this post was submitted on 02 Nov 2026
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143
I am Very Disappointed By Proton (proton.me)
submitted 7 hours ago* (last edited 7 hours ago) by cosmos_853@lemmy.ml to c/privacy@lemmy.ml
49 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

  • I didn't expected this kind of thing to show up today.

  • I don't want to use a vibecode slop that isnt tested by real humans.

  • I just want a secure and privacy respecting email not ai slop.

  • Good Bye Proton I am Not Happy With You

Any Suggestion ?

  • I want drive and calender support
  • Made by humans not slop machine.
  • FOSS
  • May Be a Linux Client Support
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[–] Snowcano@startrek.website 11 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

This is not the death of expertise. The LLM is fast. You are slow, but you carry with you a lifetime of experience, judgment calls, and understanding.

Listen up Bart, you dumb fuck. If you willingly cede all this creation to the LLM then the last generation of fucking people with expertise are the ones working now! Go down this road and It dies with them.

Because who’s going to bother to learn code when it’s all brain dead chodes like you running the show and telling everyone to hand over the reins…. Oh but of course we’re still the one at fault if something goes wrong because we’re the manager and “Not only are you responsible for the work getting done, you also now own how it gets done.”

Holy fucking Christ, I don’t know if I ever ever gone 180 on an organization as quickly as I have on this one over the past week.

[–] kibiz0r@midwest.social 27 points 3 hours ago* (last edited 3 hours ago)

This is not about chasing trends — we are being left behind here, and it is an existential threat to the success of the mission itself.

It’s wild to see how everyone successfully clocked crypto as a scam but then immediately applied the same “NGMI” FOMO mindset to the next scam.

Don’t get me wrong. LLMs are useful for several important software engineering functions: prototyping, iterating on implementations, collecting supplementary data, lining up disjoint interfaces… but it makes a terrible foundation, and it can’t refactor beyond a 101 level.

The only reason the industry is able to pretend that synthetic text extrusion is a sustainable replacement for granular human discernment is because most of our economy is just about building a marketable scam and leaving someone else to hold the bag. If company decision-makers knew they might face any consequences at all for steering the ship into a tar pit, this mass psychosis would not be possible.

Edit:

Also, this…

LLMs are not here to help you write better code faster. Your job is to help the LLM write better code faster.

…is precisely Cory Doctorow’s point about reverse centaurs, and the difference between labor and capital when it comes to deploying new tools. I don’t think they even realize they’re putting the quiet part in bold.

[–] lemmyvore@feddit.nl 13 points 3 hours ago (2 children)

Have a look at mailbox.org, it's a German provider of email/drive/calendar/office/conferencing. They've been around for a few decades and they use Linux and FOSS.

https://mailbox.org/en/about-us/

May Be a Linux Client Support

You can use any email client you want because they use standard IMAP and SMTP, and their non-mail services are used in the browser.

[–] ctry21@sh.itjust.works 2 points 1 hour ago

I went with mailbox in the end and it's been pretty good so far. It's not the main reason I chose them but it is so much easier to read out "mailbox dot org" over the phone to someone than having to spell out the name of some of the other privacy-focused providers.

[–] neo2478@sh.itjust.works 2 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

I am still finalizing my choices for my migration, and I am heavily leaning towards them for my email.

One question I still have is if I have a custom domain in my account, can I share it with other users in a family plan, and can they use it to create aliases in their own?

I also looked at Tuta, but I feel they are going to go the way of Proton (just a feeling in the way they communicate.) It also rubbed me the wrong way that I could not find a contact email on their site, and instead they send you to Reddit.

[–] lemmyvore@feddit.nl 3 points 1 hour ago (1 children)

if I have a custom domain in my account, can I share it with other users in a family plan, and can they use it to create aliases in their own?

I think so but I only have an individual account with Mailbox so I've never tried this. See their help pages (under Resources), they have extensive documentation. Another option is to use the contact form on their site to ask.

I know they have this thing called "family accounts" that takes individual accounts and makes them part of a "family" so they can share stuff like files and calendars. I think it means they can also partake in custom domains. And of course each account can make their own aliases.

Keep in mind each account needs to be paid separately though. Not sure it's possible to have multiple mailboxes with different logins and self-managed aliases under the same account.

You can make free accounts and add them to a family but free accounts have some limitations, particularly about aliases.

[–] neo2478@sh.itjust.works 1 points 57 minutes ago

Thanks for the info. I scoured through the docs but could not find a definitive answer. Justbsent them the question over support as suggested.

[–] Decq@lemmy.world 13 points 4 hours ago (2 children)

I don't understand why this is a surprise to people? Didn't they openly support Trump? So the CEO is clearly lacking in the upstairs department. That was enough for me to never deal with them ever.

[–] TrickDacy@lemmy.world 7 points 2 hours ago

I don't understand why this is a surprise to people?

You really are surprised that not everyone knows the same things and also interprets them exactly as you do?

[–] pmk@piefed.ca 15 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 4 hours ago) (2 children)

He supported Gail Slater, who has a track record of trying to break up big-tech monopolies. She was appointed by Trump. And he pointed out that the Democrats could have tried too, but when they were in power they didn't. Of course, when she actually tried to break up big-tech she was stopped, got into a fight with Pam Bondi, and quit her job in protest.

[–] XLE@piefed.social 3 points 2 hours ago

No, Andy Yen supported the entire Republican party, including praising JD Vance in particular.

And he used the official Proton Team account across multiple platforms to relay this information to people.

[–] BrilliantBadger@piefed.ca 7 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

He also posted that repbulicans stand for the little guy. Andy showed who he is, and everyone should beleive him. I did, and left promptly after that. Proton will continue to be a dangerous place until Andy is gone.

[–] pmk@piefed.ca 8 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

"10 years ago, Republicans were the party of big business and Dems stood for the little guys. But today the tables have completely turned. People forget that the current antitrust actions against Big Tech were started under the first Trump admin."

In retrospect, it was obvious that Trump would side with Big Tech in the end. And the quote is a bit kiss-ass-y. It's also noting that the Dems didn't do as much as the Republicans. That's critique against the Dems, and well earned. Personally, I think we all have a moral obligation to point out that Trump in total has made the world worse in so many ways, but I also don't think Andy is a fascist and all those things people write about him.

[–] BrilliantBadger@piefed.ca 1 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

We can agree to disagree on Andy. Whilst I obviously didn't know specfically how Andy would end up crapping all over his company and customers, the reality is I did and its why I left. Simply because the old adage has never been proven wrong in my experience

"When they show you who they are, believe them."

Let's watch this play out over time, this all gets far worse the longer Andy is around. Andy will continue to reveal his chameleon self, we've only seen the surface.

[–] pmk@piefed.ca 1 points 27 minutes ago

I also would like to see a CEO who is more on board with fighting big tech. I dislike that reddit is their go-to forum, that the linux drive client has taken forever, etc. Andy seems more interested in the business side and less the stated values of the foundation. I don't know how much of that is necessary vs detrimental

[–] SapphironZA@sh.itjust.works 47 points 5 hours ago (4 children)

Attacking their AI policy is the wrong approach.

Attack their BS leadership. They are the problem.

AI can used responsibly to help make things better, but never under leadership like theirs.

[–] limer@lemmy.ml 3 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

Organizations rot from the head, and there is often no way to change a company after 4 layers of management is hired by the bad leadership.

[–] XLE@piefed.social 7 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

Curious how AI policies like this tend to be red flags for BS leadership. In this case, the two are absolutely inseparable.

Maybe it "can" be used ethically, like Theranos' blood machine "can" detect every disease.

[–] kibiz0r@midwest.social 9 points 3 hours ago

I can attack both.

[–] cosmos_853@lemmy.ml 8 points 5 hours ago

Agree Its all because of their bad Leadership

[–] MrSulu@lemmy.ml 4 points 3 hours ago

Yes, the old faithful promises that this is not the end for you, but that you are moving on to something better.

Sounds very much like a eulogy for the deceased.

[–] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 33 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Idgaf about them using AI per se. It is out of the bag, and it ain't going back in unless everyone throws a revolution to kill the people in charge and destroy every bit of knowledge on how to create it again. That just isn't happening. And it is possible for good humans to use the technology to craft good programming.

What I do gaf about is the people in charge of proton being assholes, treatingboth their employees and customers like shit, and not even trying to hide their contempt.

[–] emmy5482@quokk.au 11 points 4 hours ago (1 children)

I guess there's already dogshit all over the floor. It's out of the dog so it's not going back in. Guess we leave it how it is.

[–] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 2 points 3 hours ago (4 children)

Poor analogy.

You can clean up shit. But you can't cram it back in the dog's ass. Well, hypothetically, but you'll be covered in shit and have a very upset dog.

What you can't clean up is knowledge, ideas. Where a technology to exists, and minds know if it, it can be recreated. Doesn't matter how hard you try, it's part of human comprehension. Ai in one form of another has been a goal for decades. You can't erase that.

All we could do is rebuild it better. Less abusive, more regulations and controls, better planning. And I'm all for that, but it isn't as simple as your bad analogy makes it seem

Honestly? That kind of shitty thinking is as much a problem as badly instituted ai is. You were so busy trying to pull a gotcha that you couldn't be bothered to talk to a fellow human being with respect and decency. You know, a very similar way of thinking that makes Sam Altman and Andy Yen such horrible stewards of otherwise good software.

[–] XLE@piefed.social 0 points 45 minutes ago (1 children)

You weren't talking about fixing anything. You gave a defeatist, false dichotomy of "accept this thing" or "total revolution".

The reason people chose Proton was with the expectation it could simply choose not to shove slop into its products , which is an option you omit.

The Orphan Crushing Machine isn't bad because it's helmed by Altman. It's an inherently bad thing, and it attracts bad people to it like flies.

[–] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 1 points 14 minutes ago

Look, I'm not sure why you're responding here, unless you're an alt of the person I was responding to. There's some degree of connection, but it's a different main thrust.

Yeah, capitalism is the problem. But when it comes to ai, Altman is the poster boy. When it comes to Proton, Yen is literally the person running the company. It's perfectly okay you use them as specific examples.

As far as it being a false dichotomy, I disagree. It's the very fact of the "orphan crushing machine" that makes me believe the only way to get a do over is the forcible removal of the people in charge of said machine. Oligarchy don't give a fuck, and they're the ones in charge. It's not like a shift in dominant political party will be a magic wand either; Europe, the us, the uk, and canada are all under the thumb of oligarchs in their dominant parties (with varying degrees of boots on necks) Hell, I think Australia is too, but I'm less familiar with their main parties.

There's really nowhere in the world right now that isn't crushed by capitalist assholes. They rule by money, even when not in office themselves. That doesn't disappear by changing from Republicans to Democrats, or Tories to Labor, or whatever biggest parties are in power (usually entrenched in power because of that money). So I don't see any realistic scenario that results in corporate AI being eliminated that doesn't also eliminate the assholes doing the crushing.

Also, I'm not really obligated to cram every single facet of things into one offhand comment. I didn't talk about fixing things because you can't fix corporate AI. You have to start over, though from what I've been told some of the open source models would mean not having to start entirely from scratch. Since what I was talking about was that, why waste my time? I mean, beyond tangential conversations like this being very slightly less likely. And I say tangential because the comment you responded to was from someone else, and the context was shifted slightly because of their shitty and smug analogy.

For real, people seem to expect things to fit some predetermined format, like comment sections have to be essays or debates to be graded. I made an offhand comment that summed things up in a way that matched my level of interest. You didn't like, that, and that's okay. But I don't owe anyone jack shit. I don't have to talk about fixing things, nobody does.

[–] mad_lentil@lemmy.ca 8 points 3 hours ago

Yeah like imagine free and open language models trained from the ground up on data sources from people who willingly want to contribute to it, rather than ripped from everywhere and anywhere by companies desperate to make themselves valuable before the VC cash runs out.

[–] Paradoxeuh@jlai.lu 3 points 2 hours ago

You can clean up shit. But you can't cram it back in the dog's ass. Well, hypothetically, but you'll be covered in shit and have a very upset dog.

Best thing I've read this year, thank you.

[–] emmy5482@quokk.au 1 points 2 hours ago (1 children)

All we could do is rebuild it better. Less abusive, more regulations and controls, better planning. And I'm all for that, but it isn't as simple as your bad analogy makes it seem

Nothing in human history has ever proved this to be true.

We are in late stage capitalism. What you propose is as likely as cramming shit back into the dog.

Thankyou for coming to my ted talk.

[–] southsamurai@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 hour ago

If you go back to my initial comment, you may note that it contains the only path to that ending I see as realistic.

[–] sayitghoul@lemmy.world 22 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

Wow, Proton keeps disappointing... Time to leave for me as well! I'm looking at Posteo as I'm worried Tuta will turn into the next Proton. Not only that, I'm sick of being stuck with the apps made by the providers, I'll use Thunderbird thank you!

[–] MangoPenguin@piefed.social 2 points 2 hours ago

Yes getting away from locked-in products is the best option. Buy a domain name + standard IMAP provider means you can very easily switch to another email provider if needed.

[–] TorJansen@sh.itjust.works 5 points 7 hours ago (6 children)

Tutanoa

[–] moldy_rice@piefed.keyboardvagabond.com 3 points 1 hour ago

Tuta-nope-a*

There's no PGP support, so it kinda defeats the whole purpose of having encrypted mail (unless you literally only want to mail other people on tuta)

[–] MangoPenguin@piefed.social 4 points 2 hours ago

Wouldn't recommend since they don't support IMAP/SMTP, making moving to another provider impossible or at least extremely difficult in the future.

They do at least support custom domain names, which is good as that should be a requirement for any email provider, otherwise moving in the future is even more difficult.

[–] bloubz@lemmygrad.ml 4 points 4 hours ago

Also going full AI

[–] olof@lemmy.ml 9 points 6 hours ago

Tutanota*

[–] Tundra@sh.itjust.works 4 points 6 hours ago (1 children)

drive isnt here yet, but on the way

[–] myrmidex@belgae.social 5 points 5 hours ago

I like filen.io for a drive alternative