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[–] 116 points 2 weeks ago (15 children)

So if I'm reading this right, Proton is re-interviewing their entire staff, focusing on how they've integrated AI into their workflow, and if they aren't using AI as much as management wants they're likely to lose their jobs?

That is extremely disappointing.

Posteo is suddenly looking very shiny.

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  • [–] 37 points 2 weeks ago (8 children)

    Tuta is good. Waiting on their drive.

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  • [–] 19 points 2 weeks ago (5 children)

    Tuta cancelled my free account because their automated system detected fraud. This occurred after 24 hours of updating my contacts within Tuta and signing up for some services. I appealed and they only apologized for the inconvenience but kept the account closed.

    Other people have posted similar stories but after a YEAR of use their email randomly because inaccessible. So Tuta isn't a viable alternative for me as a Proton user.

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  • [–] 11 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

    Damn, second negative response. I guess I am leaving them but I just do t want proton - they give me the ick of wannabe big tech.

    I just want a drive, calendar and email that is private.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

    Posteo seems like the only good option there... Sadly they don't allow custom domains because of some hand-wavy "privacy" crap that boils down mostly to vendor lock-in like tuta.

    There is a new belgian co-op company Nubo trying to break into the market, but they are tiny and running a nextcloud instance on-prem for storage. Performance is likely to not be great.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 week ago (1 child)

    vendor lock-in like tuta.

    Higher tiers allow custom-domains.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 week ago

    No IMAP, doesn't support open standards, proprietary encryption, no compatability with 3rd party apps/mail clients. You get forced to use their app and have none of your mails locally. Also, since their encryption is proprietary, they only support password less encryption between tuta users, so 99% of users will only ever have encrypted mail with the tuta advertisements/announcement (though they market the "encrypted" angle extremely hard.

    Not to mention all of their apps are exclusively web and electron and perform badly with a very very barebones user interface and options. Also the search is pretty bad. All things that would be fixed if they support open standards. I really dislike using their apps and interface with my account.

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  • [–] 1 point 2 weeks ago

    I've been using Startmail for a while now. I'm not sure if it has a drive function because I never looked for that, but it does let you create an unlimited number of semipermanent and temporary 'alias' email addresses, and you can use a custom domain, if you set one up

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  • [–] 6 points 2 weeks ago

    Give it 5 years and that shiny will ware off. That's the damn problem. Nothing last forever and everything goes to shit eventually.

    At some point you just gotta settle for the devil you know.

    If you still have the energy to most posteo is fantastic from what I have heard tho.

    I'm just tired man, I just want to stop having to think about politics in my fucking email.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

    Does posteo support custom domains yet?

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  • [–] 7 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

    No and they don't plan on it, as far as I know.

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  • [–] 9 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

    Ok yeah, and I understand why that is. I just need a custom domain or I'd be right there.

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  • [–] 93 points 2 weeks ago (16 children)

    I used to be curious about switching to proton

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  • [–] 87 points 2 weeks ago (7 children)

    I was literally about to do it when that one Proton exec started sucking off Trump on Twitter, and then I changed my mind.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 weeks ago (6 children)

    That's why I went with NordVPN

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  • [–] 65 points 2 weeks ago (5 children)

    My VPN is Raid Shadow Legends

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  • [–] 16 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

    I just have to award you this for that comment.

    Qhnn2SISP2AHBDt.png

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  • [–] 12 points 2 weeks ago (7 children)

    Yeah i had started to move over, set up an email account, started to sign up to things through that instead of my existing account, but now I've mostly given up sadly. Better the devil i know for the time being when the cost of time to switch everything over is a lot, ideally I'd want to do it only once. What other alternatives do we have other than selfhosting? As I'd rather not selfhost my own mail server.

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  • [–] 17 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

    I've been checking out fastmail because they're pushing JMAP and I love me some new standards

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  • [–] 3 points 2 weeks ago

    I got fastmail about a year ago. I was pleased I could turn off SMS 2FA and use only TOTP, and generating masked single-use email addresses is great. Also surprisingly easy to set up the MX record for my existing domain. Their own web client is good, I'm using FairEmail on Android.

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  • [–] 16 points 2 weeks ago (1 child)

    You can just buy your own domain and put the relevant dns records to forward it to any service that supports it (generally costs some money though). Then if the service enshittifies you just need to change the dns records. No need to go the full selfhosting route.

    I use tuta for that, haven't had issues so far and also don't think I've heard anything bad.

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  • [–] 8 points 2 weeks ago

    I have a similar story, except that I didn't go back to my old gmail account after ditching Proton. Instead I bought myself a domain and went for a web hosting service.

    I recommend getting your own domain as it means you can change email providers without and big issue down the road. I picked a stupid host at first, and changed to Hetzner later. No inconvenience at all, and even keeping my inbox was easy.

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  • [–] 90 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

    The more proton news i read, the less I want to renew my subscription when it expires.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

    yeah mine ends the end of this week and I won't be renewing. I have my own domain with a couple email accounts attached and I'm thinking of switching to Purelymail. as far as VPN goes? leaning towards IVPN.

    edit: nvm found out Purelymail is US based, went with mailbox.org instead. very easy setup process and everything is already configured.

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  • [–] 208 points 2 weeks ago (21 children)

    I’m really pleased with proton’s service. This is, however, very troubling.

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  • [–] 202 points 2 weeks ago* (20 children)

    If you think this is troubling, look up the CEOs take/comments on Trump.

    Edit: Wow, instantly downvoted by a bot inside of 10 seconds after posting. Someone's downvoting anything negative about trump it seems.

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  • [–] 41 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

    As of this comment you're sitting on 14 downvotes.

    13 of them are visible on Lemvotes and they look naturally occurring to me. Granted I didn't bother opening profiles to check their likelihood of being human though.

    I don't think it's a bot.

    Interesting thing I noticed in looking this up though, Andy Yen doesn't have a Wikipedia page.

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  • [–] 13 points 2 weeks ago (1 child)

    Interesting. Maybe I just got "lucky" then hah. I posted, the page refreshed, it said 8 seconds since I posted, and I had 1 downvote already. Figured it had to be a bot or something responding to an API request at that speed, or maybe someone just loaded the page up, scrolled down, read my comment, and downvoted inside of 8 seconds of my perfectly timed post.

    The world may never know 🙂

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  • [–] 36 points 2 weeks ago (5 children)

    No need to go search - Here is the CEO's take on Trump, he tweeted support for Gail Slater for as Donald Trump's Department of Justice Assistant Attorney General for Antitrust. In Dec 2024 He says

    Andy Yen on X (formerly Twitter): "Great pick by @realDonaldTrump. 10 years ago, Republicans were the party of big business and Dems stood for the little guys, but today the tables have completely turned. People forget that the current antitrust actions against Big Tech were started under the first Trump admin. pic.twitter.com/0XVVO2ffcH / X"

    Terrible take but also honestly not a super surprising one from a non-citizen foreign CEO who main competition is US companies that should be hit with antitrust suits and are supposed to be regulated by the US.

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  • [–] 7 points 2 weeks ago* (4 children)

    He agreed with Trump on one thing, and not even one of the really bad things? Is that all?

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  • [–] 16 points 2 weeks ago* (3 children)

    There was a follow up where people feel he doubled down on this by having the official Proton account post "Until corporate Dems are thrown out, the reality is that Republicans remain more likely to tackle Big Tech abuses.". This statement was later retracted by Proton. That is full story.

    This is not the end of the reasons that people have an issue with Proton, I was just clarifying the vagueposting about the CEO support for Trump.

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  • [–] 4 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)
  • [+] -24 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (8 children)

    I downvoted you and I'm not a bot. (And also a Trump hater.)

    The fact is every fucking CEO sucks, no matter the product, so that isn't going to be something I consider when choosing one. The pertinent questions regarding any product are price, quality, and the impact of consuming it.

    Proton's a better choice for most because the Swiss regulate privacy heavily, unlike the US.

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  • [–] 41 points 2 weeks ago (6 children)

    The fact is every fucking CEO sucks, no matter the product, so that isn't going to be something I consider when choosing one.

    “I don’t vote cus both sides are the same” energy

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  • [–] 13 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

    This guy was quite heavily anti Harris last election cycle, so there is some inherent hypocrisy about them

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  • [+] -6 points 2 weeks ago* (1 child)

    My profile literally says I hate both Democrats and Republicans. If you had an 80 year-old parent forced to drive for DoorDash to avoid homelessness, I imagine you'd be less than impressed with our ruling parties too.

    So yep. Anti-Harris.

    Famously trying to hide it, obviously. :D

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  • [–] -4 points 2 weeks ago* (2 children)

    I too read nuanced statements and dismiss them with thought-terminating cliches.

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  • [–] 66 points 2 weeks ago

    The bubble can't pop fast enough

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  • [–] 61 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

    I don't want your ai, make your email and calendar better

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  • [–] 18 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

    Executives: "But how do we do that without the incredible investment of AI?!"

    Developer, sitting in the corner, arms crossed and covered in cobwebs: "Harumph"

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  • [–] 12 points 2 weeks ago (1 child)

    As a developer, our executives and stakeholders have really losed focus. It seems like 10-20 years ago we were being asked to solve tightly scoped problems. Now we get massive sprawling edicts, tons of how I want it, and the result is a very unpolished product. No one seems to care about basics or details anymore. This predates our current AI mess and the AI boom has only made things worse.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 weeks ago*

    Decades ago we had engineers and devs rise up through the ranks to become a part of steering committees.

    Now they’re all MBA/BPM/PMBOK people with either zero or superficial tech/dev knowledge.

    You cannot “tightly scope” that which you cannot understand.

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  • [–] 54 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

    The AI stuff is so frustrating. I'm terrified to really talk about how I feel about it, because my opinions are too nuanced to be shared in a bullet point in a performance review. Everywhere I've been lately, it's been about how much you use something, not about your output.

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  • [–] 17 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

    What is the computer equivalent of "walk fast and always carrying something"

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  • [–] 53 points 2 weeks ago

    Really? Is nothing safe these days? I just switched my email to Proton recently from Gmail. It's been a long time coming, and I still can't ditch it completely bcz I have had it for over 10 years and some stuff still uses it.

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  • [–] 50 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

    I already stopped giving a shit about Proton after the CEO praised Trump, members of Trump's cabinet, and the Republican party. Then claimed to still be "politically neutral"

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  • [–] 4 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

    Did he actually praise trump directly? If I recall correctly it was his admin pick that was praised

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  • [–] 1 point 2 weeks ago

    It was worse, he thought Trump was going to regulate big IT business. Basically he believed Trump would fuck over Google so Proton could get more market share. Yes, a total piece of shit corporate tool who had no clue about US politics talking out his ass hoping it might benefit him.

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  • [–] 43 points 2 weeks ago (4 children)

    AI policies are so dumb. You don't evaluate people's perfs on how much they use a tool. So what's the damn end goal of such evaluation??

    "Hey! I did nothing useful this year, but all with AI! -You're promoted!!

    I fixed hundreds of bugs and developed 3 new features all cheered by users! -With AI? -Err... not much -You're fired!!"

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  • [–] 6 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) (3 children)

    The policy my company has implemented is the opposite. AI use is allowed, but no confidential client information is to be sent to any cloud AI service. Logic is that if we don't have an actual NDA with OpenAI (or whoever), their privacy policy is not robust enough for us to take on that liability.

    Interested in your thoughts on that!

    Edit: we're not a software company. We design medical devices, so nearly all data we have is confidential.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 weeks ago

    Multiple companies have that approach, I'm not denying there ARE companies doing things right (or at least better).

    I work in a company using multiple agents. One of them is supposed to be off Internet, and even with that one we're not to share sensitive IP.

    But Proton is not an isolated case. I bet some execs have invested and promised so much they need to report some good numbers on usage, and you can't make up productivity improvement if there are people left getting as much done without AI.

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  • [–] 2 points 2 weeks ago* (1 child)

    no confidential client information is to be sent to any cloud AI service

    If the code has been crafted correctly, none should be.

    Client info should be 100% data, and remain 100% in production. If you have any dev-side data to test and debug with, it should be 100% procedurally-generated pseudo-data that only imitates client data in terms of gross patterns, and not specific points of data.

    Like customer names. Those names should be broadly representative of what is found in the regions the software operates in, in order to demonstrate acceptable data input validation and effective storage compatibility with those names. For example, you don’t want to be storing European names in a DB field that is not UTF-8 compliant, or validating those names by restricting characters to US-ASCII. But any one generated name that just so happens to match an IRL name should be a statistical occurance, and any extended data attached to that entry should (generally) not match any other IRL data for any IRL occurance of that name..

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  • [–] 1 point 2 weeks ago

    Absolutely, sorry for misleading - we're not a software company. We do engineer for medical devices so confidential information in this case covers most everything we deal with. It might be actual IP, which is less of a concern, but it might also be trade secrets which as much more sensitive!

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  • [–] 38 points 2 weeks ago

    https://www.removepaywall.com/search?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.404media.co%2Fproton-to-re-interview-staff-about-ai-to-see-who-gets-to-keep-their-job%2F

    Proton, the company behind ProtonMail and other privacy-focused products, told staff on Monday it would be ‘re-interviewing’ staff across the company about how they use AI in their jobs, with the implication that the interviews may decide whether staffers have “continued employment,” according to an internal Proton email obtained by 404 Media.

    “These re-interviews are consequential,” a part of the email reads. “Interviewers will document their assessments, which will inform the broader review of our organization and talent. That review may lead to changes in roles, responsibilities, and continued employment. Individual outcomes will be communicated directly once decisions are finalized.”

    Proton’s CEO Andy Yen has steadily pushed the company towards more AI use, including launching AI centered products like Lumo, a privacy-focused chatbot. The leaked email says Yen “interviewed more than 40 senior leaders across Engineering and Product to begin this process.” Now, those interviews are extending across the company.

    “We need people who can translate AI’s capabilities into better products, stronger execution, and new ways of working — and who approach this change with curiosity, judgment, and urgency,” the email reads.

    The email says that not everyone in the company will be re-interviewed, and “any decisions affecting your employment will be communicated separately.” The interviewer will be outside the staff member’s team and reporting line; instead, people may be interviewed by someone from “a pool of leaders who demonstrate strong AI capability and have aligned on the assessment criteria.”

    “We recognize that this process creates uncertainty. We will be clear about what has been decided and what remains open, and communicate individual outcomes as soon as we can,” the email adds. It says the re-interviews will take place between November 4 and 11.

    Proton did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

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