cross-posted from: https://sh.itjust.works/post/69659577
Protonmail.uservoice.com is supposedly “The Voice of the Proton Community”. Well last week I was tracking a post that was rising rapidly to the top-most voted in the “general ideas” category. And this morning when I went to check if it was at the top yet, it’s just gone without a trace. No sign that it was ever there.
This is unfortunate and is a really bad PR move. It feels too big tech.
Even if Andy Yen were actually right about everything, and it’s his company, it’s just more bad PR.
I think Andy Yen is probably a logic and math genius who needs to hire an emotional intelligence coach or a PR advisor or something. High IQ does not always mean high emotional intelligence and it’s better to accept when you don’t have both.
Alternatively, perhaps some evil government has forced Yen to install a universal back door, there’s an order saying he can’t disclose this, and so he’s acting strange to try to warn users the only way he can. If I’m right about this, I hope he makes the background of proton.me bright green. He can always deny reading this if he does that.
Yup. Searching for “Andy Yen” brings up many declined posts
“Thank you for taking the time to share this. UserVoice is intended for feature requests about Proton’s products, so this idea is being closed.”
Okay, so where will they let us share ideas like this, other than our pocket book?
Open a support ticket
There were at least 3 of them, when I went on there to voice my discontent last week. So they are cleaning house to pretend everything is OK.
Proton, the Fascist Security Company
I’ve caught so much vitriol on this site for the past year or two for calling out this company as being run by a shitbag.
All I have to say is I fuckin’ told you so.
I stopped trusting them a while back after a user proved his account was deleted “because he used his email to violate another site’s terms of service”. Dudes you provide email, you are not monitoring everyone’s messages for the purpose of enforcing random third party ToS.
They do that because as a small provider the alternative is getting wholesale banned by the third party site which affects all their customers. I encourage you to read blog posts from the people that try to run small email services that aren’t Google and Microsoft, it’s nearly impossible because website administrators are extremely quick to ban and impossible to contact. Then your customers leave when mail doesn’t work.
I have had that happen before with Proton and wondered to myself: How are they assessing this? Whether they were right or not, it required a lot of analysis that in theory wasn’t supposed to happen. I’m not saying anti-fraud systems are inherently bad, but how can you have an anti-fraud detection system in a privacy email service without reading emails or using javascript to try to measure a user’s machine information?
Thank you for this
I’ll happily admit that I was one of those who dismissed earlier slip-ups as “misinterpreted” and even egged on by a smear campaign. Because of Proton’s former reputation.
I should have known better. I saw the pattern and chose to look the other way. But then this came out and quickly proved me wrong. Very wrong.
After nearly two weeks of radio silence and a complete lack of action from the Proton Foundation board, I called it quits yesterday. Cancelled my subscription, moved my custom domains to another provider, and sent an email to the Proton Foundation explaining exactly why I decided to leave and why his name is Andy.
I hope something comes of this, but my hopes are not high. I don’t trust Proton anymore.
Also something important to note: they can read email subjects. That’s something I was not aware of until very recently. Which begs the question, what else can they see that they aren’t telling us?
Big yup.
Proton fan boys are fanaticaly deluded.
Of course they did. What did you think would happen?
What did you think would happen?
I imagine that’s one reason they were tracking it.
I don’t understand responses like yours. This was an obvious outcome so you would prefer they didn’t confirm that it actually happened?
I have cancelled the automatic renewal of ProtonPass and I have a few months to see if I’ll switch to KeePassXC/KeePassium.
For now, Proton gives me no reason to stay except the fact that they are a swiss company (my country).
Nationalism is a disease, do not fall for it.
Yeah but my goal is to avoid foreign companies because digital sovereinty is important, just like buying local food which hasn’t travelled 2000km to arrive in your plate.
As a US citizen I liked Proton in part because it’s not a US company. I do not trust my government in matters of privacy.
Then open source is the only way. There is no sovereignty when you rely on the state, no matter which one.
Just checked, my votes and comments have disappeared… Not even like listed as deleted or something, no traces at all.
I think this tells us all we need to know about proton unfortunately.
Yup. I’m in the renovation month. I guess I’ll move to monthly payments for an extra month while i sort the addresses out, and then fully cancel.
Same here. Everything’s moved except for addresses I’ll give a month or two I might have forgotten and VPN. What services did you go with?
I’m testing Tuta, but I’m not loving their app so far. I might just go mailbox.org. Since it uses standard IMAP/POP etc, you can use any client you like instead. Not like I’m really gaining a lot by cyphering my email when they can easily read it from any other unencrypted destination the moment its sent or received.
mailbox.org was at the top of my list but ended up pulling the trigger on Thundermail. Time will tell if I made the right call lol
I started fiddling with zohomail.
I don’t know much about the service, but it’s free and not Google/Yahoo.
Though at this point I’d take Yahoo over Gmail
Zoho is an Indian corpo and their products have a rather crappy user experience. Only some features are free and it will keep pestering you to buy subscription.
Looks like they now going heavily into AI too.
eww, I’d really like to stop getting AI summaries of the things I am trying to read.
its like getting spoilers to something about 10 seconds before it happens.
Haven’t heard of that one. Gonna look into it, having alternatives is always good
I’m currently in the same process. Almost half of my accounts already moved from their mail addresses. This time I was using my own domain for all of them, to make further switches way easier.
I went for:
-TuTa (for mail + calendar)
-KeePassDX (with Syncthing) for password manager
-Filen.io for cloud storage (already had something there)
-iVPN for VPN (not switched yet), alternative would be TORvpn which is still in beta though (Mullvad is out, since their CEO supports a fascist party in Sweden)
I also went custom domains, KeePassXC/DX, and Filen. For mail I’m using Thundermail (been reading Tuta might be going the same route as Proton), calendar I’m gonna try and self host with Nextcloud and Thundermail/Fossify calendar. Still looking for a VPN. I need port forwarding, and it looks like the only comparable option is AirVPN, but it’s based in Italy. I’ve learned since the US went fascist and I stopped supporting American to just do my best and not let perfect be the enemy of good. I can accept having to stay with just Proton VPN for the time being. Using one service is better than seven.
I pay a VPN sub to proton, can someone explain what was discussed in the removed post and why?
their CEO is a dumbass that pushes AI usage above everything else, especially security. And is treating the employees like shit
https://www.404media.co/manifestos-fear-and-loser-thinking-inside-protons-ai-reckoning/
Pathologically online leftists tried to make a difference by spamming the company’s support site with a message that demands that they replace their CEO.
If you’re a similar kind of leftist, you may want to join the fun. If not, feel free to ignore the whole circus.
Another one for the block list. Welcome to the inauspicious Hall of Jackasses
Ih come on… Not only is this a jerk move, the Streisand Effect has been know for decades…
Leave the typo, I wanna see if new filler word can catch on!
Where can I find a tldr of what’s going on with the CEO? I’ve only read bits and pieces and feel that I’m missing, the big picture.
Okay, wow thanks. I’ll have to check on when my subscription renews.
Here’s some background on the whole thing.
https://www.pcmag.com/news/security-over-privacy-russia-blocks-protonmail
They have successfully pissed off Russia which is why Russia weaponized a bunch of useful idiots in the west in an attempt to one-up them.
Looks like anything calling for Andy Yen to go has disappeared. Wonder how far they are going to go with this?
The post they removed https://web.archive.org/web/20261031004517/https://protonmail.uservoice.com/forums/945460-general-ideas/suggestions/51867423-andy-yen-steps-aside
Edit: Wayback seems to be crapping its lederhosen so I took a screengrab of the post and posted it below.
There is sort of a new one up calling them out. We ll see how long it stays up. https://protonmail.uservoice.com/forums/945460-general-ideas/suggestions/51894582-andy-should-step-down
Can’t vote, it’s been closed.
Voted again, 13 voted now
Cool thanks! It’s at 18 now as of 1:45 am Central time
Just tried, it’s closed. 06:42 central time
There were dozens of posts removed.
Ya I saw a number of them that were closed or outright deleted, but the link I posted I think was the main one with most of the votes. (At least of the ones I saw.)
I’m getting “This snapshot cannot be displayed due to an internal error.”. Removed this too?
Hmmm… just got that too, but reloaded a few times and it showed up again. I guess the archive is having some issues, but I took a snap of the comment when it came back up
It had over 2.500 votes last I checed.
Supposedly it hit over 3000 but I can’t find a pic of it at that point.
If they want to win back trust, deleting things like this really is not the way.
Yup, that bothers me almost more than stuffing AI into everything. How are you supposed to trust a company that is purposely hiding things from you.
Much appreciated, cos i’m still getting the same error. Might be a geo block or something
Could be. All nine of that page’s snapshots on Wayback Machine return with that error.
Fuck. my plan renews in a month, I guess I’m going to start looking elsewhere.
I replied to a survey thing of proton’s a few weeks ago, and as I put it I’m happy to pay people for a good service. I will not pay a computer for slop.
Can you switch to monthly so you have a bit more time to move?
I just downgraded to the free plan and under feedback I left this
I, like many others will not pay for Ai slop. I am happy to pay PEOPLE for (what was) a good service. I will not pay a fucking computer for sloppy code just because “Andy” is a lazy asshole that wants more money without having to pay his people for their hard work and experience. If he decides to fuck off with his AI girlfriend and go live in a data center (preferably one within striking distance of Ukraine), I’ll consider returning as a paying customer. This issue was brought up repeatedly in the forums only to be hidden and deleted, which proves to me that your CEO doesn’t care about his employees or customers or even having a good product, only about money. Maybe we are losers Andy, but at least we’re not you.
Did the same just now. I liked your message but wanted to change the last line. Also posting what I put in the reason for canceling:
Reason: Bugs Or Quality Issue
Explanation: Poor business practices, antithetical to the stated goals of this company and why I subscribed in the first place. Sad to see further enshitification here from greedy psychotic loser corporate idiots.
Comment: I, like many others will not pay for LLM slop. I am happy to pay PEOPLE for (what was) a good service. I will not pay a fucking computer for sloppy and decoherent code just because “Andy” is a lazy asshole that wants more money without having to pay his people for their hard work and experience. If he decides to fuck off with his AI girlfriend and go live in a data center (preferably one within striking distance of Ukraine), I’ll consider returning as a paying customer. This issue was brought up repeatedly in the forums only to be hidden and deleted, which proves to me that your CEO doesn’t care about his employees or customers or even having a good product, only about money. That is the mark of a true loser and one who will also be losing my subscription.
Lol I wonder if anyone will ever even read them. It’ll prob just either be some poor intern or get ignored anyway but I think it had to be said.
At this point they might as well replace Andy with Ai. At least then someone can unplug the cunt when he starts acting dumb.
Absolutely lol I’m so sick of AI psychosis. Cheers, friend!
I might have to, just to buy myself some time.
Mine renews December as well. I panicked about the time crunch so I swapped to monthly and planned to go for a few months to transfer everything over. I’m using the credit I have for December and probably gonna roll the dice on any emails associated with Proton that I missed and cancel. Already moved everything out except VPN. Fuck 'em.
I’ve only got 35 pages of emails in my inbox to delete before I’ve cleared out my Proton mailbox. I already cancelled my subscription and cleared out my Proton Drive. Next thing will be to change my email from my SimpleLogin alias, since they’re “Powered by Proton”.
Thankfully I don’t have a lot of stuff to move, but it still pisses me off… been using them since 2019 but I refuse to pay for some AI coded shit just because of some delusional asshole that doesn’t want to pay actual people for a decent product.
