#Proton schafft sich ab.

heise.de/news/Nachrichten-Leak…

Saying "great engineers can do even better and faster work with the help of an LLM" is reasonable and probably even correct.

Saying "you're a loser for caring about security reviews - the thing #Proton is most known for - because all that matters is getting new code into production faster" is a major culture problem that needs fixed from the top.

@protonprivacy

.@protonprivacy shared the AI manifesto that was part of what was being quoted in that big story.

Honestly, this part on its own doesn't worry me that much. It's probably a bit too bought into the hype and maybe sets the stage for some of the worse stuff, but the core idea that LLMs change how programmers work I think is entirely fair.

The part that really scared me in the reporting was the abusive leadership, like calling engineers losers for wanting to do their security testing. I still don't really know how that toxic environment gets fixed without the removal of Yen as CEO.

proton.me/blog/ai-manifesto

#Proton

#Proton CEO Andy canceled the #AI re-interviews for employees after getting exposed, gave employees a non-apology that was basically “I’m sorry you didn’t understand what I said,” and made zero commitments to change his behavior or his foolish AI push.

If you’re a Proton subscriber, tell the Proton Foundation board know how you feel about this: foundation@proton.me

404media.co/protons-ceo-cancel…

Chris Oliver

2026-10-30 01:35:02

After switching from Gmail to #Proton Mail last year, it’s so upsetting to learn that Proton’s CEO is an AI-psychotic bully to his employees, and the CTO is also AI-pilled and toxic. They need to be removed.

#AI #vibecoding #slopcoding #ToxicWorkEnvironment

404media.co/manifestos-fear-an…

Manifestos, Fear, and ‘Loser Thinking’: Inside Proton’s AI Reckoning

Proton CEO Andy Yen projects a calm persona and rails against Big Tech and critiques AI. Internally, he is pushing engineers to build Proton with AI, even when they have security concerns.

^{Joseph Cox (404 Media)}

The more I think about it, the more this makes me angry.

I have had jobs with leadership who treat people like this. It damages your health (mental, physical, and emotional).

And in a market like ours, I suspect there are a lot of people at Proton who have pits in their stomachs. They’re expressing their pain to their partners, or kids, or friends. Feeling trapped.

This is what emotional abuse, toxic masculinity, and tech-bro capitalism look like. I’m tired of people thinking ethics and technology aren’t intersectional. They are.

Fuck Andy Yen, and fuck @protonprivacy.

🧵 2/2

#Proton #AndyYen #Tech #Privacy #InfoSec #AI

My decision went towards #Posteo as my new home (posteo.de/en). Everything sounds great. High data protection standards, #noAI, and all servers are in Germany and entirely powered by renewables from @GreenPlanet_nrg. I will see if I need an app or if the web version is enough for me. Goodbye @protonprivacy, migration starts now.

#Proton

Proton, Tuta, ... galten bislang als zuverlässige, vertrauenswürdige, und vor allem sichere E-Mail-Anbieter.

In meiner Timeline geht nun herum, dass beide Unternehmen massiv KI-generierten Code in ihren Produkten verwenden.
Das lässt das Vertrauen bei vielen sinken, verständlicherweise.

Wie ist das bei anderen Mail-Anbietern, wie zB Posteo oder Mailbox?

Posaunen die ggf. nur nicht öffentlich hinaus, dass auch sie KI verwenden, oder gibt es doch noch Unternehmen, die ihre Entwicklungs-Teams selbst programmieren lassen?

#Proton #Tuta #Tutamail #Posteo #Mailbox #Email #KIFrei #noAI

@tobias @TerryHancock @doncow

With the most recent development of the Claude SSH backdoor it’s only a matter of time before those that are genuinely serious about security and privacy to make a stand.

We see almost daily flaws in Ai code being exposed and the announcements like those from Tuta are red flags that will lead to the work environments like that at proton as you mentioned.

#privacy #proton #tuta

The @protonprivacy Foundation page starts by saying how "people come before profits" so I can't help but wonder how they're feeling about the CEO explicitly telling staff they need to give up product quality to make more short-term profits?

proton.me/foundation

#Proton

Friendly reminder that #Proton has a Foundation. At least 3 of the members appear to not be Proton employees. Perhaps they could be pressured to ask Andy what the actual fuck is going on?

proton.me/foundation

I've used Bitwarden for password management for years and really like it. The family share option is super helpful with my kids (while they were teens and now as adults).

My subscription is up in March. I too hope @protonprivacy removes Yen from all parts of the organization (company and board). I'm not one to put convenience before principles. I dropped FB/IG/Whatsapp and then Twitter many years ago and haven't been tempted back since.

Tech folks who made #proton what it is today, we're resilient and determined to an inordinate degree.

Just a reminder, for absolutely obvious reasons, that I am training my pigeons to deliver my mail. Sign up and get expedited access to my pigeon farm here 👇

urdadcheatingonurmomwith.ai

#proton #privacy #opensource
🐦

Proton & Tuta have both Embraced the AI and Left Themselves Insecure

Time To Stop Using Them

#Security #Proton #Tuta #AI #AI-Psychosis #PivotToAI #

Test de #Tutanota, jour 1 :
- compte créé
- ajout d'un domaine personnalisé

Pour l'instant, je trouve l'aide d'ajout d'un domaine un peu plus simple que #Proton, mais l'interface moins claire quand même.

Car je croyais m'être réengagé sur 2 ans en octobre, mon abonnement Proton arrive à échéance le 26 novembre, il me reste donc 26 jours pour trouver une alternative et ne pas payer 450€ à Proton.

OFFS. Really?!

I was literally just congratulating myself for not having gone with #Proton but instead getting a #Tuta email account.

I'm now going to need to start searching all over again for an ethical and reliable email provider that also hasn't been at the AI Kool-Aid.

And then, as mentioned else-thread, I also have to learn how to configure the domain I have already paid for, to handle all my email regardless of who the email provider might be, thereby removing the pain of changing addresses from then on.

First (unsurprisingly) #Proton, and now fucking #Tuta. I genuinely can’t with this. I’m so fucking tired of the ceaseless enshittification creep.

Are there any services out there that can be trusted anymore? Ones that will survive longer than 10 years and will stick to their fucking principles and mission??? #privacy #FuckAI #NoAI

Dropping @protonprivacy VPN.

"That's bullshit and loser thinking... stop lovingly handcrafting all our code and use AI more," are the words of a sociopath.

(Yes, it's a direct (abbreviated) [quote].)

I'm out.

P.S. I just found out that Sociopath CEO™ was going to re-interview everyone based on how they were using AI, but backed down over the furor. If your company enables such destructive and sociopathic behavior from its "leadership," it deseves to crash and burn.

#Proton #ProtonVPN #Divest #AI #e14n #enpoopification

Well, I contacted Proton support. My message opened with the 404 media report, and continued:

"It's difficult to express just how disappointed I am.

I signed up for Proton roughly a decade ago because I believed you were making the world a better place. I even subscribed at a higher tier than I needed, because I believed in you.

So-called AI is a cancer.

It guzzles resources at a ruinous pace. It can only function due to industrial-grade theft and plaigarism. It is ethically bankrupt technology.

And now you're being pushed to not only use it, but to use it to - frankly - fuck up everything you've built so far.

I will be considering my options now for moving to another service.

Why can't we just have nice things? Why can't some company just not turn out to be terrible, just once?

Sincerely
$fullname"

I got a response I consider the best I could ask for under the circumstances:

"Hello Len,

Thanks for getting in touch, and for being honest about how you feel.

We've seen the reporting this week about AI strategy and culture at Proton, and I understand why it's raised questions for you.

Although I can't provide you with any updates or answers right now, I can assure you that it's being discussed across the company, and once we're ready, we'll share a full response publicly.

I've passed your feedback on, so that it is accounted for in the conversations that are taking place.
Kind regards,
$supportPersonName
Customer Support
Proton Mail"

So there's that. Meanwhile I've downloaded all the documents I was keeping on my Proton Drive and stored them on my NAS, and I'm in the process of archiving my emails to same. They make an export tool for downloading and decrypting the files.

At this stage I don't know whether I'm preparing for a move (I don't know where to) or insuring against the services failing when the mad AI push inevitably breaks things.

#Proton #ProtonMail

So glad I have a custom domain. Depending on the outcome of all of this @protonprivacy stuff, I can quite easily switch away to other services (I already use a self-hosted @ente for photos and Backblaze B2 for some files, but would probably find another email provider and use something like @filen for cloud storage).

#Proton #ProtonMail #AndyYen #AI #ArtificialIntelligence #Abuse

It looks like #Proton CEO is trying to be a Techbro-billionnaire-CEO but without the billions and without understanding that it’s core supporters are the people fleeing techbros.

He probably spend too much time with its chatbot.

Alice: How long has Andy been CEO of Proton, and was he always a dick?

Lumo¹: *hostile framing detected*
Lumo: I wouldn't call Andy a...
Lumo: *search results returned*
Lumo: ...oh, oh wow, he *is* a dick.

¹ Lumo is Proton's AI that no one wanted, but everyone got bundled into their account anyway.

#Proton #AI

If the Proton Foundation is really in charge of controlling Proton AG, they should fire the CEO right away. Or else they serve no real purpose whatsoever, apart non-profit-washing; like most non-profit foundation boards, apparently (Mozilla and Wikimedia, I'm looking at you).

#proton #wikimedia #mozilla

Andy Yen should be removed as Proton's CEO.

Each time I've had beef with something related to Proton, he's been the one driving it.

www.404media.co/manifestos-fear-and-loser-thinking-inside-protons-ai-reckoning/

(sans paywall)
unwall.app/www.404media.co/man…

#Tech #Security #Proton #FuckAI

Regarding the #Proton fiasco:

I don't know much one way or another about Fastmail's internal culture, but I can say with certainty that their product has been *rock solid* for so many years I can't even recall when I first started using them.

They seem to be the move-slow-and-fix-things company, which I greatly appreciate. Their UX has evolved *very slowly* over time…some might say too slowly, but I'm fine with it.

And they have EU data sovereignty as an option now!

fastmail.com/blog/fastmail-off…

What a shame I did let my annual subscription automatically renewing 3 days ago.

My question to you all is: what is our next best path? What seems to be the better (best) solution for you now (I mean end-to-end email privacy), than what #Proton could have appeared to be to nearly all of us a couple of years ago?

Proton.me has made news the last couple of days over reporting from 404 Media covering an internal push by CEO Andy Yen to do an AI transformation of the company. Such pushes are far from new, though most of the AI loyalty tests proposed by Yen happened 1-2 years ago in other companies. More concerning to system operators like myself, Yen was cited as saying that slowing things down in the name of security is not going to be tolerated; they have annual recurring revenue targets to hit. Get with the AI-accelerated development program or get out.

Say what you will about AI, but this "speed matters more than security" stance is something you don't see written in plain text very often. You absolutely see executives dancing around the concept in tight enough circles you can still make out the lettering, but not the text itself. We have the text here. Users are not happy.

For a company whose entire brand identity is not being big tech, plus being the secure, private, encrypted alternative, a push to compromise security runs directly against their actively marketed brand identity. Secondly, the push for increasing ARR even if it makes things less secure is something big tech has been doing for a decade now. This means both of their primary brand identity attributes were undermined by their CEO being too big tech product-brained to at least get fancy with his wording.

Now we find that Proton is suspending the AI loyalty tests, the fact of which does nothing to address the marketing problem of their CEO actively undermining their brand identity.

Andy Yen needs to go. Whether Proton's corporate structure allows the board to oust him, I do not know. But Andy Yen needs to go.

#proton #AndyYen

I've kept my SimpleLogin account separate from my Proton account for this possibility. Were you using the built-in alias functionality or a separate alias solution? I haven't tried to migrate, yet, but I'm hoping the separation does still exist for and I can just point my aliased addresses at a new mailbox.

I'm also probably going to look into a different email alias provider, because SimpleLogin is owned by Proton.

If/when I do migrate off of Proton, I'll likely use this as an opportunity to use my own registered domain, too. I still want to use a generalized alias email domain but having a custom domain for my personal email would be good.

#Proton #ProtonAG #AndyYen #SimpleLogin #AISlop #Privacy #Security

Just a reminder, for absolutely no reason, that Thunderbird is building an open-source email service. Sign up and get expedited access to the beta here 👇
explore.thunderbird.net/thunde…

#proton #privacy #opensource

Bart Butler, Chief Technology Officer at Proton, sent a 3 page statement to the software engineers at the company recently, and this passage stood out to me.

#Proton is cooked. Get out now people.

Original Article (h/t to @_elena):

404media.co/manifestos-fear-an…

I'm a working software engineer who's pressed into using #AI by senior management. I know what these models can and can't do. And let me be clear: the culture described in that @404mediaco article sounds pathological and delusional. The models are nowhere near reliable enough to be used the way #Proton's management (or my own employer's management) wants to use them.

I wouldn't want to run any software produced under the leadership culture that this article describes.

Unfortunately, Board-level FOMO is contagious. Leaders read stories about companies laying off thousands of developers in favour of AI and think they have to outdo one another. Those of us who don't want to run AI-generated code will have fewer and fewer places to retreat to, and those of us who still want to practise the craft with satisfaction and pride will very soon find it impossible to get hired. I firmly believe that my current job will be my last, and I'm glad I'm near retirement age.

Fuck AI.

HO.LY. F.U.C.K.

Thanks for posting that link. I had absolutely no idea! I've been with #Proton for many years, 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘤𝘪𝘴𝘦𝘭𝘺 because I want to get away from Big Tech, not to get dragged back in via the backdoor.

What a arrogant, dismissive prick, this guy. I feel sorry for the employees, but I'm gonna have to look for an alternative. It really sucks, as Proton Meet and SimpleLogin are really good products. What a nightmare! 😱

My new approach vis-à-vis transitioning away from #Proton (in a slow way) - cont':

For every new email that comes in that uses one of my Proton email addresses (or aliases), I am making changes, updating the email address for that account (if it's shopping/newsletter/admin) or I am notifying the sender that going forward my default email address will be the one associated to my domain name.

It's a pain, but it's long overdue.

I'm devastated to hear that #Proton 's CEO and CTO are treating their engineers in a terrible way, blindly trusting LLMs and creating a toxic culture where speed and growth trump security.

I'm not ready to make a radical switch yet but some little actions I implemented today could be useful for others, too:
1) I made my custom domain the DEFAULT email address in ProtonMail
2) I created aliases w my custom domain for shopping, newsletters, admin, etc.

Hoping this will make a transition smoother

AI is here to stay and that is not to be discussed. What can be discussed is how fast and what way a company should adopt it (with ethics and competition among other things in mind.

Looks like the CEO in Proton has gone bunkers…

404media.co/manifestos-fear-an…

#AI #Proton #AiAdoption #SoftwareDevelopment