this post was submitted on 30 Oct 2026
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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.

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[–] aSaabD00d@lemmy.today 81 points 11 hours ago (4 children)

Yeah, that's very unfortunate. I just recently moved everything over to proton and I'll be spending today looking for yet another alternative.

[–] Bristlecone@lemmy.world 1 points 8 minutes ago

Fuck! Me too....

[–] TrickDacy@lemmy.world 14 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

After decades on Gmail I finally stopped procrastinating and moved almost everything to proton over the last week. I had made a Lemmy post asking for service recommendations. Almost everyone said proton except two jerks who railed against it but had no interest in explaining and they made no alternative recommendation, just railed against proton.

Reading this article right now sucks.

[–] aSaabD00d@lemmy.today 12 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago) (1 children)

Yeah, I don't get why some people don't elaborate. Just before I deleted tiktok and reddit, Proton and Tuta were the 2 everyone was recommending and I went with proton bc of the easy move feature which didn't actually work for me for whatever reason so I ended up moving the most important accounts first and then all the ones that mattered one by one. I recall seeing some people do the same as you claimed; railing against proton without explanation but the looks of it and ease of use were what got me. Tuta doesn't have that "easy move" feature either but it might be my go to. I thought all of their tiers were paid tiers but it looks like they have a free tier with twice as much space as proton.

[–] TrickDacy@lemmy.world 7 points 8 hours ago

Yeah, not only do people who do that not elaborate, they often insult you for even considering something they're judgy about. Proton in this case. That was how both commenters approached it. Telling me I'm an idiot if I go with the recommendation that actually existed. They could've at least said what they use. One (non rude) person did mention tuta but I figured the bigger company would be more reliable to stick around 😭

[–] polakkenak@feddit.dk 49 points 11 hours ago (3 children)

Please do share what alternative(s) you end up with and what you like about the providers. I had a look at mailbox, infomaniak and tuta for mail and airvpn as a replacement. I think I'l be switching to mailbox.

[–] lemmyng@lemmy.world 4 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (1 children)

For email, have you considered ⁨Mailfence⁩, Posteo.de, ⁨Fastmail⁩ ~~or ⁨Disroot⁩~~?

[–] sayitghoul@lemmy.world 2 points 3 hours ago

Disroot is currently not operational due to a server failure

[–] blunket@lemmy.ml 1 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

I've been happy with infomaniak. If you host a domain name with them, you get a free email too. I switched from Godaddy, gmail, and protonmail earlier this year all to infomaniak.

I'm also happy with AirVPN, but a lot more sites block it than other VPNs, so be ready to deal with that.

[–] sayitghoul@lemmy.world 1 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

But Infomaniak is an entirely different product to Protonmail.

[–] blunket@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 hours ago

They offer email hosting and kSuite. It's an alternative and more.

[–] aSaabD00d@lemmy.today 10 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

I'm going to check them (mailbox) out first once I wake up a bit more. I already know I can't afford tuta on top of everything else I pay for currently. Budget is about stretched to the max but I will update with which one I go with.

[–] CouchKiller789@lemmy.today 2 points 1 hour ago (1 children)
[–] aSaabD00d@lemmy.today 2 points 30 minutes ago (1 children)

After briefly skimming their privacy policy and features, gmx doesn't seem too bad. I'll do a little more research tomorrow and its on the list.

[–] CouchKiller789@lemmy.today 2 points 25 minutes ago* (last edited 25 minutes ago)

Definitely decent being based in Germany. Generous storage, no AI, solid interface, some contacts storage and syncing, too... Lot to like. Not a shill for it, but it's just very simple and good.

[–] greasewizard@piefed.social 33 points 11 hours ago (4 children)

i finally deleted my ~20 year google account last week, finally migrating every single account that used that old email over to proton. and now, this

[–] warm@kbin.earth 28 points 10 hours ago (3 children)

It's still astronomically better than Google. People seem to be forgetting this.

[–] Rothe@piefed.social 19 points 9 hours ago

True for now. But it seems headed down a path where it will be competing with Google in shittiness some time in the not so far off future (and I use Proton as well).

[–] IDew@lemmy.zip 2 points 9 hours ago

This. The Proton suite is very convenient in my use case, I wouldn't like to switch to all saperate services

[–] sanpo@sopuli.xyz -2 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (2 children)

It's not better.

It's fine, at best, and free alternatives are fine too.

The only thing Proton has is their integrity and focus on privacy... Or was supposed to, anyway.

[–] warm@kbin.earth 17 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

It is. The direction they are going is shit, but only in isolation, if you compare it to Google, they still look like angels. Perhaps you dont understand what Google is doing.

[–] sanpo@sopuli.xyz 2 points 6 hours ago

No, you're the one that refuses to see where Proton is heading with a CEO like that.

The only reason I'm paying for Proton is their supposed values, but clearly under his leadership they're completely opposite to what they claim publicly.

If Proton is going to use my money to push out slop, I might as well use any other email provider that at least won't lie to my face about it.

[–] glimse@lemmy.world 6 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

FUUUUCCCK. SAME.

And a custom domain so there was no automatic transferring. Had to do the obnoxious mbox import rigamarole for two accounts (mine and my tech-illiterate dad) and talk two friends through the same.

Whatever. I'm sticking with it for a couple years, I don't have it in me to do it again.

[–] Rai@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 4 hours ago

You’re good—it’s still one of the best options out there right now. Even if it gets shittier, unfortunately, it’s still a way better option than almost any others out there. Which is depressing. But don’t beat yourself up for staying.

[–] aSaabD00d@lemmy.today 3 points 10 hours ago

I have yet to delete my gmail account but I soon will make a new one to run on my phone until I can get a new phone with grapheneos or some other OS that uses microg instead. I feel you on that 20 year account thing though. I think I made mine about 20 years ago as well. It was my very first "grown up" email after my silly kid named ones like Skaterpunkxxxxx@aol and such.

[–] artyom@piefed.social 0 points 7 hours ago

I deleted mine several years ago but my employer just added Google dependencies to their app so I can't install through Aurora anymore and have to go and buy a new phone and a SIM card, and make a new Google account...