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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[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml -1 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago) (1 children)

told yall so back when he reealed himself fascist.

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[–] JasonDJ@lemmy.zip 2 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

Fuck man my simplelogin sub just renewed, too.

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[–] jobbies@lemmy.zip 7 points 6 hours ago
[–] GreenKnight23@lemmy.world 8 points 6 hours ago (1 children)
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[–] LiveLM@lemmy.zip 6 points 6 hours ago

Also did this as a review for the app on Google Play

[–] strawberry_enjoyer42@lemmy.blahaj.zone 15 points 8 hours ago (1 children)

I had a feeling Proton was no good. I don't like walled gardens.

[–] superglue@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 6 hours ago

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.

[–] roofuskit@lemmy.world 67 points 11 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (2 children)

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 ~~2~~ 3. 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.

[–] laurelraven@lemmy.blahaj.zone 14 points 7 hours ago (1 children)

This isn't a red flag, it's a red banner parade, holy shit

[–] roofuskit@lemmy.world 4 points 6 hours ago

You're right, this is "why did you make me do that" level of warning.

[–] lemmyng@lemmy.world 22 points 10 hours ago

Emphasis: listen the first time.

And this is red flag number 3. Don't forget about Proton sponsoring fascist Youtubers.

[–] FlashMobOfOne@lemmy.world 30 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (7 children)

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.

[–] el_eh_chase@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 2 hours ago

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.

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[–] shifty@leminal.space 54 points 11 hours ago (2 children)
[–] laurelraven@lemmy.blahaj.zone 29 points 9 hours ago (2 children)

Holy hell... I was expecting it to be something AI related but Yen is straight up acting like a Musk wannabe. And I was seriously considering a switch to Proton but I think I'm going to bin that idea now

[–] superglue@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

It really does show a complete lack of understanding of his own userbase. We don't want new useless features fast. We want secure, private and reliable services.

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[–] joeschmoe@lemmy.world 3 points 6 hours ago

I am using Zoho Mail and at this point, I almost don't wanna know what they swept under the rug. I mean, I already have my own SMTP server, which I am using for all but 1 domain, for important stuff I have Zoho Mail. Now, if it really comes to it, I am at least ready to fully self host.

[–] tensor_nightly69@lemmy.world 70 points 13 hours ago (13 children)

I did this the first time he praised Trump's cabinet picks.

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[–] aSaabD00d@lemmy.today 82 points 13 hours ago (26 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.

[–] TrickDacy@lemmy.world 17 points 11 hours ago (4 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.

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[–] bort@sopuli.xyz 19 points 11 hours ago (9 children)

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.

[–] kadu@scribe.disroot.org 15 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) (9 children)

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.

[–] jobbies@lemmy.zip 21 points 8 hours ago (3 children)

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.

[–] 0x0@infosec.pub 0 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago) (1 children)

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

[–] jobbies@lemmy.zip 0 points 2 hours ago

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.

[–] kalpol@lemmy.ca 2 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago)

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.

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[–] alakey@piefed.social 11 points 9 hours ago (6 children)

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.

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[–] shifty@leminal.space 10 points 9 hours ago* (last edited 9 hours ago) (4 children)
  • 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
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