Andy Yen’s values are incompatible with Proton’s mission. He advocates for poor security practices, supports fascists, and he verbally abuses his subordinates. As such, I can no longer in good conscience continue to financially support a company with such terrible leadership.
Unfortunately for me, my subscription just renewed last month on a multi year plan, but it does give me time to browse for and experiment with alternatives.
If you’re able, I encourage you to do the same and cite Andy Yen as the driving factor for your decision. We can’t let these tech bro fascists destroy what little semblance of privacy we have left.
When people show you who they are, listen.
There was a lot of copium flying around after the first red flag. I told people then, best case scenario is he’s a naive idiot to think a Trump cabinet pick is good for anyone other than Trump and his cronies. Worst case scenario he was trying to cosy up to an anti-democratic fascist.
Here we are with red flag
23. How many people are going to keep injecting that copium? Or are we finally listening to the man when he tries to show us who he is?Edit: I was unaware Proton got caught sponsoring Fascists on YouTube.
Emphasis: listen the first time.
And this is red flag number 3. Don’t forget about Proton sponsoring fascist Youtubers.
This isn’t a red flag, it’s a red banner parade, holy shit
You’re right, this is “why did you make me do that” level of warning.
I keep seeing folks mention that at least it is a good and secure service why should I leave? this should be why: via: https://www.404media.co/manifestos-fear-and-loser-thinking-inside-protons-ai-reckoning/
Andy Yen, the CEO of Proton, had a message for an employee in the company’s security Slack channel who urged the company to at least take a few days to pentest newly written code before pushing it live. “That’s bullshit and loser thinking. Of course it’s possible to be fast and secure,” Yen wrote in the channel at the end of August. “Stop thinking always of how to be slower, and focus more on how to be faster.”
I think they’re thinking of how to be securer dumbass. Which is probably smart considering everyone and their uncle is using AI to find vulnerabilities everywhere they can these days.
Does this count or is was this too aggressive? I’ve been known to be a little too angry when it comes to things like this.
On line 4 you opened quotation marks at ‘"re-interviewing’ but never closed them. For that reason, I am afraid it is a failure and must be re-written.
Ahh shit
If anything, it’s not aggressive enough! Everyone is so apathetic about everything compared to 20-30 years ago. Between the rise of Fascism and the cost of living, life has never been shitter yet no one seems to give a fuck. Why aren’t we rioting and revolting until shit stops sucking so god damn much!? Where is everyone’s passion!?
I’ve been on this planet for four decades. It used to not be this way! People used to care! Now it seems like all of society has become emotional zombies, and if you dare to step out of line and speak up about some injustice, you get labeled as “crashing out”. It’s such fucking bullshit! I’m not crashing out; I’m pissed the fuck off that the world is run by evil men and no one is doing anything about it!
Oh I like you
I agree. However, I think the best ways to fix Proton are to send endless complaints until Yen is removed or to establish better competition with stronger morals.
You’re mad as hell and you’re not going to take it anymore!
See? This is what I mean! People like you are part of the problem. Nobody takes this shit seriously. You just mock me when I get mad for a valid reason. I really hate how apathetic everyone is compared to 20-30 years ago. All you care about is being clever and funny enough to get upvotes while the world burns. It’s fucking pathetic.
It feels pretty balanced, to me. Nicely done.
I’m sure in a few days we’re going to hear about an all hands or internal memo where Andy apologizes for his “poor communication” and how hes “committed to being a better leader by being a better communicatortm”
But how he communicates - his tone, his word choice, his inflection - is just an indictment of his character. I honestly don’t give a fuck about the kind of person he is. Mostly because selfishly, I don’t have to.
The main issue is his ideas. The things he’s advocating for are fundamentally incompatible with a business whos only two value propositions are privacy and security.
A.I. is surveillance tech. Period. Every interaction, from keystroke to window focus, is meticulously categorized, logged, and sent back to to a handful of people like Andy Yen; Who then use it to draw conclusions that reaffirm their own cognitive biases. Its a doom-loop for C-level execs that suffer from main character syndrome. Because surely, the only reason the company is successful at all is because of the CEOs hard work and business acumen and any perceived failures come from those lazy engineers that only think about going slow. Like losers.
Im not the biggest fan of A.I. but theres a huge difference between asking it to help spot a difficult bug and using it to spy on your subordinates and determine their individual productivity rankings.
Like, that guy seriously can’t be in charge of the privacy company. We’re fucked.
EDIT: The thing is done.
Up until recently, I was willing to roll with Proton since the product itself is so good, but who knows if that will remain with the reckless charge into LLM integration? We’ve been watching Microsoft and Google enshittify their products at a rapid pace in order to force people to use their chatbots, so Proton’s likely up next.
I’ll spend part of my day researching alternatives, but for those of you out there doing the same, just keep in mind that your best bet for privacy is Non-US tech services, especially if the country in question doesn’t comply with the CLOUD Act.
I hate the fascists too.
I was looking into Windscribe as an alternative to Proton VPN. I’ve heard good things from others and the fact they threatened to pull out of Canada if meta data collecting legislation goes through is a good sign. They allow port forwarding as well I believe. I haven’t had time to look too closely yet though.
I’m still looking for email providers.
What did you move to?
Have not decided yet. Thankfully there are a ton of Non-US options.
Not many with port forwarding though.
I was looking at PIA: even though it’s USA-based they can not produce logs or any other type of info even if they get a subpoena, and they have port forwarding. Know anything about them?
I wouldn’t trust any company based or heavily operating in any country under fascistic leadership. Even if they’re doing their best to do things right, all it takes is a gag order alongside a subpoena or other “legal” demand, and they’re forbidden to tell you that they actually are required to maintain extensive logs.
Fair point, thanks for bringing it up
I have two things to add:
- You all rock. Thank you for all the migration suggestions, and tips.
- Fuck Andy Yen, of course.
If Proton is looking for a CEO that’s a) Not an ass b) Has a bunch of degrees and c) Will trust and support experts in the workplace because I don’t know enough about tech to act like a pretentious jerk…
I am looking for work.
You sound cool. I’d vote for you. The problem is that CEO positions are basically incompatible with those values. They are looking for someone who will happily lie to save face, grow and milk their customer base whilst gradually reducing quality and ignore anyone who tells them they are doing the wrong thing. Ideally this person will qualifications but the important qualification is an MBA (a badge of honour for absolutely vile people)
Thanks. I’m alright.
II went a different Under > Grad > Post Grad direction. Morality in tact; lacking a Super Yacht.
Personally, I will stick with Proton for now because they are the least fascist option I have found for my use case that suits my standards of security. As such, I would not consider myself able to cancel my subscription.
But I do deeply dislike their CEO, Andy Yen, and will send a complaint regarding his conduct and recommending his removal. He is a danger to his own company’s mission and to Proton’s user base.
I agree with everything you said in this post. I will add that:
- Proton’s insistance on using Electron applications for their “standalone” apps is a major issue as well.
- I recommend using LibreOffice instead of their rather trashy office suite.
- Lumo also needs to go. Ethical software cannot be developed with—or in support of—LLMs.
Yea it’s a swamp. Mullvad’s co-founder Daniel Berntsson is a fasch blockhead too.
I’m leaving protonvpn and thinking about a local VPN provider. Non profit, more expensive, only one country (the provider’s).
Which won’t fit most people’s needs, but for me it’s 99% of what I need.
Also I hope being a small organization the IPs won’t be blacklisted as much. Using a VPN full time in the last 2 years has become increasingly annoying.
My fallback was Mullvad, but yeah not really an option anymore. I’ve used Azire, much smaller but kinda similar, it worked ok. Could go back. I’m open to suggestions
God damn it. What’s wrong with Mullvad now? They were my fallback when my Proton plan runs out.
Mullvad’s other co-founder gave half a million dollars to a small populist party in Sweden. Not as egregious as some other examples, maybe, but up to ya to see what you think.
company’s security Slack channel urged Proton to at least take a few days to pentest newly written code before pushing it live. “That’s bullshit and loser thinking. Of course it’s possible to be fast and secure,” Yen wrote in the channel at the end of August. “Stop thinking always of how to be slower, and focus more on how to be faster.”
If that suits your standards for security, you might want to reconsider your standards for security :)
Yen should be fired. But what exists of their VPN codebase has survived some good audits so far, and I don’t have better options.
I also plan on sticking with Proton for now. It works well for me and I just migrated to it. I don’t have the time or energy for another migration right now. I also paid for a 2 year subscription, so I will use that time to eventually migrate to something different. I just need a break from that kinda work for a bit.
Have you tried AirVpn?
Did Andy Yen do something stupid again? I think I’m out of the loop.
EDIT: Just saw it. Ugh. Why can’t we just have nice things not run by jerks?
This time at least was just tech bro AI crap, not fascism crap. Progress??
Well, the way he seems to treat his workers…
Glad I chose Tuta instead of Proton
I’m on Infomaniak, the free tier is pretty good. Can hook up a custom domain and multiple domain aliases. And you get 50 email aliases.
sadly Tuta is also going down the AI track. Can anyone please recommend AI free email hosted outside the US. And please don’t recommend Faatmail, they too are using AI.
If they are making their Drive available for the public, their lineup starts to seriously compete with proton
I have less of an issue with his desire for more AI use at the company than I do for the whole “you are an idiot if you disagree with me” vibe and making everyone re-interview, seemingly for a job they already have and have been doing successfully up to this point. That sort of way of managing and doing business is just immature and childish.
Since my multi-year membership isn’t up for another year I am not planning to completely pull out yet. But the CEOs actions have put a stop to my willingness to further entrench myself in their offerings for now. When renewal time gets closer I will decide if I want to walk away completely or keep the mail and calendar services and pull back on the service plan I do end up renewing.
Never trusted Proton and was getting a lot of criticism whenever I mentioned it. Glad I trusted my instincts.
Yea, the amount of people that were sucking off proton when the mullvad shit hit the fan a couple months back was insane. Apparently proton’s brand of fascist leadership is fine. If you tried to point it out, you were brigaded with proton fans trying to “debunk” you.
Yea, the amount of people that were sucking off proton when the mullvad shit hit the fan a couple months back was insane
I did say it could be worse…and now it is worse. Hooray.
(This is just meant as dark humor.)
I had a feeling Proton was no good. I don’t like walled gardens.
They are good if you just use them for one of their services like VPN or their password manager. Because ya, you just end up trapped in their ecosystem instead of Big Tech.
I use IVPN and Bitwarden. I think using ndividual, specialised services is better overall.
That seems familiar…
Damn. It’s the Unix philosophy.
where do you migrate to? especially password manager and web storage?
I used to self host those, but nextcloud is a pain to keep updated, and password management is to important to do half assed.
edit: thanks for the suggestions. i’m gonna try out filen, and after that maybe keypass via filen
I said this before, will say it again: do not migrate to another subscription service.
People went through all the trouble to migrate from Google to Proton, then now they must migrate from Proton to whatever else, and the cycle will repeat again.
Subscription services, cloud software, they all strip you of agency and control. You don’t have direct access to the files, you don’t control the GUI, they are filled with proprietary formats, you are at their hands if they decide to change something you like, or pricing, or if they simply go nuts.
Keep your things in your computer. Need they synced? SyncThing will do that for you on any device imaginable.
Totally disagree. Self hosting a mail server is a world of pain, and not all subscription services are equal.
If you’re a masochist try self-hosting your own email service. Otherwise, shop around and find a service that is compatible with your threat model.
Nah let them find out. Leave proton and host their own mail server
I give it a month max
Hosting your own email is actually not that hard. It takes a fair amount of initial setup but if you do it right, it is very stable and functional. Email servers are very mature, and things like Postfix hardly need anything once set up. Getting a static IP is the hard part, but if you run it on a VPS with a good IP you can just hang onto it.
Filtering traffic via (e.g.) pfblocker feeds and spamassassin kills most spam, and it is awesome to just create and destroy your own mailboxes at will.
the problem is that your outgoing mail will be rejected every now end then. and its a major hassle to get unblocked, if you end up on some blocklist accidentally, which will happen occasionally over the years, even with no fault of your own.
Never had that issue except once - if you have an IP with a good reputation, a domain you haven’t been abusing, and all your DMARC/DKIM/SPF records set, you’re good. I had one short problem when I moved IPs and the new one was on Google’s list, everyone else was fine but Google. Instead of a new IP I emailed them and they took it off after a few weeks.
Sure, that might be true for email, but definitely not for the rest of the list that you conveniently ignored
On top of that, while shopping around dont look for one service doing it all
There is absolutely 0 reason for my email provider to also handle my passwords and photos, but many reasons the opposite way
I wasn’t ignoring anything or suggesting people should put all their eggs in one basket. Doing that would be ridiculous. Im assuming people would have the common sense not to do that.
The vast majority of people don’t know the difference between 2FA and passkeys, and you want them to manage their own self hosted solutions for everything? Yeah, keep repeating this I guess…
You might as well move out to the mountains and live off grid and pretend like that’s a real solution.
they replied to me, where i said “I used to self host those”, so it’s fair they suggested to selfhost some other service
That’s fair enough, I paid more attention to the “I keep saying this” part.
The vast majority of people don’t know the difference between 2FA and passkeys, and you want them to manage their own self hosted solutions for everything?
I didn’t mention self hosting nor do I think it’s necessary, unless you consider any service running in your desktop as “self hosting”.
People need/want/are used to active sync. For that one either needs a true self-hosted solution and/or a service that requires opening port(s) on the firewall/router, which most people either have no idea how to do or can’t due to ISP lockdown. Self-hosting can very quickly turn into a 2nd job and not everyone wants that. Or they have no required techical knowledge and no desire or time to learn. Plus, you still have to set up proper backups, even if the service is just running on your desktop. Unless, of course, you’re fine with a single point of failure.
On the topic of mail hosting, as someone who works in IT and self-hosts a whole stack of things: I do not ever want to self-host my email. Personally, I was considering just getting another domain for email and switching backend services as needed, but I liked the package Proton offered, so I chose that instead. I might need to rethink that domain option, but at this rate, soon no backend service will be safe from fascists and/or AI.
It is if you want to access it from anywhere on any device. I know SyncThing makes that a lot easier, but not exactly a set and forget kind of thing.
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Need they synced
yes. at least desktop <-> notebook <-> phone. Also I want friends to send me files and vice versa.
SyncThing
I tried that when before i migrated from selfhosted nextcloud to proton. it was pretty annoying to keep running. And I couldnt easily use it to send files to friends. That was some years ago though. maybe things changed idk.
Will SyncThing sync photos from an iPhone to a Linux desktop?
Yes, with Möbius Sync. You’ll have to copy the photos on the iPhone to a directory where Files can see them because of a security thing on Apple’s side, then connect Möbius to the Linux desktop running syncthing, and point Möbius to the photos location in Files to make the share.
You need subscriptions when you are getting an actual service. Cloud storage isn’t cheap, it will always cost something and offer unique redundancy you can’t get storing everything at home.
Things like cloud storage, VPNs and VPSs will always cost something.
That said you don’t necessarily need any of those.
Keep your things in your computer.
That advice is not helpful, though. Most of us used to store passwords on our computer: In our internet browsers. In plain text for anyone to grab. It was the dumbest idea ever and password managers became popular quickly in recent years as more people realized they need to protect their credentials somehow. So no, I genuinely do not believe in just storing passwords somewhere without any safety measures.
hat advice is not helpful, though. Most of us used to store passwords on our computer: In our internet browsers. In plain text for anyone to grab. So store them in a safe password manager in your computer.
See? You’re almost helpful. But I do have to ask you if that password manager has a name? You see, at this point most people would’ve already given up or just ask ChatGPT or Google AI about it, which in this case would be hypocrite but I digress.
See? You’re almost helpful. But I do have to ask you if that password manager has a name?
Sure, had you asked about a solution rather than trying to write some sort of gotcha. KeePassXC is a fully complete password manager, better than whatever subscription crap you’d rather push, and it stores everything into an encrypted local db file you control. Now guess what I’d recommend for syncing that file across other devices.
better than whatever subscription crap you’d rather push
Okay now you have to give me a source on that too.
Do you understand a source is? How can one provide a source to a subjective statement with a comparison that doesn’t name a particular service? Provide me a source that my favorite dish is yakisoba.
Depends on what you’re trying to defend against. If it’s against a burglar, full disk encryption is plenty, and you can go ahead and save those passwords in the browser and it doesn’t matter at all. If it’s against your own government you’re probably screwed no matter what you do, just a matter of how long it takes them to notice you. Eventually you’ll get tired of being in jail and will cough up what they want to know.
I’d definitely use some way of encryption and never store anything in a browser. Nearly nobody does keylogging anymore. Trojans just get your emails and passwords from the browser files and bounce. And you can never be sure if someone might sneak something in. Not as a regular user. Maybe one of the mods in that Minecraft modpack you play with friends suddenly has something in it and you won’t know until notifications are rolling in about attempts to log into your accounts. So I definitely would never save passwords in a browser in 2026. Now, I know there are looooots of password managers out there but you need one that can be trusted.
So yeah I want a handy tool that can quickly fill in my credentials but encrypts everything just well enough to protect me from automated kind of attacks and maybe a burglar too just to be sure. Lots to choose from but I loathe doing all the research to get something that is actually safe, user friendly, reliable and works on Arch. Everything comes with it’s up and downs.
- Filen.io encrypted notes and camera roll backup and cloud drive
- Tuta email
- Bitwarden password
- Aegis 2FA
- Windscribe VPN
- Addy.io email alias
- privacy.com credit card aliases
- Cryptpad productivity suite
Yeah, as for Windscribe and Tuta…
I was considering Windscribe, but Canada’s new Bill C-22 is making me reconsider.
https://windscribe.com/features/no-identifying-logs
Do you think the bill would bypass the no-logs privacy protections?
Thanks. I am gonna try out filen.
then ill try keypassxc with sync via filen. (Bitwarden seems to go a little downhill recently)
especially password manager
KeePassXC on desktop, KeePassDX on a phone. The KDBX files are encrypted, and unless you store other files inside of there, they are also pretty tiny (<1MB), so you can put it anywhere. Of course, in that case, don’t store cloud login details in that password database.
can i sync pw between desktop and phone automatically?
I’ve heard someone using syncthing for that, but I haven’t used it. I prefer everything to stay manual.
I use Syncthing for KeePass and Obsidian across Linux boxes and iOS. Works beautifully.
I was considering moving to it but was unsure if KeePassDX was as reliable for the phone. Kinda annoys me how many different apps there are and why KeePassXC doesn’t support one within.
I dont want to use Valutwarden and be dependent on Bitwarden in any way. Private equity will always enshitify and I’m not gonna wait to find out.
I don’t know yet, but I got 600+ days to figure it out 😬
Self hosting vaultwarden is pretty easy, standalone, and lightweight. It doesn’t need anything like next cloud and has an alpine container option
If your server is down you just can’t save new passwords but the local copy on your phone or computer is still up
Vaultwarden.
For webstorage Ive been using Tresorit. It belongs to the Swiss Post. I expect some solid neutrality from the company at least.
Apps and cli tools work well enough.
I had already made up my mind when he called trump’s administration something like “the people’s party”. I’ve been a client since forever, renewing every 2 years during sales, but not this time.
And now reading more about what kind of person he is, ultra capitalist boss talking about “loser” mentality… What a cunt. Reminds me of musk
company’s security Slack channel urged Proton to at least take a few days to pentest newly written code before pushing it live. “That’s bullshit and loser thinking. Of course it’s possible to be fast and secure,” Yen wrote in the channel at the end of August. “Stop thinking always of how to be slower, and focus more on how to be faster.” Yen added, “stop lovingly handcrafting all our code and use AI more.”
