this post was submitted on 29 Aug 2026
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[–] esc@piefed.social 53 points 1 day ago (1 children)

No list, advert for proton.

[–] beep@piefed.world 12 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] esc@piefed.social 8 points 1 day ago (1 children)

So no full list, just cropped screenshots? Why?

[–] boatswain@infosec.pub 6 points 23 hours ago

To avoid defamation lawsuits, most likely.

[–] Babalugats@feddit.uk 65 points 1 day ago (5 children)

Any chance of seeing the list broken down by ownership and trackers?

It seems a bit pointless otherwise.

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 83 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Not important, this is just a disguised advertisement for Proton VPN.

[–] tb_@lemmy.world 55 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] victorz@lemmy.world 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

I know lol, I was being facetious. 😉 I also want to see the list.

[–] Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com -1 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

I don't see a problem with that.

[–] victorz@lemmy.world 5 points 14 hours ago

It can be healthy to question your sources and their motives. 👍

[–] beep@piefed.world 40 points 1 day ago (3 children)
[–] artyom@piefed.social 20 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Its a good thing they posted them on inaccessible Xitter in a confusing as fuck "thread" instead of their own God damn website...

[–] Cris_Citrus@piefed.zip 42 points 1 day ago

Its unfortunate they really only name and shame random shovelware vpns it looks like. So it feels difficult to tell whether their points apply to any other real options people have heard of before...

[–] user224@lemmy.sdf.org 23 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Surely it's too hard to upload a spreadsheet on the internet.

[–] Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 18 hours ago

Some people just have to complain about everything. Maybe a specific excel format?

[–] Th4tGuyII@fedia.io 22 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yeah, it would be nice to have an actual list so we're not reliant on their numbers alone. But unfortunately telling only half the story is something Proton seems to do quite a lot.

On the bright side, the actual privacy data for this was by Proton's own admission from Exodus, so while its probably not feasible for you to skim 65K apps on your own, you can at least see the data for specific VPN apps you might be worried about.

[–] CosmoNova@lemmy.world 14 points 1 day ago (1 children)

They would probably get sued if they dropped names of direct competitors.

[–] Th4tGuyII@fedia.io 6 points 1 day ago

Yeah true enough. Even if the data they've got was 100% accurate and easy to prove in court, they'd still be stuck having to pay out the arse for lawyers just to appear in court.

[–] MolochHorridus@piefed.social 11 points 1 day ago

It’s an ad for Proton. Obviously.

[–] Zarobi@aussie.zone 10 points 1 day ago (1 children)

They listed a few in their article, but yeah a full list would be nice.

Three of the VPN services we looked at are actually owned by market research companies: ‎Phone Guardian Safe WiFi (Sensor Tower), My Mobile Secure VPN (Comscore), and Urban VPN (BiScience, which has been been shown to capture user conversations across several services and share them with AI chat platforms).


In what many could reasonably see as the ultimate act of betrayal, 64 VPN apps actively track your physical location using GPS and other geolocation data. [...] These apps include some of the most popular VPNs in the US, such as VPN Proxy Master, VPN-Fast VPN Super, and X-VPN

[–] PineRune@lemmy.world 19 points 1 day ago

Those all sound like fake VPN apps that I wouldn't trust anyway.

[–] perishthethought@piefed.social 6 points 23 hours ago (1 children)

This is the trackers and permission site referenced in the X posts

https://reports.exodus-privacy.eu.org/en/

[–] vivalapivo@lemmy.today 0 points 14 hours ago

Thanks. Also bullshit

[–] DigDoug@lemmy.world 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (2 children)

Given that Proton's CEO has a massive boner for Trump, I don't think they're particularly worthy of my trust, either.

[–] oyzmo@piefed.social 1 points 1 day ago (2 children)
[–] perishthethought@piefed.social 2 points 23 hours ago

... is not on the lists.

[–] Valmond@lemmy.dbzer0.com -1 points 18 hours ago

Should be avoided.