Perception is more important than truth, the truth doesn’t matter if you don’t win on perception.
Not a great quote from Andy…
“This will be the last year that we hire engineers, and starting next year we hire what we used to call product managers, to build things with AI.”
Vibe coding by non-developers without security and code reviews is straight up crazy talk, especially for a company touting security and privacy.
And to think I was informed I was “over reacting” when, as a happy paying Proton user, bailed within a week upon Andy Yens GOP/trump comments some time back…
When they show you who they are, believe them… The age old adage that never fails. Ever.
What do you use now?
Posteo primary, and Tuta secondary
Have you done any research on the companies themselves? Good, bad, ideological stances?
Yes. Both are fantastic from an ethics & values perspective imo. Look at tuta on their reddit or blog over time and you can get a good view of the real human team and what they stand for. I would put them on top for their tireless work on behalf of fighting for privacy causes. They work hard at it.
Posteo is harder to find any poltical stances (which is fine by me) but their sustainable values are top notch, check their site and search some details.
Whether either these fit your needs ymmv but like them both
Proton is being run by a idiot. You should never in your life say this kind of shit when your brand is supposed to be privacy and security focused. Yes every single fucking line of code should be meticulously tested and reviewed and written. Faster deployment will not mean higher profit when youre supposed to be selling stability and security. What the fuck.
Guess I have to swap to tuta or something cause fuck this noise.
I’m gonna take a slightly controversial stance and say that the LLM use isn’t even the main issue here, it’s the culture. If your teams don’t feel safe to discuss bugs, flaws, or problems with how work is getting done, you will inevitably ship worse code no matter if it’s human written or not. I haven’t generally cared much that they’re using LLMs for dev work, but this scares me for their product. There’s a reason IR and post mortems need to be truly blameless.
True. If people dont feel free to say shit when things go wrong then you won’t see issues till its too bad to be swept under the rug. Like a massive leak or critical failure. Its just not a good look for them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space_Shuttle_Challenger_disaster
NASA managers also disregarded engineers’ warnings about the dangers of launching in low temperatures, and they did not report these warnings to their superiors.
This is… Not exactly correct.
Morton Thiokol engineers told NASA. NASA managers challenged the data, and Morton Thiokol executives told the VP of engineering to override the engineers.
I don’t think that kind of information was supposed to be public. Working for companies, I always sign a contract with an agreement that I won’t spoil the company’s reputation online. We have mandatory training on this and how not to publish stuff online about the company.
But, I’m glad they did though. I hope they tell Andy to piss off and replace him quick.
But does that make things any better? Would you rather read an empty hull of a statement that is marketing slop or even nothing at all? Ignorance is bliss, I suppose…
No of course not. I’m just pointing out, this is the reality in the corporate world.
I myself am tired of how corporations operate. I’m tired of the lack of ethics. I’m tired of the dishonesty.
But under late stage capitalism, psychopathic and sociopathic behaviors are rewarded. And that is how we end up with these people running the show and making these rules and acting like this.
Agreed. When management types feel too free to spout bullshit without consequences they start pushing dumber and dumber policies.
Tuta has its own massive problems. I forgot what they were specifically, but some people going around making comments have some lists.
Tuta calendar is hot garbage and gives me anxiety. It’s so so buggy- like not well designed and nobody tested unhappy path. Email is mostly good but search is meh. Been using for a while now on a paid account. Feels like the Apple of privacy email. Their drive offering will probably never leave closed beta. But I’m hopeful. I’ll probably stick with it because I’m pulling for them.
Nah, I meant like, AI usage and security related BS, though good to know the services are also shit.
Thanks for this review. While I’m hating on this Proton CEO, i need the alternative to kinda work at least.
They do use AI internally to write code. If they have more bad stuff I would like to know.
I guess the implementation of Lumo, their AI assistent, should have been recognised as a warning light.
I dont think the AI is the issue most people have. The toxic attitude and “release fast” way to implement AI from C-Level is the issue. At least thats what I have a problem with. AI is used in every tech company and it will be used more in every tech company, there is no getting around it. It just depends on how it gets implemented and that internal leaked info is not how it should it be done.
I truly, genuinely, don’t understand the rush to add features.
All the software I use has a baffling array of features I don’t need. I want someone to simplify most things I use, not junk them up with chat bots and chat bot-generated features no one asked for. ✨
They are wanting to compete with gsuite and Microsoft 365.
What rush to add features?
I’ve been a paying proton customer for over 10 years…
proton has been the slowest to do anything new … which i dont mind because i only use mail… i dont care for any of the cloud features… actually i was annoyed for a long time that they were wasting so much time on shiny new cloud features, when the core mail system had so much lacking…
releasing new features quickly has NEVER been part of their DNA… not sure why the idiot CEO is suddenly obsessed with shipling things quickly
Yeah even if the features came out right, no bugs, and were maintainable from the tech side, it just makes the product an utter mess. Try to use any Chinese made apps, they have had years of very cheap developers and they don’t say no to features, so they do everything and are a mess. Get ready for all apps to get like that
Oh man, I’ve tried not to judge this guy based on those badly worded tweets, but this behaviour to his own staff is fucking damning. I hope the company can cut him off like a diseased limb before their rep is completely destroyed.
FFS Proton, you were supposed to be the chosen one!
Those tweets were a pretty big red flag to me, especially his fawning over JD Vance/etc.
With this leak, it seems pretty clear that hes fully silicon valley brain rotted. I found this excerpt from the article also very telling, especially how he wants Proton to be a Chinese style “996” company:
Damn… My subscription is up for renewal and I wasn’t going to hesitate to renew, but now? I’m going to spend the next few weeks checking out my options.
Tuta for email. Filen for drive. Aegis for 2FA. No idea what to use for VPN, I am not giving nazi Mullvad one cent. Aliasvault or Bramble for password managing seem like great options, since I’m also disappointed on Bitwarden. Sometimes I feel tempted to just self-host everything and be done with the whole service-hunting tbh
Mailbox.org and tuta are being floated for email, ivpn or windscribe for VPN, bitwarden or keepass for passwords.
Beat of luck!
If I drop proton it will be to self host it all but the VPN, 2FA and a small off site cloud storage. Everything else is just a matter of convenience.
However, I’m giving them a year to figure it out. Thanks for the article, I will be watching him more closely now.
I dropped bitwarden and moved everything to Proton, wouldn’t recommend going back. They have been in a bad trajectory as well.
That’s also terrible news. What’s going on with bitwarden now?
Changes to licensing, private equity getting involved. It’s not as bad as this Proton exposé imho, but I still don’t like the trajectory.
Private equity. Yeah, that does sound awful. I fully expect enshittification to follow promptly. Thanks for the heads up
If you threat model doesn’t actually require having your emails encrypted (since that only exists until you send it) I switched from Proton to Fastmail and I have really enjoyed the service. It’s been night and day getting it to work with third party options.
I used to defend Proton and advertise it as a good alternative to Google. But I guess narcissistic psychopaths just run every fucking business in the world, it looks like.
They also have been a bit shady, many of the app settings (security and privacy) have telemetry turned on. And as a default the pass app has icon and provider lookups turned on. This means when you use your password app it checks with tons of servers, like google, Paypal, zoom, etc to go and find if you have icons to fetch or passwords to fill. The google one was grabbing IP address. So for a privacy app this is really doing a beaconing type thing where a malicious govt admin could be tracking server logs to see when you connect, and what accounts you have (since it reaches out based on your stored password websites).
This type of stuff should be off by default, for people like journalists that might have to be totally anonymous online.
Proton is just becoming the next google
Big fucking sigh
Tuta is still keeping its head on straight, it seems.
Hopefully they can keep developing their apps to maturity after 10 years. 😅
Subscription is up for renewal in March. I use most of Proton’s services every single day. VPN, authenticator, mail, docs, drive, all of it.
If Andy is still CEO come February, I’m not resubbing. Simple as that.
Beyond the AI shit, I don’t want a cent of my money going into the pocket of that asshole. Who the fuck talks to the people who generate all of their value like that. Fuck Andy and the high horse he’s on.
Mines in January. Already considering alternatives
I use mail (with my own domain name, forunately), VPN, Pass, and SimpleLogin. My family members use the VPN and we were getting ready to upgrade my plan and move them to email as well! I’ll have to do some serious research, but if Yen’s still in charge when I have to renew, I’ll be cancelling my own account whether or not I can find something that works for the whole family. 🤦
Here’s a uservoice thing to vote on against this: https://protonmail.uservoice.com/forums/945460-general-ideas/suggestions/51867423-andy-yen-steps-aside
Is encouraging to see all those comments. I took my payment details off my account so it cannot auto renew. If Andy isn’t gone by renewal, someone else will be getting my money instead.
Thanks for this!
deleted by creator
I’d happily switch to another password manager if it was also swiss.
Sadly, Infomaniak, which I use for storage doesn’t have a password manager.
I found this but I don’t know what to think about it: Pass-Securium
I’m trying to use more and more european sofware also, so I’m not going back to Dashlane.
Just use KeePass. It’s entirely local, open source, and exceptionally good.
I might try it if it’s easy to set up with kDrive, my phone and my wife.
What application would you use for Keepass on an iPhone (not my choice)?
And on Linux?
Ahh. Apple makes things tricky. For iPhone (my work phone), I use Keepassium and Synctrain (Syncthing). For Linux, I use KeePass XC and regular Syncthing.
Thanks a lot for your answers!
I have 2 months to try them before my ProtonPass subscription expires, so I think I’ll have a good idea of their efficiency by then👍
it says self hosting but you can also use their cloud for free.
Now this is clearly not an easily dismissed dumb comment.
The Proton board needs to step in here and do something about Andy.
What I liked most about Proton is that while they move more slowly launching features than most people may like, when they do put out new stuff it’s always solid and clearly well made. If he wants to lean even a little in the “move fast and break things” direction, he needs to be replaced.
The full article (for those who don’t have a paid 404 Media subscription) can be read at https://web.archive.org/web/20261029143048/https://www.404media.co/manifestos-fear-and-loser-thinking-inside-protons-ai-reckoning/.
Keywords (for those searching): bypass paywall, archive copy
Appreciate it. Ive added the above to the posts body.
Here’s an example of the absolute pearls of wisdom Andy is dropping over on Reddit
All of that is reasonable, until the faster part.
AI tools have been surprisingly good at finding code vulnerabilities. But that should only be an add-on to all the human review. It shouldn’t save any time. If anything it should make things take longer, with the AI finding things people didn’t, so there’s more patching that needs to be done.
Sometimes it’s patches, but sometimes with enough bugs you’re looking at a redesign (which takes even longer than patching)
I generally agree with you here, particularly regarding the benefits of finding stuff that a manual review may miss.
The approach I take issue with is the haphazard rush to add AI as part of the development process, almost purely for the sake of it, not on a case by case basis where it is needed (and can be fully tested)
Holy shit Andy shut up already
Need the Biden “would you shut up man” meme
Why can’t anything be good?
Rather CapitAIlism
Capitalism is a big reason right now, but it hasn’t been around forever. I think the only common denominator throughout the history of things not being good is just… People
Believe me, without the mentality of maximizing revenue and minimizing costs, 99% of these asshole CEOs wouldn’t exist
Respectfully I disagree. I’m not defending capitalism here, I’m just observing history. There’s always been assholes at the top, be they CEOs, or kings, or emperors, or whatever have you.
Yes that’s obvious. But I am referring to this type of asshole CEO, which is very much aligned with the capitalist mentality of these times.
Dogs are good
