this post was submitted on 26 Mar 2025
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I've used proton for a year or two now and it is fine. Great for use on my phone when I want to use public/airport wifi and it sort of kind of works with gluetun (the rotating port is annoying but it still is a forwarded port).

But I've increasingly been annoyed with Proton as a company and am looking to migrate my email/domain to fastmail in the very near future. I COULD continue to just pay for the vpn (60 USD a year is pretty reasonable) but also feel like this is a good opportunity to "shop around"

Checked the wiki and other FAQs (which all basically crib from said wiki) and they all basically boil down to proton or mullivad... except that mullivad apparently stopped allowing port forwarding which is a bit of an issue for any torrents and the like.

So are there any other good options?

Thanks

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[–] matey@lemmy.dbzer0.com 52 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (5 children)

What's going on with Proton the company?

Edit: ah fuck, thanks for the replies. Sigh.

[–] AFC1886VCC@reddthat.com 81 points 6 days ago (10 children)

Their CEO praised Trump/the Republican Party. He got widely criticised for it. Proton released a damage control statement but later deleted it after it made things worse.

People are now moving away from Proton as a result.

[–] Extras5023@lemm.ee 14 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Wow! Add me to that group. I need to cancel my annual family plan.

[–] Gronk@aussie.zone 8 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I unfortunately bought a subscription before dickhead made his statement. Looks like I'm with them for a year >.<

[–] Dreaming_Novaling@lemmy.zip 2 points 5 days ago

I haven't done it yet, but if you cancel your and contact them, I've heard you can get a refund for the months you haven't used. Even if you cancel but don't contact, you still can use the service until the end of your subscription.

My biggest thing stopping me rn is moving my emails away from proton mail and simpleogin (switched to mailbox.org and anonaddy free) and trying to convince myself I don't need port forwarding 😭

[–] lka1988@sh.itjust.works 7 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

The CEO doesn't own Proton, for what it's worth. He may have founded it, but he does not have complete and total control over anything that Proton offers, as some here may believe.

[–] Zaphod@discuss.tchncs.de 6 points 5 days ago

For fucks sake. I just started to move to proton last year...

[–] _cryptagion@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 5 days ago (2 children)

It would be more accurate to say some people are moving away. The majority of their users are quite happy where they are.

[–] infinitesunrise@slrpnk.net 8 points 5 days ago (1 children)

"Time to find a CEO who has yet to publicly express their fascist sympathies..."

[–] _cryptagion@lemmy.dbzer0.com -1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

The irony of saying something like that when you're using an ISP with Trump supporters on the board of directors is wild.

[–] infinitesunrise@slrpnk.net 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

To be clear I'm parodying the people who think there are corporate safe havens where they can vote with their dollars.

[–] _cryptagion@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Ah, I should have guessed that from the quotes, huh? That was my bad.

[–] infinitesunrise@slrpnk.net 4 points 5 days ago

No worries, we're all so sarcasm-and-irony pilled given internet culture and current events that I should have been more explicit too.

[–] jherazob@beehaw.org 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I am not, but it took me a year+ to move from Gmail to Proton after having a Gmail account since the start of the service, and after i was more or less settled in now comes this scandal, i will move but it will not be immediately, need to plan it well, and also likely use a custom domain to not need to change the address in the future

[–] _cryptagion@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 5 days ago

If this is as bad as the scandals with Proton ever get, I'll be quite happy.

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[–] Wildfire0Straggler3@lemm.ee 45 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (2 children)

The CEO said that Trump chose a great pick and sided with Republicans and there was a firestorm over it, he doubled down on his position through the official Proton channel.

https://archive.ph/2yWGz

[–] NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 25 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Like basically all tech companies, the leadership are libertarian tech bros. It sucks, but whatever. The problem is also that the CEO (?) has been making public statements to try and cozy up to the trump administration over the past few months

Some of that still falls under the LTB effect (These policies benefit the company so fuck everyone else, etc) and it DOES make sense for a company to try and earn themselves an exception for the upcoming hellscape in a market that will REALLY want VPNs. But it still leaves a really bad taste in my mouth.

Not in an "I MUST LEAVE PROTON NOW" state since I like the products because they tend to be pretty honest about what they will and won't do when the goons come a knocking and that mostly boils down to "cooperate. So do X Y and Z to protect yourself by preventing us from having the information they want"). But that, plus protonmail being kind of a shitshow if you want to keep offline copies of your emails, is motivation to shop around.

[–] lka1988@sh.itjust.works 9 points 6 days ago

I wouldn't exactly call Tim Berners-Lee a "libertarian tech bro".

[–] lka1988@sh.itjust.works 21 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

Just FYI, the majority of Proton AG (which includes all Proton services) is owned by a non-profit body called the "Proton Foundation". This are headed by a board of 5 members, including Andy (CEO) and Tim Berners-Lee (the literal father of the internet as we know it).

Proton is fine.

[–] nsrxn@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 5 days ago (2 children)

routing traffic through Israel is not fine.

[–] _cryptagion@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Then don’t do that? You have your choice of servers.

[–] nsrxn@lemmy.dbzer0.com -1 points 5 days ago (1 children)
[–] infinitesunrise@slrpnk.net 6 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (12 children)

This is a decontextualized post from 2015 that theorizes a DDoS attack on Proton at the time was coercion to "help" them by offering to proxy their traffic through Bynet in Israel for the purpose of tampering. Is there any other info out there to support this theory? It's intriguing and believable but also complete hearsay absent any other corroboration, context, further info, etc.

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[–] Shadowfax@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)
[–] nsrxn@lemmy.dbzer0.com 0 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (2 children)
[–] _cryptagion@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 5 days ago (7 children)

It should be noted everywhere that this person posts this, that this is an allegation without any actual evidence to support it.

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[–] dan00@lemm.ee 2 points 5 days ago

Omfg why even discussing andy pathetic bootlicking when this is a fucking cia honeypot… Their business plan was way too similar to google.

[–] limer@lemmy.dbzer0.com 11 points 5 days ago

Proton recently closed their masterdon account because of the mutual hostility