A lot of push against Proton on here lately. Makes me suspicious.
this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2025
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Privacy
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Valid criticism is suspicious?
OP said they are blocking tor users. I say the error message might just be legit and someone is spamming username existence checks through Tor.
Not saying it's some sort of conspiracy theory, but it do be kinda sus. People are just quick to hate Proton over anything. It's like bias confirmation. They seem to be justifying their hatred, or looking for reasons to do so. I mean, "leaving Switzerland"? Really?! I thought that was because Switzerland was considering a privacy-unfriendly law. That's bad, now?
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I previously commented I would write the support, now I actually read the docs first and found out why:
If you want to create an account over tor you can, just not via the clearnet URL, probably due to rate limiting by IP adress. However if you use their Onion Link as specified in this article by their support (https://proton.me/support/tor-setup) it works just fine (as far as I just tested). So great! Because using .onion services is far more secure than accessing clearnet over Tor anyway.
Here the url, verify it with the link in the support article tho: https://protonmailrmez3lotccipshtkleegetolb73fuirgj7r4o4vfu7ozyd.onion/
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Have you actually asked proton support about this issue, if so what have they said?
It seems like you got frustrated and instead of trying to get help you decided to complain on lemmy.
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Just tested it, same here. Clearnet works but tor not. I will contact support since part of the reason I like to pay for unlimited is to subsidize free, anonymous accounts.
Edit: here is my other comment:
I previously commented I would write the support, now I actually read the docs first and found out why:
If you want to create an account over tor you can, just not via the clearnet URL, probably due to rate limiting by IP adress. However if you use their Onion Link as specified in this article by their support (https://proton.me/support/tor-setup) it works just fine (as far as I just tested). So great! Because using .onion services is far more secure than accessing clearnet over Tor anyway.
Here the url, verify it with the link in the support article tho: https://protonmailrmez3lotccipshtkleegetolb73fuirgj7r4o4vfu7ozyd.onion/
Okay, if they will responder faster than in one month you could publish the respond here if you will like to do it. But I am surr they will say it is a "technical error". Every privacy leak now is described as technical error - apple, google, meta - all use this therm to justify their intentional action
Is it that maybe someone on your exit node is trying to enumerate valid accounts?
I have tried a new circuite before publish this post - without success. but considering that I use their onion adress they could nit see my tor exit node as far as I now, anyway.
Good point, but also who is enumerating the accounts may have been using many circuits.
Yeah, I've had to go through 20 or 30 circuits once to make Google's captcha allow me through. It just failed with the message "Unusual traffic from your computer network". Someone was probably running a botnet, as this only happens rarely. If Google wanted to block Tor, they'd have done so by now anyway.
He used the onion address, which doesn't go through an exit node like regular darknet-to-clearnet traffic.
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While on dread recently I stumbled across this old post regarding issues with their onion adresses https://encryp.ch/blog/disturbing-facts-about-protonmail/
When a user makes a new account with Protonmail on TOR they are re-directed from Protonmail’s “.onion” to “.com” address. This breaks your secure encrypted connection to their onion address, enabling your identification. There are absolutely no technical reasons for this feature. In fact, the only other websites that operate like this are suspected NSA/CIA Honeypots.
Goddamn. We live in a nightmare. There is someone fucking us all every goddamn second of the day.
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Does anybody know valid alternatives to proton mail, I think they have been enshitified
Tuta ? But only for mail AFAIK.
There is a relatively small number of shared Tor exit node IP addresses.
So it’s more likely using Tor will trigger “too many attempts for IP” throttling for any service with bot protection.
It’s nothing against Tor, but is an expected side-affect of attempting to be anonymous by sharing the same IP address with many people.
Mailbox.org (option if you want custom domain) or Posteo.de
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Change your route, people using tor with the same exit as you are doing too many username checks.
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A while back I tried to create an account with vpn and got notice that said something about how I couldn’t use it to validate other accounts without validating that account because other companies had threatened to label them as untrustworthy or spam.
yup, i keep saying it.
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