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.
I honestly thought the CEO is a fascist is old news? I’ve been wondering for awhile why Lemmy seems to have forgotten this, despite the fact that it was Lemmy that raised the issue about Andy.
On Lemmy first? Where would that be?
I become more and more weary about the absolutist moralizing. Yeah this CEO is nutty, but what I want from him is to protect the privacy of his customers. That is a precious good to us.
I especially mistrust the fuckai fanatics who want to burn down everything and everyone that has remotely to with AI no matter if it’s reasonable or unreasonable. Their tactics are despicable and their strategy leads to unproductive outcomes for all.
Soon there will be no big VPN and privacy companies left and it will be easy to mop up what is left without resistance.
He’s pushing slop code, ignoring complaints from Proton’s own security team.
Proton customer’s privacy is fucked. It may take some time, but they’re fucked.
I use them for email and I’m not moving anytime soon. Thankfully, 98% of my email, probably more like 99.9% if I’m being honest, is just worthless junk. I don’t care if they see it. I was self-hosting my email server for like eight years until Debian decided to just eviscerate itself one day on a system update for some reason. I gave up, moved to them, and I don’t have the time or the energy to move again.
I don’t use any of their other services. I have my own seafile for file storage. I have my own Wireguard on a VPS for VPN usage. Etc etc
I switched from Proton to Tuta a while ago, then realized they both suck for the same reason—walled garden.
Airvpn is a reliable option for torrenting in my experience.
Mailbox.org is a great option for mail, based in Germany. They have some things included other than mail, including a drive.
I just switched to Migadu. Super good plans and very good if you have multiple domains.
When I canceled Proton, I put the reason, “Your CEO is a lunatic.”
Name me a VPN that is comparable to Proton and I’ll move to that and Tutamail in a heartbeat.
IVPN, Windscribe VPN, Obscura VPN, Air VPN
If you’re leaving proton because of their AI use, Windscribe is a bad alternative. You can’t even directly reach their customer support anymore, you have to go through their AI and it decides if it’s worth getting a human involved. Yes, even for paying customers.
If you raise the issue on their subreddit, the CEO encourages you to resign.
Good to know about Windscribe, one less company to research, solely for the poor support. I’m leaning more towards IVPN anyways because they have some add-on features that I’m interested in.
I’m not a purist, I don’t expect everything to be AI free, that’s just unrealistic unfortunately. It’s a shame though because it’s built off of the theft of open source work. My issue is Andy being a fascist, being verbally abusive to his employees, sacrificing security for speed, all for the sake of saving a few dollars.
Thank you. Checking these out.
They don’t have as many access points.
Really!!! I switched to proton mail for jobs. Fuck!!!
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.
“Every interaction”? Starting when…?
Talk is cheap, things won’t change while Andy is at the helm.
This is what I wanted to see. A blanket bullshit “excuse” apologizing for nothing and trying to make this about AI instead of him being an asshole.
This proves they are not willing to replace him even for these serious offenses. I will be cancelling my subsription today.
I didn’t give them money, so unfortunately I can’t give less than nothing.
You’ve done all you can.
Except, if you’re ever in their area, you could try to get a tour and steal someone’s pens.
Paper clips, Scotch tape, post-it notes are also great targets. just saying.
Oh and don’t forget sharpies!
Sooo… what VPNs do y’all like
iVPN is supposed to be good.
AirVPN
Mullvad. Cheapest one I know, works perfect, is simple and apparently so far there are no controversies.
had to move on from mullvad for port forwarding, but it was solid.
Glad I chose Tuta instead of Proton
If they are making their Drive available for the public, their lineup starts to seriously compete with 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.
I had 2 AI gen companies (someone insisted I gen images and I just folded under pressure, idk why they want AI) switch from a 5 day test plan, to suddenly taking a good total of 30$ by forcing me on a monthly plan.
Be aware of those scams.
That is enough to put me in the red, I don’t know how it is legal.
One of them is OpenAI itself.
Why even use that shit in the first place. But yeah, spread the word. Fuck them.
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.
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.
