I like Proton for their email offering, however for docs and sheets I think Apple Pages and Numbers is a more attractive option since this is fully encrypted in the iCloud as well.
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Proton Launches End-to-End Encrypted Alternative to Google Docs
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Collaboration with Pages and Numbers suck if everyone is Apple, worse if the group is cross-platform.
Can you even make an iCloud account if you don't have an Apple device?
This is the part that should be concerning. They got caught lying about whether or not they logged the data.
They promoted it on their homepage and when people found out they gave the data to law enforcement it took them three attempts to explain what happened.
IMHO, having participated in their Reddit, most of their products are 5 - 10 years behind Google and similar offerings. Simple features like dark mode or filtering take years because they are trying to develop too many different products.
They also pull some shady marketing stuff. Like when they did their big rebranding, they announced that old users would be grandfathered into the new pricing.
Of course, this created huge FOMO from current users who wanted to lock in the lower rates and users of the free plan.
Then they basically announced similar pricing but adding more crap to their product bundles.
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They actually never "warranted" that. They've always said that they don't log IP addresses *by default*. E.g. this is from their old privacy policy from 2018:
"IP Logging: By default, ProtonMail does not keep permanent IP logs. We also don't record your login IP address unless this feature is specifically enabled by the user. However, IP logs are sometimes kept to combat abuse and fraud, [...]"
In the case you're referring to they received a legally legally binding court order as part of a criminal investigation. Obviously they have to comply with that. But they can't provide content because they use zero-knowledge encryption.
I would not trust them. There are other vpn's out there with no logs that have email and docs. Swiss laws aren't that good. Use companies that don't log. Simple.
Proton was required by Swiss law to log the IP address of one user account, which it did. If you are going to bash Proton, at least get your facts correct.
Well, I am a tad lazy:
Mullvad quantum for VPN (ability to use Shadowsocks/Bridge, different entry and exit servers and so on)
Mullvad for Secure DNS
Mullvad TOR secure browser
Signal for messenging
Tuta for mail
I also have the ability to spoof my mac address + this and that if I want to, but I`m not really an expert on privacy/security. If someone wants to protect themselves and their stuff properly, they have to be more knowledgable than yours truly.
Privacy is a human right and as such a matter of principle. I`m under no illusion that any digital traffic is 100% secure. What I want from vendors is that they are honest about their conduct when they argue they are protective, for the "biggies in the biggie jurisdictions" it is pretty safe to assume that they will hand over stuff if ordered to do so.
I`m not in a risk category as target for any activity online or elsewhere (but commercials), or at least I thought so, but being naive about privacy and security is not doing humanity any favours.
Phones are never safe for anything anyway (have known that since my first Android - the ownership started by the manufacturer pulling my entire contact list without any permission whatsoever), and recently my phone was identified and tracked because a public service office leaked information facilitating the tracking. They are prohibited by law to do so, and my business with them was 100% legit and by the book, but I did get a call from those tracking the number a couple of hours later. They couldn`t possibly have got it from my side or any commercial service simply because they couldn`t have known my identity or technical details about the communication.
So, under no illusion whatsoever pertaining digital security/privacy. I knew very well it was possible, but I also knew they were prohibited. The thing is, if you use some good protective measures they will have to break the law or be unethical to get your stuff. And that gives you an advantage even if the damage is done.
I have yet to see how things plays out and have to wait for that, but I will have them punished for their behaviour.
That works fine and dandy until you need to collaborate with someone on a document for whatever reason. The Appleverse is only really nice if your entire social sphere is within it, and that's not always a guarantee.
Google docs has the nice advantage of being accessible on everything, from MacBooks to Samsung smart fridges.
I am aware of the story. French activists, commercial spaces in Paris, no crime in Switzerland. They logged in breach with their promises and removed their promises from their site.
That sounds like the right thing to do. They were compelled by the Swiss government to log and not notify, they did that as they were required, then removed said promise because they couldn't keep it.
I don't use Proton as I have no use for their service, but it seems to be on the right side of things to me, better than any of the other options if high security is important to you.
Connect to them via a 3rd party VPN if that matters, then they don't have your IP and your content is still encryoted.
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They promoted Proton as a no logging service.
Anyway, people are free to to pick Proton and whatever service they prefer, but they should not assume their communication is 100% safe. People having good reasons to protect them selves (I normally won`t) have to put much more work in it than I`m bothered with. And I`m pretty sure it would never work whatever they do 🤣
Tuta? By German law they have been forced not just to log IP addresses, but make copies of emails that arrive or are sent unencrypted and provide them to law enforcment.
German secure email provider Tutanota forced to monitor an account, after regional court ruling | TechCrunch
German e2e encrypted email provider Tutanota has been ordered by a regional court to develop a function that allows it to monitor an individual account.
techcrunch.com
The "activist" was prosecuted for theft and property damage. A Swiss court concurred and gave the order to Proton.
Local offline application and files stored on local encrypted drive if this kind of security is that important
That's nice but modernizing their Mail app (it's not as beautiful as iOS' Mail app) and adding quality of life features like email segmentation (Promotions, Primary, Updates, etc.) in Gmail or iOS 18 would be nice. Protonmail has been around for a while but is still missing these basic email management features. Yes you can make smart folders which automatically populate based on the sender's address but Proton should do that for me to an extent.
I welcome anyone to convince me that it is possible to be "100% secure or private" using internet and 1 computer or 1 phone over time. I believe you should be VERY competent to achiceve that, and very very few are. I`m not. For instance, which reliable Email service would that be? I can`t think of any.Tuta? By German law they have been forced not just to log IP addresses, but make copies of emails that arrive or are sent unencrypted and provide them to law enforcment.
German secure email provider Tutanota forced to monitor an account, after regional court ruling | TechCrunch
German e2e encrypted email provider Tutanota has been ordered by a regional court to develop a function that allows it to monitor an individual account.
I just like my privacy and belive I have a right to keep private stuff/communication private, and I believe people who don`t care at all is hurting everyone elses access to such privacy.
As stated elsewhere, I am under no illusion whatsoever, and I don`t assume that any - ANY - digital communication is protected to the extent that only you or I and the receiver ever will see whatever it is. If it is digital I assume it can be retrieved by someone one way or another, sooner or later. But Proton campaigned with "no logging" and they did log, and I was using their services at the time of that event. They were dishonest, and I will never use them for anything personal or sensitive.
I use Tuta for regular personal and official stuff which public services have to keep anyway, and I use Proton for stuff I can drop in a heartbeat.
I don´t assume that Mullvad is 100% safe either. https://mullvad.net/en/blog/tag/privacy
In order for someone to get access to the stuff I`m at they have to do something illegal or unethical, as I am a law obeying citizen. And if they do - to my knowledge - I can be a bit of an annoyance.
About 7.000.000.000 people would qualify to that one, or how many are we these days?
Once upon a time I had my share of battles with Swiss law on behalf of clients, pursuing cash that didn`t rightfully belong to the corps located in Switzerland. You would have to spend 3-4-5 times the amounts (which could be considerable) to pursue and still fail. Swiss law could easily have protected Proton. The french case was political, and the Swiss court did France a political favour.
Isn't Proton one of those front companies for the Chinese Communist Party to take over the world?
Just asking for some friends on the internet.
Just asking for some friends on the internet.
So true. Their Drive client is mediocre and their speeds are pretty terrible. I wish they'd make their applications more robust before dumping half finished features on their users. Like photo upload for iOS, that just loads up your device storage until it's full and then it stops working. If Immich can find a solution to that, Proton certainly should have in the time it took them to build that functionality.
Also, if they'd just have accessible APIs, the community would build some of these things for them. rclone's Proton Drive implementation works by virtue of them reverse engineering the API from app source code, yet can break at any moment.
If only Proton would give back to the very same Open Source community that makes their business work...
Yuck! Pages has strange iCloud bugs and I’ve lost data with it. Apples software has become garbage and I wouldn’t trust them with a hello world application anymore.