I’ve been using Proton Mail and VPN for a while now, and I’m just wondering how everyone else feels about them. I have this kind of inherent alight distrust of them just because they seem like they offer a lot for free and kind of have a Big Tech vibe about them, but there’s nothing for me to really substantiate that distrust with, its mostly just a feeling. That being said, I do use their services as mentioned and they work pretty well, even on the free teir. So aside from that one instance where they gave that guy’s info to the feds, is there any reason not to trust them with my data?
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No, but I trust audits
https://www.cnet.com/news/privacy/protonvpn-clears-its-latest-no-logs-audit/
I do agree they have a big tech feel that I don’t like, but everything I’ve seen indicates they’re trustworthy.
You can’t create proton account anonymously very easily. If attempting to create account using for, you’re prompted to enter phone number or existing email iirc.
Edit: just tested, existing email is needed. This already tells they do not want people to create accounts in a privacy respecting way even if it’s somewhat trivial to bypass if you know how
Is it possible to use a throwaway email, such as tempmail.org?
Tempmail.com and temp-mail.org are blocking tor users. Tested some other random service that works, but proton blocked their mail domains
Tell me you don’t understand the difference between privacy and anonymity without telling me
I’m not talking about anonymity, even though it’s also implied. Proton claims to offer privacy in a similar fashion as Google, they protect your data from everyone but themselves and whichever party they “need” to share the data with.
Google is an advertising business, so the “need” for our data is built into their business model. Proton is not an advertising company and doesn’t have any relation with any other party where our data drives their business. If you are concerned that Proton will record your IP when you create an account (which they are very clear on in their privacy policy), you are pretty much looking for anonymity if even you claim not.
Trust but verify
I now go with “Never trust, always verify”, which is the tagline for zero trust in infosec.
Fuck Reagan
Attaboy
Huh, didn’t even realize Reagan was associated with the phrase
Yeah, he learned it from the Russians