There are 2 kinds of companies:

1. Evil companies
2. Companies that are not evil YET.

What this means in this case is that only your own E-Mail server running on a Raspi in your own home can be considered private or secure in the long run. Unfortunately this is really really hard to do, which is the only reason i have not done it yet.
Personally i do not consider any E-Mail private, because E-Mail is not E2E-encrypted, and 99.9% of times one side of the conversation is going to be hosted on some shady companies servers.

Of course Proton delivers a great service, because they make an insecure protocol a little less insecure, and i personally use Proton mail. Unfortunately their closed-source nature makes it impossible to switch providers without abandoning their great software.

As for services like Drive, they can actually be hosted privately and securely on your own Raspi with stuff like NextCloud/OwnCloud.
For those that can’t/don’t want to self-host, i would recommend paying for a hoster that hosts FOSS software and contributes to it either with money or code. In that case you would probably loose E2E-encryption, but gain the ability to switch providers once your provider turns on you. In that case at least some of your money would continue to offer value to you by having improved the software you are still using.

Maybe not the contribution that you’re looking for, but going to tell you this story regardless.

I am Swiss, and used to be a former diplomat at the Embassy of Switzerland in the United Kingdom. My colleagues and I had organized an evening on cybersecurity, where we showcase what Switzerland has to offer. I invited stakeholders such as:

• Dreamlab (really cool company, should look them up if you don’t know of them)
• NCSC (Swiss National Cyber Security Center)
• Some Swiss cyber regulator; and
• Proton

Firstly, when speaking with the CEO of Dreamlab, he ushered a statement; upon me saying I’m a huge Proton fan and subscribed to all services - “they are lying to your faces”.

I was curious, so I spoke with the regulators and NCSC delegates, they said that Proton has been involved in a handful of leaks - some that were made public, some behind the scenes.

When I spoke to Andy, having told him that I grew up in Canada, I asked him what his plan was for North America. His response: “I will gladly take their money, but never open up shop there - too many national security services that come knocking on the door”.

Now I see that (on the Proton page), that they are looking for a few US based positions for Marketing and Growth - going against what we discussed a few years back. In all honesty, I still have a Plus subscription with them, but beginning to questions a lot more things regarding security and ethics at Proton. Guess I’ll just self-host in the future. Trust no one but yourself with your personal data.

The CEO “apologized” this morning (after being duly chastised, I’m sure):

Hi all, last night, a post from last year from my personal X account suddenly became a topic of discussion here on Reddit. I want to share a few thoughts on this to provide clarity to the community on what is Proton’s policy on politics going forward.

First, while the X post was not intended to be a political statement, I can understand how it can be interpreted as such, and it therefore should not have been made. While we will not prohibit all employees from expressing personal political opinions publicly, it is something I will personally avoid in the future. I lean left on some issues, and right on other issues, but it doesn’t serve our mission to publicly debate this. It should be obvious, but I will say that it is a false equivalence to say that agreeing with Republicans on one specific issue (antitrust enforcement to protect small companies) is equal to endorsing the entire Republican party platform.

Second, officially Proton must always be politically neutral, and while we may share facts and analysis, our policy going forward will be to share no opinions of a political nature. The line between facts, analysis, and opinions can be blurry at times, but we will seek to better clarify this over time through your feedback and input.

The exception to these rules is on the topics of privacy, security, and freedom. These are necessarily political topics, where influencing public policy to defend these values, often requires engaging politically.

The operations of Proton have always reflected our neutrality. For example, recently we refused pressure to deplatform both Palestinian student groups and Zionist student groups, not because we necessarily agreed with their views, but because we believe more strongly in their right to have their own views.

It is also a legal guarantee under Swiss law, which explicitly prohibits us from assisting foreign governments or agencies, and allows us no discretion to show favoritism as Swiss law and Swiss courts have the final say.

The promise we make is that no matter your politics, you will always be welcome at Proton (subject of course to adherence to our terms and conditions). When it comes to defending your right to privacy, Proton will show no favoritism or bias, and will unconditionally defend it irrespective of the opinions you may hold.

This is because both Proton as a company, and Proton as a community, is highly diverse, with people that hold a wide range of opinions and perspectives. It’s important that we not lose sight of nuance. Agreeing/disagreeing with somebody on one point, rarely means you agree/disagree with them on every other point.

I would like to believe that as a community there is more that unites us than divides us, and that privacy and freedom are universal values that we can all agree upon. This continues to be the mission of the non-profit Proton Foundation, and we will strive to carry it out as neutrally as possible.

Going forward, I will be posting via u/andy1011000. Thank you for your feedback and inputs so far, and we look forward to continuing the conversation.

Original post: https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonMail/comments/1i2nz9v/on_politics_and_proton_a_message_from_andy/

Am I being paranoid when I notice that the binary at the end of his username translates to 88?

I personally don’t care. If their code changes, I’m out, but this shit is par for course. Capitalists are largely all capable of these decisions.

I’m currently on Tuta, because I can’t imagine Mail without a free tier. It’s run out of Germany(EU). Its 3€ a month for the normal tier, free takes away most features. Like Proton, you need to use their (OSS)-Client, for encryption reasons. It’s currently growing and I hope they don’t go crazy anytime soon.

I was looking at Posteo, but I don’t want my entire internet identity to be gone, if I ever can’t pay for it.

I’ve said it in another thread: German users should consider posteo as a green, safe, and affordable (1€/M) alternative. https://posteo.de/de

Remember when businesses stayed the fuck out of politics so they didn’t alienate their customers because they like money? Pepperidge Farms remembers.

https://soverin.com/

I know Google just donated to Trump’s inauguration, and also does all the stupid surveillance capitalism crap that Google does, but I just compared prices, and Google Workspace is a few dollars per month cheaper per user than Proton is, for my needs (family, custom domain names, etc)

We’ve been on Proton for a few years, and it’s fine, but we do also have Pixel Android phones, and not using Google services constantly feels like swimming upstream, plus all family members also still end up having to use Google services for work, anyway

It’s just not practical for me to de-Google, which is a shame, so I think I’ll be switching in a few months, unless pricing changes significantly :S

So literally one guy can change your entire network lifestyle?

Thank fuck I didn’t get that subscription, I was looking into getting a secure mail service. I engaged with people calling proton a CIA honeypot, investigating what was up with the rumors and I was about to jump into bed with proton.

Does DisRoot count ? It has a myriad of services that are all FOSS tools Has a “Hub-App” on Fdroid

Trump’s terrible politics aside:

1. the Republican party is pushing legislation which requires you to identify yourself to view porn

2. you can get around this with a VPN

3. proton is a VPN (nonprofit, but still).

I’ll be switching email providers when I can… I can’t remember when my subscription ends.

Abandoning the Proton subscription now. How stupid and irresponsible. In fact, are running away from all your principles.