Thanks for the heads up. Haven't really used Proton, but I have a few accounts in case of... But now they will be deleted.
this post was submitted on 08 Jun 2026
46 points (87.1% liked)
Privacy
48961 readers
192 users here now
A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.
Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
Some Rules
- Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
- Don't promote proprietary software
- Try to keep things on topic
- If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
- Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
- Be nice :)
Related communities
much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)
founded 6 years ago
MODERATORS
They also sponsor a far-right influencer in Brazil.
This guy is literally a grandson of a dictator of the military dictatorship. He was also one of the articulators of the 2023 coup attempt, pressing the military to join
very cool proton
I'm from Brazil and I hadn't seen this yet. It's disgusting! Dude, Proton never again! They are financing the most rotten things in Brazil! Very sad and revolting!
Three things on Proton:
-
Proton mail has been in a rampage with sponsor YouTube channels and, in my opinion, that is a mistake. I would have kept it an organic growth, but that is me... a nobody, and Proton has become far more successful than no other email provider in the privacy world.
-
Considering even that, Proton is not vetting who is sponsoring. This is a fiasco. For instance they try to sponsor the channel "The hated one" that never takes any sponsors and even constantly criticizes channels that does it. That is a mayor blunder for Proton, there is no scrutiny at all with their marketing deployment. By the way, we learned that that youtubers get a juicy amount by Proton in these sponsorships (I think was $70 per subscription).
-
Proton, for years, has been aiming for the masses, not the most serious in privacy (for instance, androidś Proton email still uses Google push services). That is not bad per se, I still recommend Proton to many. But those with a more ideological approach to privacy or those requiring top notch on it, should be aiming for other service providers.
Using Proton always seemed like a bad idea. People come to Proton in order to deGoogle or de-big-tech but then lock themselves into their ecosystem, defeating the entire purpose.
Not mention how scummy their PR-Team, their CEO and their Business Practices are.
So many Proton sponsered content creators spread lies about how Proton Mail is supposedly E2E encrypted or how Proton VPN is supposedly a privacy and security tool.
Time and time again they have lied about how much data they have and how much they have disclosed to investigating agencies.
The only way I could ever undestand someone using Proton Mail would be to use their service but behind your own domain, such that migrating away stays easy.
I did this myself in 2023, coming from google. And have now dropped their Eco system for all disconnected privacy friendly options like mailbox.org and bitwarden for example.
But I also use my own domain and a ton of alias email addresses so wasn't locked to my proton email address in any meaningful way
I was afraid Proton would eventually go down the far right route... and it seems like my fears came true
their CEO publicly announced support for trump; anyone saying otherwise about proton's proclivities is coping too hard -- especially the ones in this community.
you can say this about literally every tech company these days.
Which is why we support Open Source like Firefox, Thunderbird, GIMP, NextCloud, LibreOffice and a whole lot more. :-)
With euro office coming up, there was some musing that libre office has Russian roots, does that change the equation any?
I'd cut nextcloud from that list
very true; capitalists will always capital.
I have not seen evidence of Proton "going the far right route" yet. They are just sponsoring channels that ever mention privacy and far right ones frequently does that too. You can blame proton for no scrutinize, but not of siding with the right or the left. Proton is just focusing in mayor growth and nothing else, for better or for worse.
Archived BlueSky Post of them: https://archive.ph/2yWGz
I can't see much of a problem with this, yeah Trump actually did started something useful for all the wrong reasons and the guy praised that, the company sponsoring far right weirdos is waaaay more problematic to be honest.
ceo praised trump then deleted the tweet. it should have been the first warning sign he is a fascist.
Such companies "sponsor" everyone. It's cheaper than normal advertisements.
You've got some companies advertising with streamers/youtubers that do some checks on who they advertise with. They use specialised communication agencies, it's their job.
Yes, and then you have companies like Proton Mail.
Companies that neither do their job nor get someone to do it for them, and end up financing fascists, even though they should be especially careful given their CEO past declarations ?
Is there an article about this?
https://reddit.com/comments/1u052qp there's this thread on Reddit at least
https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonMail/comments/1u05xs2/comment/oqgihvq/
Here's some of protons response
And for us who refuses to open links to Big Tech, even reddit. Is there any other trusted sources for this?
Thanks, yeah seems it was a mistake. The CEO / founder is I believe a libertarian, but at least he believes in something, like privacy.
man, is it just time for me to quit technology altogether?
Why, because the most popularized "out of the box" solution failed you? Tuta provides the same services anyways, without trying to get another email and phone number out of you. It just uses recovery keys.
They both kind of limit you, though, as they don't play nicely (well not at all actually, weird phrasing, nevermind) with email clients which enable easy offline backup. You might regret not having that in a couple years! I really value easy workflows like forwarding an email within Arcane Chat to a bot that processes the message into my Orgmode inbox, things like that. They end up saving you lots of time within a few months of making them.