#Protonmail

[installationsorcerer]

Internet Services

Firefox: A really good non-Google browser. Some compatibility issues with web pages requiring Chromium.

Opera: A non-Google browser, so you don't have to use Chrome, but runs on Chromium, so no compatibility issues there- some issues with extension compatibility, though.

ProtonVPN: A free VPN protected by Swiss privacy laws.

Protonmail: A free, non-Gmail email service protected by Swiss privacy laws.

Marginalia Search: A search engine designed to favour text-heavy websites and punish those that have too many modern web features.

DuckDuckGo: A search engine that emphasizes privacy, reduces ads, and eliminates content farms.

[solarpunk-gnome]

In 2021, I can delete my Google account and have a ProtonMail account?

Yes. Exactly. So this is what we want to do. We want you to be able to completely de-Google-fy your life, come to ProtonMail, and have all the features plus the security and the privacy that Google doesn’t provide you. So that’s our long-term vision. And that’s ultimately the world that we want to live in, and that’s why we’re working towards this goal.

[hinge]

Hinge presents an anthology of love stories almost never told. Read more on https://no-ordinary-love.co

[tester2080]

We need to talk about encrypted email providers (protonmail, tutanota, etc)

13/09/21

Tags: Tech

I will not be going into much detail about the recent controversy about Protonmail, as that has already been discussed in detail. If you are interested, I'd recommend this article or this video. Instead I will be covering a more general view of all encrypted email providers.

Firstly, in case you don't know, there are several encrypted email providers (protonmail, tutanota, etc). These claim to be a way to access email privately thanks to encryption. Whilst most regular email providers (gmail, yahoo, etc) can read all your emails stored on their servers (which they do, so they can sell your data to advertisers), encrypted email providers claim to not have this capability. This claim of how all emails are encrypted and unaccessable by the providers has lead some (as happened in this case) to believe they are a good method of conversing privately and anonymously. This is a dangerous misconception.

Email is an inherantly non-private and non-anonymous method of communication. Email requires IP addresses (which can possibly be traced back to you unless you're using tor or a vpn). Also, whilst the contents and attachments can be encrypted, the subject line, data, IPs, etc, cannot. This means whilst you may think you are safe and everything's encrypted, if your subject line is something like "[X corporation] whistleblower documents" it makes it pretty easy to figure out what the contents might be. Email was never meant to be secure or private, and as much as some providers may try to change that, there will always be issues with making it 100% secure.

However, that is not to say don't use encrypted email providers. There are legitimate uses, but first you must assess your threat model. If you're like most people, you won't be worried about governments or large corporations coming after you. Instead, perhaps you want to just use encrypted email because you don't like Google looking through all your messages, or don't like the amount of info required to create an email address, or want to make new accounts privately without a domestic abuser or the like seeing. All these are perfectly reasonable examples of use cases for using encrypted email providers, and I'd even recommend doing so. For the average person, an encrypted email will work fine and helps with some basic privacy concerns (make sure you do know exactly what encrypted email can and cannot do though).

However, if you are a whistleblower, or activist, or criminal, or anything where either the government or powerful corporations may be after you - encrypted mail will not be good enough. Because of the forementioned in-built email privacy problems, no matter how much they try, your provider will be much likely to either fuck up and leave a security flaw in, or simply hand your information over to the government upon request. If you wish to communicate anonymously I'd recommend either signal, pidgin, or dino, as well as using Tor and Tails. These platforms actually provide the encryption and privacy that email cannot. However, always do your research when your threat level is this high. Make sure you understand the limits of this kind of software. It is possible that there are security flaws that will be uncovered after the time of writing or ones I have simply not heard about. Always do proper research. Do not throw caution to the wind.

So to summarise - as with any software, be clear about the limitations, and your own threat model. Once you know your threat model you can know which limitations are and are not acceptable. Stay safe and take care.

[justanoldacc]

❤︎ the only email you can trust is protonmail

❤︎ the only browser you can trust is duckduckgo

❤︎ the only messaging app you can trust is signal

└(∵┌)└( ∵ )┘(┐∵)┘

it’s worth doing this sort of thing now as it’s going to become very important in the future. and changing over now will make you way ahead of everyone else when it becomes essential. i’ve been using these apps for so long now they seem “normal” to me and my skin crawls at the thought of using anything else. digital privacy is just as important as every other kind of privacy. it’s not about hiding. it’s about our basic rights as human beings. just trust me on this one. better to get on top of it now than regret that you didnt in the future ☻

\m/ (•ᴗ•) \m/

[webdesignclub]

Protonmail Landing Page - ReDesign - Secure Email Web Design / Application UX

[monetizeme]

Proton, the secure-minded email and productivity suite, is becoming a nonprofit foundation, but it doesn't want you to think about it in the way you think about other notable privacy and web foundations.

"We believe that if we want to bring about large-scale change, Proton can’t be billionaire-subsidized (like Signal), Google-subsidized (like Mozilla), government-subsidized (like Tor), donation-subsidized (like Wikipedia), or even speculation-subsidized (like the plethora of crypto “foundations”)," Proton CEO Andy Yen wrote in a blog post announcing the transition. "Instead, Proton must have a profitable and healthy business at its core."

The announcement comes exactly 10 years to the day after a crowdfunding campaign saw 10,000 people give more than $500,000 to launch Proton Mail. To make it happen, Yen, along with co-founder Jason Stockman and first employee Dingchao Lu, endowed the Proton Foundation with some of their shares. The Proton Foundation is now the primary shareholder of the business Proton, which Yen states will "make irrevocable our wish that Proton remains in perpetuity an organization that places people ahead of profits." Among other members of the Foundation's board is Sir Tim Berners-Lee, inventor of HTML, HTTP, and almost everything else about the web.

Of particular importance is where Proton and the Proton Foundation are located: Switzerland. As Yen noted, Swiss foundations do not have shareholders and are instead obligated to act "in accordance with the purpose for which they were established." While the for-profit entity Proton AG can still do things like offer stock options to recruits and even raise its own capital on private markets, the Foundation serves as a backstop against moving too far from Proton's founding mission, Yen wrote.

There’s a lot more Proton to protect these days

Proton has gone from a single email offering to a wide range of services, many of which specifically target the often invasive offerings of other companies (read, mostly: Google). You can now take your cloud files, passwords, and calendars over to Proton and use its VPN services, most of which offer end-to-end encryption and open source core software hosted in Switzerland, with its notably strong privacy laws.

None of that guarantees that a Swiss court can't compel some forms of compliance from Proton, as happened in 2021. But compared to most service providers, Proton offers a far clearer and easier-to-grasp privacy model: It can't see your stuff, and it only makes money from subscriptions.

[hinge]

Hinge presents an anthology of love stories almost never told. Read more on https://no-ordinary-love.co

[blogquantumreality]

Proton has added an arbitration exclusivity clause

Together with the SLA change, we’re also making an update to our dispute resolution policy, including requiring individual arbitration for all disagreements (with certain outlined exceptions) and excluding class, representative, and collective claims.

I plan to be writing a strongly worded objection to this, and I’m disappointed that a pro-privacy (and implicity pro-consumer/end-user) company would resort to a tactic like this.

According to their terms, you can opt out but you have to specifically state as such and do so in writing to this address:

Proton AG Attn: Legal Route de la Galaise 32, 1228 Plan-les-Ouates Geneva, Switzerland

And you have to do so within 30 days of July 26, 2023.

[chetungwan]

Proton Mail is rebranding into just Proton and offering more services such as a calendar and a document storage drive. It's the sort of thing that I'm instinctively cautious about, because convenience is often a slippery slope to a loss of privacy

However, I was reading over an interview with the CEO last night, and apparently they're offering these things specifically so that if people want, they can stop using Google entirely. Their goal is to be able to offer enough basic services that their users aren't reliant on Google for something else.

Which is extremely good! In addition, Proton is able to stick to their guns about data privacy because they get their money by people paying a subscription fee for their services. They won't have to sell data eventually because they have their own income.

I am cautiously hopeful about this development. I'd love to no longer be reliant on Google drive

[marcilled]

Have you ever heard about Mailfence? How does it compare to Protonmail?

I actually haven’t heard of it before!

I just checked it out, and this actually looks very enticing indeed... I’m surprised I hadn’t heard about it until now. Turns out this is actually quite comparable to Protonmail.

Although it seems like a good counterpart to proton, I’ve noticed a few things while browsing through its website, which make me hesitant to recommend it over protonmail.

Pros to Mailfence:

They offer their own suite of software alongside emails, including a calendar and docs. Proton has calendar software in open beta for paid users right now, but they don’t even have docs. All this is for free users of mailfence. (This seems to be the main thing that sets it apart from Protonmail, as far as I can tell)

They very directly state in their privacy policy that they will not cooperate with the NSA or other surveillance agencies

15% of their profits from paid accounts are donated to the EFF and European Digital Rights Foundation

Provides a public transparency report / warrant canary, despite being based in a country where gag orders are not law (protonmail does this as well)

Seems to offer similar end-to-end encryption / PGP email as protonmail

Offers app-based 2FA, as does protonmail

Has no ads, does not share user information with 3rd parties unless legally obligated to do so, as does protonmail

...Basically, most of the things protonmail does, they also do, other than providing additional software that Proton doesn’t have. So if you need private and secure docs, maybe they’re worth checking out.

However, along with these pros, I noticed quite a number of cons to using them.

Their mobile apps (both android and ios) are available to paid accounts only. Protonmail allows free users to use their mobile apps

Their software is proprietary, meaning third parties cannot freely view and audit the software to independently verify their claims of privacy + security

If your (free) account is inactive for 12 months, your account will be suspended, and 4 months after suspension your account will be completely deleted. This is the sort of thing Yahoo does with old accounts, which is honestly really frustrating. Protonmail keeps your account and its contents indefinitely.

Small complaint, but you must provide an external email address just to sign up for the service. Protonmail might ask for an external email or SMS verification under certain circumstances, but most of the time you should just need to solve a captcha.

That isn’t to say this makes their service terrible or anything; quite the contrary, I think it seems like a really great alternative to protonmail. But, you should do your research before you consider this type of thing, if you’re really planning on switching to a new email provider.

For me, personally, I’d say Protonmail is really the way to go. It’s the easiest for people to jump into using, coming from the bigger and more mainstream email providers. Plus, the developers are wholly focused on digital rights and privacy + security.

Another alternative that I’ve personally tried out is Tutanota. They offer a lot of stuff that these two services provide as well, although I believe they’re a bit smaller of a company and don’t have quite as ambitious goals as these two.

Anyway, I hope this helped !

[opiatesandspeed]

ProtonMail

As a cybersecurity major and strong supporter of True privacy on the Internet, I highly recommend that anyone who wants to own an email account that is of the future and encrypted should check out ProtonMail. Basically as everything was exposed with what the NSA was doing with Prism and all of that nonsense, you now have the ability to have a completely private email that even the creators of this particular mailing service cannot even read your mail if they wanted to. I won’t get in to all the details because I don’t want to bore everyone to death but I highly recommend that you check it out and read more about it at the link below. There is currently a waiting list because of the large amount of individuals trying to get accounts, but I signed up for one about a week and a half ago and received it about two days ago.

https://protonmail.com/

Also if you’ve seen the show Mr. Robot, it is the email client that Elliot (the main character) uses.

[hinge]

Hinge presents an anthology of love stories almost never told. Read more on https://no-ordinary-love.co

[isopodhours]

if you're using protonmail I'd strongly recommend taking the user survey and telling them in no uncertain terms that you don't want them adding ai to their shit because theyre asking a disquieting amount of questions about it

[kajic]

Google Ads suspended me and turned a deaf ear

One year ago my Google Ads account got suspended. I thought it was a mistake at first but six useless appeals later I’m realizing it’s probably not. From what I can tell, my suspension is permanent. I’ve gotten no information back from each appeal rejection except to say that my account “was and is in violation of Google Ads policies”. The only clue is the notification regarding my suspension that’s shown when I’m signed into Google Ads. It says my account “violated the Circumventing systems policy” and links to https://support.google.com/adspolicy/answer/6020954?hl=en. As far as I know, I didn’t circumvent any of Google’s policies. What did I do? I advertised a website (https://www.woltcodes.de) with my Wolt promo code (Wolt is a European food delivery company), which gave me and anyone who used it 6 EUR for each of their first two food deliveries.

It’s beyond me why my particular account was suspended when there are so many other promo and coupon websites advertising on Google. It’s especially baffling since a Google Ads support agent helped me setup my ads, without mention from them that my ads were inappropriate.

The contrast between how their support agent treated me when they wanted me to spend money and how they turned a deaf ear when I was hoping for some sort of recourse couldn’t be more stark.

Over the years, Google has gone from being a search engine to an advertising company where paid results are promoted and Google’s own custom search tools are gradually being introduced, taking away traffic from specialized search websites for hotels, flights, and other lucrative markets.

Google’s near-monopoly in search (close to 90% market share) and dominance in digital ads (close to 30% market share) has given it and its select customers incredible power. These days, anyone with a credit card can create a money making machine out of a niche business idea, provided that it remains profitable after Google has been paid off.

Unless of course, they ban you from their ad platform, remove you from their search results, or decide that your niche business is now mainstream enough for them to compete with you with one of their own custom search tools at the top of their search results.

Insidiously, the bait and switch that Google is slowly pulling off still seems like a net positive to me because Google Ads greatly simplified marketing of goods and services and made advertising widely available to millions of small businesses that otherwise couldn’t reach a sufficiently large audience to take advantage of economies of scale.

How targeted advertising encroaches on people’s privacy is a different problem whose implications we’re collectively still learning to appreciate.

Google is an essential tool for millions of businesses. If you want to market your business, one of your best bets is to advertise on Google. Of course, having this essential role in our society it’s easy to question whether Google really deserves such an outsized cut of the worlds online businesses’ revenues, and such outsized power in deciding who is allowed to participate in the first place. Alphabet’s profit margin is close to 30%. Spending money on a better support experience would undoubtedly cut into that.

The more I’ve thought about this, the more I feel this is no way to be treated and the more I wonder how long other people and the world’s governments will put up with paying Google’s pay to play taxes, letting themselves be tracked online, and submitting to Google’s opaque judicial system where sentences are seemingly for life, and appeals virtually useless.

I’m very grateful that some alternatives to Google do exist. Today I’m switching to DuckDuckGo and migrating my Gmail to ProtonMail. At least now I don’t have to worry about getting locked out from my email as well. Unfortunately, I have little hope that the word game which I recently released on Google Play won’t eventually be found in violation of some other Google policy and thus summarily suspended as well.

[a-pi-z-phi-blockhive-blog]

Protonmail is really secure huh????

[kimbureh]

btw, if you’re looking for a secure alternative to Google Drive, you might want to look into ProtonDrive from Switzerland. they are currently giving away 1GB of free storage, not to mention the free encrypted email, VPN, and more. Get it here friends and thrive

[hinge]

Hinge presents an anthology of love stories almost never told. Read more on https://no-ordinary-love.co

[highstrider2254]

More on Proton Mail, since I'm looking at their plans.

On their free plan, they offer a single VPN connection at medium speed, 1 GB of storage on their proton drive, with a single email address (up to 150 messages/day), 25 MB attachment, encryption and password-protected emails.

Their Plus plan 3.99 Euro/month (~5 USD/month) offers the same VPN connections, up to 15 GB of storage on drive, 20 personal calendars, link sharing for their calendars, and auto replies for the emails.

Their Pro plan 9.99 Euro/month (~10 USD/month) offers all the same as plus, as well as 500 GB storage on drive, 10 high speed VPN connections, NetShield malware/ad-blocker, and a few other encryption/privacy options.

the Plus/Pro plans also offer a killswitch/always on VPN option as well.

It's not a bad gig, all-in-all, and again, I don't know if there are any controversies on what they do, but I really like the service a lot and having encrypted email is nice. It's one of the cheaper VPN programs, and the added calendar, drive and email services make it worth it in my eyes.