a database of already existing emails is very likely a query that takes milliseconds to run automatically. If it's true they require you pay to export emails it sounds like borderline extortion.

Then buying any digital good or licence is extortion. After all it’s just an INSERT query! They could just do it for free, yet they refuse to…

Re: Protonmail can delete the wrong email and nobody cares

#178
post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is they've been aware of this very serious bug for more than a year, and haven't tried informing their users. So "Protonmail" in this context refers to the business, and the issues surrounding their responsibility, competence and ethics.

If there is a critical issue with an open source software any user can fix it. If no user steps up then it might not be that important issue in the first place.

Proton-bridge is a premium product you only get by being a paid subscriber. If it is open source, they should not be expecting contributions. One pays to make sure issues like this can be fixed, they don't pay to fix the issue themselves.

Re: Protonmail can delete the wrong email and nobody cares

#180
post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exporting an XML file from a database of already existing emails is very likely a query that takes milliseconds to run automatically. If it's true they require you pay to export emails it sounds like borderline extortion.

Then buying any digital good or licence is extortion. After all it’s just an INSERT query! They could just do it for free, yet they refuse to…

It's artificial scarcity, which to me is immoral, but it is what it is.

In your example, you have the choice not to buy the license. In the case of Protonmail, they already have your emails, and are already serving them to you, so holding your correspondence hostage if you want to export it all in one go is a bit of a dick move.

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