this post was submitted on 26 Feb 2025
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Proton

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Empowering you to choose a better internet where privacy is the default. Protect yourself online with Proton Mail, Proton VPN, Proton Calendar, Proton Drive. Proton Pass and SimpleLogin.

Proton Mail is the world's largest secure email provider. Swiss, end-to-end encrypted, private, and free.

Proton VPN is the world’s only open-source, publicly audited, unlimited and free VPN. Swiss-based, no-ads, and no-logs.

Proton Calendar is the world's first end-to-end encrypted calendar that allows you to keep your life private.

Proton Drive is a free end-to-end encrypted cloud storage that allows you to securely backup and share your files. It's open source, publicly audited, and Swiss-based.

Proton Pass Proton Pass is a free and open-source password manager which brings a higher level of security with rigorous end-to-end encryption of all data (including usernames, URLs, notes, and more) and email alias support.

SimpleLogin lets you send and receive emails anonymously via easily-generated unique email aliases.

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Instead of leaving Xitter, they left Mastodon. Proton's trend is not inspiring confidence and this feels like another step backwards.

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[–] AlecSadler 38 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

Guess I made the right choice to leave Proton.

[–] [email protected] 18 points 23 hours ago (2 children)

Looks like Tuta’s getting my business now.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 22 hours ago (3 children)

Unfortunately, they lock you in. If they decide the AfD is their best friend, you can't get the emails out of their system because they don't have an email export function...

Anti Commercial-AI license

[–] [email protected] 5 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Email export is available in their desktop client

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 hours ago* (last edited 8 hours ago)

That explains why I never saw it 😐 I don't understand why they would only add it in the web client. It's just their website running in electron.

Anti Commercial-AI license

[–] [email protected] 4 points 14 hours ago

what's this "email export" function doing here then?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 22 hours ago (2 children)

Come on, do you really think going to a mail provider located in a country with an intelligence agreement with the US, and with a prominent far-right political party that got the most votes in the recent election could possibly be a bad idea?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago

The CDU is right-wing but not far-right and they won the election by a significant margin.

In Switzerland, the SVP has received the most votes every single election since 1999, is further right than the German CDU and shares nearly all positions with the AfD.

In particular, it wants to stop the influence of the justice system on politics and make every foreigner requesting citizenship dependent on receiving the popular vote in a referendum. Also, unlike the CDU, it opposes gay marriage.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 22 hours ago

I'm forward thinking like that 😉

Anti Commercial-AI license

[–] [email protected] 0 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

Do you believe a country that's part of the 14 Eyes, in which the far-right party just won the most votes in the recent election, is going to be a surefire supporter of your email privacy? Also, do you believe that Tuta would refuse a court order by the German government to turn over your data?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 21 hours ago (1 children)

Just curious, what would you recommend for an email provider, or more importantly a VPN for someone in the US? A few months ago I was thinking of switching from BTGuard to proton VPN. But after a bunch of stories came out about them recently, I am no longer so interested.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

There's a few different options for VPN.

  1. I would suggest Njalla. They offer a VPN, domain name registration, and VPS services. They're based in Costa Rica, and they have a bit of an infamous reputation for protecting quite a few piracy sites, so you don't have to worry about them caring if you're sailing the High Seas.
  2. Mullvad is another one that's recommended, but they apparently removed the option to port forward after they got heat for supporting piracy, from what I've heard from users. I don't know if that's true, so you would have to ask around.
  3. There's also cryptostorm, if you're REALLY paranoid. They offer a token based authentication system that doesn't use accounts, so they don't keep any information on their users. Instead, the token starts a timer as soon as you first use it. You can purchase tokens using cryptocurrency, so if you're into that, you could make it so they have no idea who you are, and there's no information they could provide to the authorities.
  4. Host your own. You can set up a VPN service pretty easily by renting a VPS and just installing the needed software. This has the added bonus of you probably not needing to worry about websites blocking you for being on a VPN. You could also very easily do something like set up fedi software such as Lemmy or Mastodon, or use it to host a blog or whatever.

I would not recommend Proton if you're going to be pirating. Proton uses a random port for forwarding each time you connect, to make it harder for people to pirate. I use it, but my download clients are Docker containers that use a script that automatically sets them to the right port each time Proton connects, so there's no issue. Otherwise, I would have to manually set the correct port every time I used the client. Proton is hosted in Switzerland, which is outside the US jurisdiction, so despite the recent uproar over them, they are the safest choice since it's illegal for them to provide private information to other governments, such as the US.

As for mail service, it's not difficult to find good ones, since mail is pretty simple, but keep in mind that there is no mail service that's going to refuse a court order for your data from their own government, so if you're planning on doing something illegal, or if you're going to be engaging in activism, then you need to find a provider that's outside the jurisdiction of your country or it's allies. For someone in the US, that might mean going to Switzerland or Russia for a provider. Any mail service will do fine, as you can easily encrypt your mail using PGP. There are some that would say that's not secure enough, and while they have a point that it's not the most secure, it's good enough for the vast majority of users. Most people aren't talking about anything that a government or hacker is going to want bad enough they spend the time decrypting your emails. And if they did want it that bad, it would be easier for a government to just raid your house and poke through your computer as they please.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 14 hours ago

njalla will hold your domain hostage if you used them to register it and if they decide they don't like you as a customer. I do not recommend using them at all, but if you do definitely have a backup plan in case they kill your domain and refuse to give it back to you.