> so here's the actual quote in context (unlike the leakers, I have permission to post this image)
Worth keeping in mind that his post was reviewed and vetted by Proton management
eli 6 hours ago [-]
At minimum
cromka 11 hours ago [-]
As someone commented:
> The only reason I'm with Proton is security. If I wanted new features, and AI in my email I'd just stay with Gmail. They objectively do it better.
Same here and I'm looking to move at the end of my subscription.
crmd 9 hours ago [-]
I cannot relate to being emotionally invested in my employer to the extent that “feeling the need to break my silence” crosses my mind. Siemens is a great company but am I weird for turning my phone off at 4 o’clock.
halJordan 9 hours ago [-]
Absolutely. And the bigger problem is that if you can't work for a dirty company, you can't work (replace work with whatever other activity). It's much more productive to take a "one dirty hand can wash another" perspective instead of this "an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind" mentality we see so much of.
georgemcbay 9 hours ago [-]
> I cannot relate to being emotionally invested in my employer to the extent that “feeling the need to break my silence” crosses my mind.
It seems likely to me that this is also true for the Proton employees. (Though FWIW, I've had a few employers that I would absolutely proactively defend, but they are not surprisingly the same set of employers I don't think would ever need such a defense, and none of them were large companies).
I haven't been paying attention to any of this drama because I don't use Proton mail and thus don't care, but one of the screenshots on the linked reddit post that they seem to believe is exonerating the company has what appears to be the CEO of the company (I assume "Andy" is Andy Yen based on the name and profile picture) telling an employee to get on reddit with their personal account and "set the record straight".
After seeing that, I don't know how anyone is supposed to assume that anything any Proton employee says in public is anything other than PR spin originating directly from the CEO, so I don't know what kind of value any of us is supposed to get from reading any such testimony.
red_candle_wax 8 hours ago [-]
> but am I weird for turning my phone off at 4 o’clock.
This is why we need to import foreign workers en masse.
whoanoway 7 hours ago [-]
[dead]
iammjm 8 hours ago [-]
This whole post looks like PR damage control and not an employee “breaking silence”. Also there’s not a thing about the CEO calling his employees losers to try to make them output more code by using AI more. Also looks like it was heavily bot-upvoted, both the thread and the initial positive comments. The whole thing makes me trust proton even less
hecturchi 10 hours ago [-]
ProtonMail mangles emails in a way that they are impossible to download as they were delivered to their servers, meaning MIME signatures cannot be verified, because the emails are altered.
Would you use a secure email service that breaks signature verification on received emails? There were a lot of smaller and bigger things along the years, but realizing I could not verify authenticity of signed emails for apparently no reason pushed me over threshold to leave them.
cowlevel 11 hours ago [-]
Reddit is soon to be login walled, but the summary of this post is that Proton's not that bad because random people said it wasn't. No actual information is provided.
12_throw_away 10 hours ago [-]
This is a PR-style "refutation" that uses a lot of words to make it seem like it has addressed some issue. I'll just quote one of the reddit comments that is also exactly my reaction:
if OP isn't some PR account (or andy's alt account) I will eat my hat. none of OP's responses deal with the actual complaints.
PS: cliches like "breaking my silence" / "speaking my truth" etc should result in an automatic 20-point deduction to all bayesian priors for authenticity and trustworthiness
tadfisher 10 hours ago [-]
It looks like they are attacking the "leaker" instead of addressing the leaked issues? They clearly don't refute that Andy actually did tell employees to stop writing code and to ship faster with AI, and they don't refute the "loser" comment. It looks like damage control through shit-stirring and a poor attempt at a Gish gallop.
erelong 8 hours ago [-]
Yeah I'd definitely want to hear the other side of the story before jumping to conclusions on that "biased attack piece" that made its rounds (it's very possible Proton is indeed in the wrong and can be fairly criticized, but I've seen enough conflicts like this where I want to hear what the other side says before rushing to judgment, especially about a tech company which was otherwise liked by a lot on HN it seems)
ivandenysov 9 hours ago [-]
Any alternatives folks can recommend? I myself am considering switching from protonmail to fastmail.
I’m looking for something hassle-free and “not google”.
commandersaki 6 hours ago [-]
Been using fastmail since 2013 and before that hosting my own for about 15 years. I feel fastmail does a lot of things right, for example one near and dear to my heart is proper alias handling in the webmail interface. I think my only complaint is that they rolled out IMAP compatible 'notes/memo' for emails, but you can't use it unless you use the grouped conversation thingy which I don't like.
Also I get the vibe that the company treats their employees properly and not like disposable trash.
Though I'd be curious how they're using AI.
Volundr 8 hours ago [-]
Fastmail is great, my one downside being that it charges per-account (to be clear, you can have unlimited aliases on that account), so if you want multiple accounts, e.x. for homelab stuff, your paying full price for each.
I also use purelymail for the above reason, and while it's barebones I've been quite happy with it.
mfro 7 hours ago [-]
Tuta is the obvious choice if you don’t mind using their client.
pixelatedindex 8 hours ago [-]
I switched years back and have only wondered why I didn’t do it sooner.
What was wrong with self-hosted? I self-host using KeepassXC. Yes you have to set up syncing across devices more or less yourself, but it’s just one file per password database, and an LLM can help automate that if you need the help. I can’t imagine switching to some cloud service for something so critical, especially now.
terminalbraid 8 hours ago [-]
keepassxc
bitbasher 10 hours ago [-]
I'm sure this person was told to post on Reddit using their personal account (as the original 404 article showed).
You can't trust anything ... anyone ... says at Proton. That leak shattered any faith anyone has in the company.
It's clear the company places profit above customers. The CEO calls their own employees losers. The CEO thinks writing code by hand is like using a fax machine in 2026.
Fuck Andy, and fuck Proton.
Havoc 9 hours ago [-]
>some of the criticism hurts me because it described a company I don't recognize
Haven't really done much research, but this resonates - the vibes on these recent news reports felt very off.
It felt engineered frankly, which makes me quite suspicious in a world where everyone seems to be pushing for encryption backdoors. The one email provider famous for strong encryption suddenly gets a broad PR across entire media landscape?
...zero evidence but the whole thing just feels off AF
npc99 12 hours ago [-]
if true, seems like a kiss-ass who can't be trusted
anramon 10 hours ago [-]
I'd think there are a LOT of interest behind closed door wanting to shut down projects like proton.
cowlevel 10 hours ago [-]
Proton collaborates with spy agencies. They want it to have more of the users who aren't using Gmail.
Rendered at 05:57:51 GMT+0000 (Coordinated Universal Time) with Vercel.
Worth keeping in mind that his post was reviewed and vetted by Proton management
> The only reason I'm with Proton is security. If I wanted new features, and AI in my email I'd just stay with Gmail. They objectively do it better.
Same here and I'm looking to move at the end of my subscription.
It seems likely to me that this is also true for the Proton employees. (Though FWIW, I've had a few employers that I would absolutely proactively defend, but they are not surprisingly the same set of employers I don't think would ever need such a defense, and none of them were large companies).
I haven't been paying attention to any of this drama because I don't use Proton mail and thus don't care, but one of the screenshots on the linked reddit post that they seem to believe is exonerating the company has what appears to be the CEO of the company (I assume "Andy" is Andy Yen based on the name and profile picture) telling an employee to get on reddit with their personal account and "set the record straight".
After seeing that, I don't know how anyone is supposed to assume that anything any Proton employee says in public is anything other than PR spin originating directly from the CEO, so I don't know what kind of value any of us is supposed to get from reading any such testimony.
This is why we need to import foreign workers en masse.
Old issue, affects also web UI not only bridge:
https://web.archive.org/web/20240221213617/https://github.co...
Would you use a secure email service that breaks signature verification on received emails? There were a lot of smaller and bigger things along the years, but realizing I could not verify authenticity of signed emails for apparently no reason pushed me over threshold to leave them.
I’m looking for something hassle-free and “not google”.
Also I get the vibe that the company treats their employees properly and not like disposable trash.
Though I'd be curious how they're using AI.
I also use purelymail for the above reason, and while it's barebones I've been quite happy with it.
Felt a touch refreshing.
Those who don't catch up will lose.
https://2fas.com/pass/
You can't trust anything ... anyone ... says at Proton. That leak shattered any faith anyone has in the company.
It's clear the company places profit above customers. The CEO calls their own employees losers. The CEO thinks writing code by hand is like using a fax machine in 2026.
Fuck Andy, and fuck Proton.
Haven't really done much research, but this resonates - the vibes on these recent news reports felt very off.
It felt engineered frankly, which makes me quite suspicious in a world where everyone seems to be pushing for encryption backdoors. The one email provider famous for strong encryption suddenly gets a broad PR across entire media landscape?
...zero evidence but the whole thing just feels off AF