Proton CEO supports business policies of republicans
(lemmy.ca)
from Live_Let_Live@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world on 16 Jan 18:04
https://lemmy.world/post/24353202
from Live_Let_Live@lemmy.world to technology@lemmy.world on 16 Jan 18:04
https://lemmy.world/post/24353202
cross-posted from: lemmy.ca/post/37218429
When called out on it, they then doubled down on this dogshit take: archive.ph/quYyb
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The initial post could just be chalked up to naivety if we’re feeling charitable, but using the official proton accounts for this stuff is an extremely bad move. Then half-assedly retracting it without acknowledging he posted it, doubling down, and making every classic PR mistake. Aside from potential capitulation to a regime that clearly values power more than human rights, there’s significant risk from a person with such bad judgement having apparently no safeguards or second opinions when he’s posting. What other decisions is he unilaterally making for proton that aren’t publicly known?
He’s another mini Elon wannabe, obviously. They’re coming out of the woodwork lately.
I hope people are taking notes so these scum don’t get to skate later when it falls down around their ears.
This is basically my thinking and why I will be shifting away from their products as well
Believing in any way that Republicans are helping out the little guy or against big business is so ridiculous I have to believe this is willful ignorance to cover up the fact that a lot more people will need VPNs with all the porn bans and other privacy nightmares the right will pass the next few years.
Cancelled my years long subscription today. Any company that bows down to tRump should be avoided. Vote with your wallet.
Who did you switch to? I’m looking to leave proton too with all this.
Also curious. I left Mullvad because they stopped supporting port forwarding. Proton seemed like the best second option privacy/feature/price wise at the time. IVPN was touted highly around that time, but it appears they have also phased out port forwarding
I believe AirVPN is the last respected VPN that allows port forwarding.
I have also come across Windscribe, which seems reasonably well respected. Sadly, they make you pay extra for a static IP and port forwarding.
AirVPN has a lot of people complaining about connection speed.
Options are drying up 😢
Mullvad, Tuta, Bitwarden.
Have you used these 3 before (or currently)?
I heard they’re good and I have just recently created accounts for them.
I’ve been using Tuta since 2016, on paid plan since 2019.
Outside a single longer outage early on I had nothing but good experience with their service. Granted, I only care about email and calendar (the only two products they have at the moment) but both work without any issues.
And honestly, I probably wouldn’t use a VPN from them unless it was included for no extra charge. I prefer to keep my services separated.
That’s my stance as well. Having to switch everything every time something goes wrong is too much of a pain.
I’ve used bitwarden and mulvad for years. Recommend both without hesitation.
I use that exact stack. Bitwarden for 3 years Mullvad and Tuta for one. Can’t speak to their ethics or anything I wouldn’t know. But the quality of service has been great for me at least
Tuta mail is garbage. Used it for over a year and the search was terrible event when using the exact text from the mail. They also deleted my account despite me actively using it.
Look for a different mail service.
I use Tuta, and while the search kinda sucks, it’s good enough, you just need to make sure you have all mail downloaded that’s being searched (last 30 days IIRC).
I picked them because they have similar privacy as Proton with lower prices and features I like (i.e. 3 domain names).
for mail, Mailbox.org (originally I said posteo but I was unable to get the payment to go through. idk why). For drive, calendar, contacts, passwords, I’m working on setting up nextcloud but it’s not ready yet. I still have a few months before I’m downgraded. for VPN, I’m still looking for alternatives.
I did the same! No more proton unlimited! It is better to use products from multiple companies instead of one.
More bandwidth for the rest of us!
It seems obvious to me now.
Many US states are now requiring age verification for adult sites. VPN companies will benefit if that requirement expands. The Republican party’s pearl-clutching politics are what can make that happen.
Reminds me of the time the CEO of grindr said he opposed gay marriage.
There’s a lot of benefits that come with gay sex being something you get socially ostracized or legally prosecuted for.
You get to have all the gay sex you want with the reassuring knowledge that it will be kept completely secret by your partners.
An attempt at humor?
Is what i am saying untrue? If gay sex is something you’ll get in trouble for, then your secrecy is assured. It’s only when LGBTQ acceptance became a thing that all those gay republicans got exposed.
Same logic can be applied to sexual attitudes towards women in the 18th, 19th, and early 20th. If having sex out of wedlock destroys that woman’s reputation, then I can have sex with all the women I want and they have to keep it a secret or they’ll be forced into prostitution.
The post was deleted and they are in cleanup mode. Best thing we can do is post this everywhere and demand a public apology and the firing of Andy Yen.
Otherwise end your subscriptions!
What is the Streisand effect?
We can demand his firing but unfortunately he’s one of three founders, he’s unlikely to be fired. But I hope it’s a wakeup call to them that they should have a policy of keeping their mouth shut on politics, including all board members.
Thank you for using a less charged title in the cross-post. It’s concerning stuff coming from the Proton CEO and Andy Yen using the official account to amplify it. However, I disagreed with it being characterized as “Full MAGA”.
So we’re keeping Lina Kahn, right? RIGHT?
Nope, she's gonna be gone soon.
im definitely gonna miss her.
Wait until Big Tech does something and then Proton will cry about it. They'll be in for a shocking surprise that Big Tech does what Big Tech did because Trump and Republicunts allowed it to happen.
Anyone notice Trump clearly didn’t write that, because it’s clearly written? Remember how bugfuck he was getting over the last year and how we rarely see that anymore?
Just how bugfuck is he now and who’s controlling him?
Grrrreat… Can anyone please suggest an alternative? I’ve switched to Proton trying to de-Google…
For Email: Posteo, Tutanota, Disroot
For VPN: Mullvad, AirVPN, IVPN
For password manager: Keypassxc, Bitwarden
Thank you kindly!
What do you suggest for cloud storage?
I don’t have a lot of experience with cloud storage, but Filen.io appears to have a good reputation. They offer a lifetime license as well in 100gb chunks (under starter packs), which is interesting, especially if your storage size needs aren’t great.
I suggest Storj Tardigrade. It’s client-side encrypted by default (assuming you’re not using S3 gateway).
pCloud has 500tb lifetime for $200
Can Tuta use a gateway similar to Hydroxide for Proton? I like my traditional email clients and have a machine I trust to encrypt/decrypt.
I believe they only allow you to use the official Tuta email client.
Or support one of the last non-chromium browsers remaining by getting MozillaVPN/Relay and password manager
Thx mr frog
Ribbit :)
Damnit, same thing here.
I’ve been looking at fastmail and tuta
Thank you for the recs, will add them to the list! Maybe it’s time to go from one to many…
I switched to PurelyMail and haven’t had any problems. Just mail with no marketing or other bullshit
Excellent, the more options the better! Thank you!
The most interesting part of this take is that JD Vance is very much in the big tech friends circle with Thiel and Musk. But I’m sure they can run some antitrust against their enemies at Google or whatever
Cancelled my subscription today. I will be finding an alternative.
I had just signed up a few nights ago to try it out before subscribing, it’s an easy cancel at this point and is being done momentarily.
I had it for a few months. Luckily it was easy to swap out this early on.
Time to find a new option.
an alternative for email or vpn? I’m also in the market for a new email now :/
RiseUp.net for both. Disroot.org for email (And other services).
Do you happen to have an invite code for rise up? Seems I need one to register
Im happy with mailbox.org so far!
Email!
VPN I am sticking with Mullvad.
This is bewildering. What a shame.
I had minor gripes with some of their services but Proton has broadly been pretty great in my eyes.
Some CEOs baffle me. Surely, even if they are massive fans of one US political party over the other, they’d have the sense to keep it to themselves to prevent it becoming a thing that causes a fallout with existing/potential customers? But no. They’re too fucking narcissistic for that, and they think everyone wants to hear their opinions and follow them.
Most of the companies/ceos doing this over the past few weeks do know better. That’s why they didnt say anything earlier. The reason they would be publicly taking this stance now is that they either expect to be rewarded by the incoming administration, or they hope to avoid punitive retaliation.
That makes it seem like Andy here just doubled down, but it’s way worse than that. The company released an official statement doubling down on Yen’s stance.
This comment right here absolutely nails it.
The Republicans have installed a Supreme Court that guts antitrust at every step, and Andy gives them a pass. Anyone that’s that bloody oblivious of how the GOP have spent 25 years trying to remove consumer protections at every turn shouldn’t be managing a popsicle stand, let alone an email service so many rely on to be private.
What a redundant muffin.
Wow, I was considering switching to that from Mailfence but maybe not. Maybe I will look at the other options or sit still to see what happens over the next 30 days.
Canceled my sub last night, ported everything to Tuta today. No issues this far.
Super disappointing, but is what it is and I’ll move on.
How tall is Andy Yen?
It’s a shame I have a year subscription to them. I’ll be cancelling and moving the second it runs outs.
Cancel it now so you dont forget it while it autorenews.
Already did!
Support business policies of a group that removes oversight, accountability, responsibility, and makes it so he keeps more money.
What do US domestic politics have to do with a small Swiss company? Is there an indication that Proton would be sanctioned otherwise?
openbiz.io/…/15-things-to-know-about-u-s-taxes-fo…
So yeah, doing business in the US, getting paid by US people, subjects them to some US regulations. Hence, they are affected by US domestic policy and politics.
Can americans not use credit processors that reside in another country? This sounds like a non issue for proton as long as they dont market to americans.
You expect everyone to do that?
Do what? Enter their credit card info into a webform? Sure, why not?
No, go out of their way to sign up with foreign payment agencies.
Surely that would be on the service, not the customer, no? They would charge a foreign transaction fee, which is annoying, but it can also be avoided by using pretty much any travel card.
Did you look at the payment options before you commented? They are conventional, like credit cards, paypal, and even Bitcoin. You are expecting people to expend the effort on Proton’s behalf to help Proton avoid US taxes? I’m not sure what you’re arguing at this point. Proton makes money in the US via conventional means, therefore is then subject to whatever US laws and policies are applicable. Not sure what the big deal is.
Yes, they do, I’m saying they could avoid US payment processors if they wanted to w/o really any change for users other than maybe changing the credit card they use to avoid the foreign transaction fee. That was the whole thrust of this comment chain.
I think Tuta does that since I’m charged in euros and subject to foreign transaction fees, so I doubt they pay US taxes. It’s no big deal, I just use a credit card w/ 0% FTF and I’m good to go.
This is the point of this thread that you are arguing against by making up scenarios for the customer or Proton to avoid US entanglements. The point of this thread is that yes, Proton is subject to US law regarding money made in the US. End of story.
If you want to create hypotheticals where Proton excludes US customers or coulda done this and coulda done that, whatever man. You can make up whatever you want to be right. The question has been answered.
what the fuck??? literally HOW did he reach that conclusion
Anyone got a email site that won’t shut down or turn fascist?
I moved to mailbox.org due to this, very happy so far. They seem happy being just a mail provider with no aspiration for world domination on the privacy market, and their site layouts shows that with no upsells or similiar.
FastMail has been around a long time and they’re very good. MXRoute is good too and lets you have unlimited email addresses at an unlimited number of domains (they only limit it based on storage space)
He hasn’t turned fascist though
Me being too lazy and putting off switching to Proton has paid off!
I cancelled my newly made subscription because of this and asked for the money back, currently theyre trying to stall that by all means.
I went with mailbox.org instead for much cheaper, the setup was really simple, but ive heard great things of other providers as well.
Oh mailbox seems cool. I’m personally using mxroute.com to host my domain’s email but to be fully honest, I’m still stuck on the Gmail for most things.
I mostly use my person domain email for things like a contact address on my résumé.
I want to switch fully to my personal domain email but mxroute’s web app(s) kind of suck 😅
Posteo is another good one, Disroot as well
People here need to read about how fascism in Germany and Italy were good for business but terrible for the workers. About how the moneyed interests played a role in the rise of fascism in both as a defense mechanism against unions and socialism.
You mean to tell me that CEOs are currently cuddling up with the president? A VPN company CEO at that? I am flabbergasted. Shocked even.
Business as usual. How are people still shocked when this occurs?
Republicans haven’t stood for the little guy for at least….40 years?
I really don’t understand this compulsion people have to publicly announce their political support.
Like, this guy could have just said nothing, literally just not do anything, and he’d be better off.
That’s not how sucking up to fascists works though.
I was looking to use ProtonVPN but since that story, i would prefer an alternative.
What do you guys use for VPN (i think i saw Mullvad in the replies ?)
I use PIA VPN.
I thought they were wonderful. Until they got rid of port forwarding, which is the only reason why I was paying them: as a torrenting VPN.
If you don’t need that feature, Mullvad is still great…they take privacy/security seriously! That’s why they got rid of the feature I used haha.
They’ve also been put to the test and passed IMO:
theverge.com/…/mullvad-vpn-raid-sweden-police
.
Is what he’s saying true? That the antitrust laws he’s referring to were started by trump?
Bro, he’s got Musk as a cabinet member and was put into the spotlight by Murdoch and Thiel, and his Supreme Court gives out handies to any CEO that asks.
If he did anti-trust anything it was either by accident, for revenge against a specific company, or intendes to be used as it was in the 1890’s:
To bust unions.
www.britannica.com/event/Sherman-Antitrust-Act