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Has anyone used Proton Business Suite rather than Google's for a startup?

news.ycombinator.com

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Re: Has anyone used Proton Business Suite rather than Google's for a startup?

#21

Post by pcb-rework »

cpach wrote: post #14
pcb-rework wrote: post #9

Proton suffers from the Lavabit problem but worse, it pretends to offer security and freedom when it does neither and acts as a tool of foreign governments to abuse individuals. Use your own GPG keys and better clients, preferably with self-hosting in Iceland or Sweden.

For truly sensitive communication, it’s better to use Signal: https://soatok.blog/2024/11/15/what-to-use-instead-of-pgp/

You're a fool if you believe handing over metadata like your personal phone number so you can be tracked is an improvement. That's not email and not a replacement for GPG, something that actually works properly. Session is a superior app for text replacement. I think you need to find new blogs that don't offer crap advice.

Re: Has anyone used Proton Business Suite rather than Google's for a startup?

#22

Post by roastedpeacock »

pcb-rework wrote: post #21
cpach wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For truly sensitive communication, it’s better to use Signal: https://soatok.blog/2024/11/15/what-to-use-instead-of-pgp/

You're a fool if you believe handing over metadata like your personal phone number so you can be tracked is an improvement. That's not email and not a replacement for GPG, something that actually works properly. Session is a superior app for text replacement. I think you need to find new blogs that don't offer crap advice.

Session started as a fork of the Signal client/server to use identifiers that are not phone numbers (perfectly sensible) but having deviated from the known primitives of the Signal protocol and omitting PFS gives me pause.

Re: Has anyone used Proton Business Suite rather than Google's for a startup?

#23

Post by frmfrm »

danjl wrote: post #17
p_l wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not about backups - it's about loss of ongoing use infrastructure

The backup mitigates the problem because, if you are banned, which only happens to fools and fakes, you can take the backup and set it up on another service. Sure, you lose a couple of days of time migrating, but that's not a reason to avoid choosing a better solution.

it can happen to you

Re: Has anyone used Proton Business Suite rather than Google's for a startup?

#24

Post by cpach »

pcb-rework wrote: post #21
cpach wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For truly sensitive communication, it’s better to use Signal: https://soatok.blog/2024/11/15/what-to-use-instead-of-pgp/

You're a fool if you believe handing over metadata like your personal phone number so you can be tracked is an improvement. That's not email and not a replacement for GPG, something that actually works properly. Session is a superior app for text replacement. I think you need to find new blogs that don't offer crap advice.

What kind of threat model do you operate under where Signal Technology Foundation knowing (one of) your phone numbers is a large risk?

Re: Has anyone used Proton Business Suite rather than Google's for a startup?

#25

Post by authorfly »

southernplaces7 wrote: post #18

It's amusing to see people here continuing to recommend Google tools for core aspects of some shiny, fragile, new startup despite so many, many posts and comments on HN having been placed time and time again describing how arbitrary that monster can be about cutting you completely down from whatever it offers you for some bullshit algorithmic reason or another, and with near zero customer service recourse. By now Goo…

Problem is eventually you need it for Google Ads, or YouTube really for many things. And none of them are "vital" if they go wrong. They aren't core income pipeline parts. And then you get sucked in.

B2B and go to a conference? Where are you putting your video demo reels/talks? YouTube

Consumer and testing marketing messages for something non-consumer? Google Ads.

Your B2B client wants you to provide your SaaS via a private endpoint on GCP? What else are you going to do than use GCP?

Then once you are on it on company computers, it's a short walk to Google Docs and then Google Workspace, etc.

Re: Has anyone used Proton Business Suite rather than Google's for a startup?

#26

Post by midenginedcoupe »

pcb-rework wrote: post #21
cpach wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For truly sensitive communication, it’s better to use Signal: https://soatok.blog/2024/11/15/what-to-use-instead-of-pgp/

You're a fool if you believe handing over metadata like your personal phone number so you can be tracked is an improvement. That's not email and not a replacement for GPG, something that actually works properly. Session is a superior app for text replacement. I think you need to find new blogs that don't offer crap advice.

They resisted this change for years, but eventually gave in and fixed it. You no longer need to hand out your phone number.

https://signal.org/blog/phone-number-privacy-usernames/

Re: Has anyone used Proton Business Suite rather than Google's for a startup?

#27

Post by southernplaces7 »

authorfly wrote: post #25
southernplaces7 wrote: post #18

It's amusing to see people here continuing to recommend Google tools for core aspects of some shiny, fragile, new startup despite so many, many posts and comments on HN having been placed time and time again describing how arbitrary that monster can be about cutting you completely down from whatever it offers you for some bullshit algorithmic reason or another, and with near zero customer service recourse. By now Goo…

Problem is eventually you need it for Google Ads, or YouTube really for many things. And none of them are "vital" if they go wrong. They aren't core income pipeline parts. And then you get sucked in. B2B and go to a conference? Where are you putting your video demo reels/talks? YouTube Consumer and testing marketing messages for something non-consumer? Google Ads. Your B2B client wants you to provide your SaaS via a…

Needing Google occasionally is understandable but keeping it to a minimum and as disconnected as possible from core business functionality, and as replaceable as possible if things go sideways with its brainless algorithms, is absolutely doable.

Please, enough justification for why almost anyone generally "needs" Google.

For example:

>B2B and go to a conference? Where are you putting your video demo reels/talks? YouTube

Really? Simply no alternatives exist? I guess Vimeo is just a curious internet legend.

>Your B2B client wants you to provide your SaaS via a private endpoint on GCP? What else are you going to do than use GCP?

So explain to the client why you prefer not to use Google, but if they insist, then keep it specific to them and avoid it for anything generally essential to your business. You state this as if nearly a dozen alternatives to Google Cloud don't exist.

>Then once you are on it on company computers, it's a short walk to Google Docs and then Google Workspace, etc.

Don't take that short walk then, take another one instead.

The point is that alternative solutions do usually exist and even where Google becomes unavoidable, it absolutely shouldn't mean having to fully embrace its services.

Re: Has anyone used Proton Business Suite rather than Google's for a startup?

#28

Post by blackeyeblitzar »

I am also interested because of Proton’s commitment to privacy and Google’s commitment to…the opposite. But I would think Proton will not (yet?) have the type of controls most businesses need to administer a company wide service and manage confidentiality, security, etc.

Re: Has anyone used Proton Business Suite rather than Google's for a startup?

#29

Post by blackeyeblitzar »

metalmangler wrote: post #5

I am bootstraping, and have used proton for years as my only email, but have my own email now, and am slowly backing out of proton. The horrible way that they extort by limiting and degrading a service is only part of the problem.They degraded email replies at one point, to a tiny "page" with less than one full line of text. There is more, but proton is not worth the effort to remember and detail all of it. I will us…

> The horrible way that they extort by limiting and degrading a service is only part of the problem.They degraded email replies at one point, to a tiny "page" with less than one full line of text. There is more, but proton is not worth the effort to remember and detail all of it.

Are you saying they made it so that you cannot send replies with less than one full line of text? I don’t think I’ve seen or heard of Proton doing that.

Re: Has anyone used Proton Business Suite rather than Google's for a startup?

#30

Post by coldtrait »

millzlane wrote: post #20
southernplaces7 wrote: post #18

It's amusing to see people here continuing to recommend Google tools for core aspects of some shiny, fragile, new startup despite so many, many posts and comments on HN having been placed time and time again describing how arbitrary that monster can be about cutting you completely down from whatever it offers you for some bullshit algorithmic reason or another, and with near zero customer service recourse. By now Goo…

Yea, my dumbass used Google voice as my main 2fa number and recently lost access to it. Can't get it back and I'm locked out of everything. Don't be like me. Google really can't be trusted for personal or business use. If I could talk to a human and pay $100 for it I would.

I used to live in the US and use voice as my primary number for everything. I don't think there is a better option.
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