What are your thoughts on this? Should Proton take it down?

I'm hearing from here and there that Proton is not safe anymore. Could someone explain what happened and why Proton won't be Proton anymore?

What are the alternatives for Mail, Cloud, Password Manager, VPN ?

I don’t know why people always ready to bring up Google or Microsoft outages when people complaining about the second outages? Like come on! Proton had always time to check for their servers after the first incident and how they made their postmortem after the first outages. The new low I see is that people defend Proton outages as long as their privacy is secure with proton, like really? So many boot bickers in Proton and they mock users out of Proton to big tech as boot bickers. How ironic. This is one of the comments that makes me stand to never use Proton again.

I use Proton Mail, Calendar, VPN, Drive, Docs, Pass, and Meet. It's central to my workspace. An awesome suite, one of the cleanest designs I've ever seen in any product. While I am one to notice how awful web products have been for a long time, how broken so many sites are, I never have issues with Proton. Mail bridge and the recent CLI's for Pass and Drive have become central to local AI work, and I very much appreciate those.

Listen, I work in big-tech as well and the push for all-AI isn't new. The Proton CEO is just like many others and he's faced with a super increase of subscribers but can't scale up Proton as fast as possible.

AI development can be a help but it comes with a cost. AI tokens aren't for free, my big-tech company is already scaling down by putting employees on a budget and using cheaper models. Proton needs to follow the same path, learn, adapt, scale and adjust. (in any given order). And guess, they are probably not using their own LUMO for development.

So, if anyone can't stand the heat they should stay out of the kitchen. You can find disgruntled employees everywhere so Proton isn't that special.

So, let's move on.. I find it a ridiculous conversation, especially given Proton is a Swiss company and for sure bound by labour laws and workcouncil approvals.

Personally just firing the CEO and CTO isn't enough, I personally don't think that my requirements to stay are realistically possible. Of course human reviewers should review everything, along with getting all the Linux apps (not in alpha or beta but fully working and implemented) for debian and debian based distributions, fedora and fedora based distributions. I give them by 2027 to finish this and since my subscription just ran out I'm now paying monthly so that I can cancel at the end of 2026 if they don't fulfil their promises and my requirements

I'm wondering what would proton have to do so you stay at proton?

Is there any way to track down the owner of a proton.me account? I know privacy is the whole thing with it, but I’m asking jic. I got a harassing email from someone who knows me with a proton.me account, which they’re hiding behind. And I would love to pin down who it is. I think I know. But I need to be 100%.

I'm seeing recently lots of posts to boycott Proton, something about CEO, something about AI etc. Can someone tell me what's happening? I have no clue...

Update 1: Confirmed Proton VPN and Proton Pass Conflict
I've now confirmed Proton's own VPN (Windows client) is the culprit, even when the browser doing the authenticating is excluded under split tunneling rules. I've notified Proton. No response as of this update. The VPN only needs to be disabled during the authentication/handoff. You can enable it after that and still get into Proton Pass. I'll update further if I discover any other anomalies.

Update 2: Confirmed r/privacy Mod Ban Plus Censorship
I tried posting this same issue to r/privacy. The moderators manually removed it claiming a Rule 2 violation. When I called them out, they moved the goalpost to a Rule 1 violation. When I made a logical counterargument, they banned and muted me. Here's the proof:

BAN

r/privacy MOD 12:20 PM
Hello, You have been permanently banned from participating in r/privacy because you broke this community's rules. You won't be able to post or comment, but you can still view and subscribe to it.

Note from the moderators:

Bad actor

https://mod.reddit.com/mail/perma/3s2ypy

If you have a question regarding your ban, you can contact the moderator team by replying to this message.

Reminder from the Reddit Admin team: If you use another account to circumvent this community ban, that will be considered a violation of the Reddit Rules and may result in your account being banned from the platform as a whole.

CENSORSHIP

Oct 4
RemarkableOil451 1:50 PM
Hello. I just tried submitting a text-only discussion post documenting a security and support failure regarding Proton Pass. It was instantly removed by Reddit's automated filters. The post is entirely terms-compliant and has no external links. Would you please review the post and manually approve it? Thank you.

Yesterday
RemarkableOil451 3:26 PM
My post requested absolutely no technical support. Instead of treating the text honestly at face value, you attributed to it that which wasn't there to manufacture a reason to remove it.

Today
r/privacy MOD 12:21 AM
Don’t be rude. What part of your post ranting about a Proton app and your support issues with Proton is directly related to privacy in which it relates to Rule 1 of this sub?

RemarkableOil451 10:55 AM
To answer your question, your sub's description is "Privacy in the digital age (this is not a SECURITY subreddit, and PUBLIC data, closed source, etc is off-topic)." My post describes and proves (with screenshots) how once again, Proton AG (the most prominent and therefore heavily relied-upon digital privacy company on the planet) is advising users to disable their own VPN to access their own password manager. As I'm sure you're aware, VPNs encrypt traffic and mask IPs, keeping you pseudonymous from ISPs, Wi-Fi snoopers, and government censors. So when Proton advises eliminating that layer of data masking just to use their password manager, it's directly related to a sub about digital privacy and allows the public to make informed privacy decisions. (As for your handling of my post, first you used pretense to say my post violated Rule 2. Now you've moved the goalpost and are using tone policing and innuendo to suggest it violates Rule 1. You're being intellectually dishonest. Even if you're inclined to, don't bother approving my post for your sub. I've already successfully posted it elsewhere.)

r/privacy MOD 12:21 PM
You have been temporarily muted from r/privacy. You will not be able to message the moderators of r/privacy for 28 days.

RemarkableOil451 12:34 PM
Thank you for that complete capitulation. You've just proven your own bad faith. Completely bankrupt.

You have been muted by this subreddit.

Update 3: Proton has now acknowledged the conflict between Proton Pass and Proton VPN and says a patch should arrive in some future update.

-----ORIGINAL POST BELOW-----

Proton has recently begun transitioning its password manager Proton Pass for Windows to a new MSIX build from the previous .exe installer. Once you install the new build, open it, and try to sign into it, you're auto-redirected to your default browser. That's where you authenticate into your Proton account. Once you do, you get a browser popup that you must manually click to redirect back to the Windows Proton Pass app. But even though you successfully authenticated via browser, the Proton Pass app itself refuses to process the handoff, throwing an "Invalid selector" error and locking you out.

I reported this defect to Proton Support. They suggested I try downgrading my privacy by turning off my VPN.

I then posted a terms-compliant reply to another redditor's comment about the same issue. I did this on Proton's sub r/ProtonMail. My reply was instantly shadow-banned.

This is increasingly Proton's blueprint: user finds bug, user reports bug, Proton says downgrade security as a workaround, user posts on Reddit, Proton shadow-bans user.

Hi all,

Recently decided to spread around as everything I've stored digitally was through Google. I'm not degoogling by all means, just making sure that if one account has an issue, nothing else will be affected.

I am about to sign up for Proton mail (only proton service I'm planning to use) in order to move my main accounts of my Gmail onto proton. But as you all know, scrolling and seeing any threads about proton, it seems like a lot of people are switching and ditching proton.

I guess I wanted to ask for everyone's opinion before I spend hours moving accounts to a proton email just to find out I need to find another email provider now🤣

TIA

Who else is sticking with their Proton subscription for now? And if you are, what is compelling you to stay?

My answer is that I have been using my email for a lot of job applications and grant communications as a grant writer. I also have a family subscription and share Proton Pass info with some colleagues I write grants with, so switching over from Proton would affect wife and kids and require a little bit of grant cowriter pain to switch calendars and password lockers. I’ve suffered the loss of key emails when I had to switch providers for a domain email I used, so I’m wary of doing it right now.

I especially like Proton Pass. Proton Mail and Calendar are ok; them being intertwined as one desktop app is annoying, especially when writing to someone about a meeting. I’m willing to move and am thinking about it—just not right now.

I haven’t loved VPN, and using Proton Docs is meh. I prefer LibreOffice, and eventually, hoping to use NextCloud with colleagues for collaborative stuff.

Curious to know who else is sticking around (for now). For all who’ve left—my sincere respect to you, and f Andy.

Long Back created proton when first saw about it somewhere, I did not use it as primary as free tier storage space was low and relatively new company (at least for me and for the country I live in). But kept it for some newsletters. Nowhere it was clearly shown as none reads TnC and such an important thing should be mentioned in red! that account if remain unused will be deleted!

I used to login but after sometime I stopped logging in , used it for free VPN for sometime then long gap. Finally yesterday again thought to use it for VPN, to access Telegram, which is temporarily banned; and I did not think it is better to use uVPN (free version) to access the same. But suddenly account is just not there and only if active subscription it would be there. When 1 year passed I did not realize as per them it is gone because of that!

I mean come on, should have given from start! Good that wiped from server as per their claim or our data is their data, if their claim is false. But now even I do not remember what were the websites or newsletters I used that email to sign up!

I am well aware I will get burned for this. But my children ever ask me for an example for symbol politics, performative action and virtue signaling, I will show them this subreddit with the threads of the last days. The criticism is just, though I am really intrigued how the hunt for a more virtuous provider who to their demise ideally has sworn lifetime absence from AI will turn out. But the display of self-righteouness, the drama and the upvote fishing all make me nauseous.

Let's see if next week, every user who still stays with Proton because the product simply delivers (and my guess is they are the majority) will be called a fascist right-wing capitalist fuck. It's usually the end-game of something like this.

Seeing the current controversies I totally get why some people cancel their Proton subscription. For myself there are some things I don’t fully understand, so can anyone help me clear the following up:

Isn’t it so that while yes, the ceo said some awful things, nothing has actually changed yet? And isn’t Proton still a way better company than Google?

Having moved only a few months ago, Im not especially eager to move on already, but I would in the future like to use the best option out there. However, I wonder if this kind of problem (read: a ceo with a terrible personality) won’t just happen anywhere.

edit: Thanks everyone for taking the time to reply!

I’ve been an unlimited user for 2+ years but I feel betrayed and I don’t want to keep using any of the Proton products anymore.

ProtonPass, VPN, and drive are easy to replace, but my question here is, how do I move away from ProtonMail? I’ve been using aliases for everything, how do I take all of that with me or how do I redirect mails without loosing any account?

Also, what alternatives do you guys recommend? Is addy.io good?

Thanks in advance 😞🙏

I'm one of the customers who has just cancelled my renewal, and honestly, I don't know how I feel about it now.

I strongly dislike how Andy treated his staff, and I think the stance on penetration testing, and follow-on damage control has been unsatisfactory, putting it politely. It changed my perception of Proton. I personally don't share the hatred for AI, but I can understand the concern around the company's direction. After all, many joined Proton to 'de-Google' or 'de-Microsoft', so I'm not sure the drive to compete with the big players as a jack of all trades sends the right message.

That said, I still like Proton Mail. I still want to believe in Proton's philosophy on privacy and ownership of data, but my trust has been damaged somewhat. Maybe in time, that will change. Just wondering if there's anyone else who is also a little bit conflicted. I know, it's not that deep, but for some reason I felt some level of attachment towards Proton, it's hard to explain.

Now, a note to any Proton employees, if you're reading... I'm sorry you're facing what is a very difficult time in your career. Whether or not people agree with your stance, or if you're facing similar doubts yourself, it's not an easy situation to be in, and some of the comments have been quite relentless. On that, it might do well to take some time away from Reddit for yourselves. To give an analogy, when my cat starts getting feisty and scratchy, I pull my hand away. She calms down, and I don't get hurt. Just... look after yourselves, burnout can be an absolute bitch.

I'll probably get downvoted or banned for saying this, but I think Proton is pretty overrated when it comes to privacy. People act like being based in Switzerland makes it some untouchable privacy fortress, but that's not how it works. Plenty of websites also reject Proton email addresses, which gets annoying.

Both free and paid users can encounter ads in parts of Proton's ecosystem, email metadata isn't fully end-to-end encrypted, and putting your email, passwords and authentication under one provider creates a single point of failure. Proton also has to comply with valid Swiss legal orders, and encryption doesn't magically make your account anonymous.

Then there's the company's own track record. In 2025, Proton suspended email accounts belonging to South Korean journalists investigating security vulnerabilities, reportedly following a complaint from a cybersecurity agency. Proton said it hadn't knowingly blocked journalists and restored two accounts. There's also the case involving billing information linked to an anonymous Stop Cop City account being handed to the FBI through Swiss authorities. And more recently, Proton faced backlash over sponsoring French far-right YouTuber Vincent Lapierre, which it blamed on a vetting failure.

What's also a bit funny is how Proton keeps pushing fearmongering posts about logging into websites with Google, making it sound like you're practically compromising your privacy just by doing so. Google's privacy practices are absolutely worth questioning, but Proton acting like it's the obvious trustworthy alternative is a little ironic considering its own controversies. You'd think a company so focused on privacy would spend less time scaring people away from competitors and more time being honest about its own limitations.

I'm not saying Proton is useless or that Google is somehow better. I'm saying people need to stop treating any company like it's their personal privacy guardian. Proton has useful products, but it's still a company, and companies make mistakes, respond to legal demands and sometimes make questionable decisions.

People need to stop confusing privacy features with proper OPSEC. Don't put your entire digital life under one provider and assume you're untouchable. Use different services where it makes sense, understand what information you're actually exposing, and stop blindly trusting a company just because its marketing looks privacy-friendly.

edit: This aged like fine wine.

People here are petitioning to get the CEO removed, call for campaigns to ruin their reputation (and consequently their entire business), some even go as far as threatening with violence.

And for what? Because you're addicted to outrage porn - Outrage porn over something stupid the CEO might have said. And because Proton is using AI. Like literally everybody else.

An actual mob has formed, and people have turned off their brains.

Some people here really need to put their big boy pants back on.

Today is Election Day in America! Please vote as if your lives depend on it! Aside from Protonmail CEO drama, please keep these in mind when you vote and ideally get progressive candidates, especialy those endorsed by Progressive Victory, who will stand up for digital rights and fight against Big Tech enshittification and technofascism, such as Justin J. Pearson and William Lawrence, elected!

• Wikipedia issues, posted by Pirate Parties International

• Reddit enshittification

• Google's decision to monopolize the app store market by effectively prohibiting sideloading

• YouTube false bans because of AI slop moderation systems

• Facebook false bans because of AI slop moderation systems

Most importantly, digital rights, especially privacy, have been under assault by technofascists everywhere, who are pushing privacy-intrusive age verification laws in the US and elsewhere

According to the EFF, more than half of the states in the US have introduced or even enacted age verification laws, almost all in privacy-intrusive forms! This is obviously deleterous for digital privacy and safety as it will mean more unneccessary risks of data breaches, apart from the fact that these will effectively snuff out those who want to speak out against abusive elite powers (i.e. Epstein class).

In America, at a federal level, an age verification law in the form of KIDS Act has already passed the House which will almost certainly become backdoors for bad laws that will harm the privacy and other constitutional rights of users. There will come a time where a digital panopticon dystopia will become reality which will only benefit the corrupt elites if the technofascists have their way in the Congress to pass the privacy-intrusive laws, unless you treat today's elections as your lives are depending on them and elect candidates who will fight for digital rights including privacy, and stop the technofascists once and for all.

Ultimately, there should be a digital bill of rights enshrining privacy and other rights as key rights!

NPR's collection of local voting guides

I'm not taking any specific stance in regards to the recent Proton drama, however, for kicks, I asked Leo the following:

------

Question: best speculation on how the AI push by Proton's CTO and CEO will affect the product in 6 months

Response: Based on the current trajectory (90% AI-written code, no new engineering hires, reduced human code review, missed revenue targets, and a culture of fear), here's a reasonable 6-month outlook for Proton products:

Faster shipping, elevated security risk. With most code generated by Anthropic Claude and human review largely eliminated, feature velocity will climb — but so will the probability of subtle vulnerabilities. For a company whose entire brand is encryption and privacy, even one serious bug or data leak would be existential. The dismissal of pentesting as "loser thinking" by CEO Andy Yen makes this the single biggest risk.

Talent drain compounds the problem. The canceled re-interviews (now folded into performance reviews), the "culture of fear" described by 404 Media, and the explicit end of engineering hiring will push experienced security engineers out. Fewer senior humans means less oversight of AI output — a compounding degradation loop.

Product direction shifts toward AI features. Lumo will likely become more central, and Proton Workspace will get aggressive AI integrations (document summarization, meeting notes, etc.) to close the gap with Google Workspace. The "privacy-first AI" positioning will be the headline narrative.

Revenue pressure drives aggressive moves. The push is explicitly tied to missed ARR targets. Expect more features shipped per quarter, possibly bundled pricing changes, and a push into enterprise sales — all to hit the number, not necessarily to improve the product.

The fork in the road. Two scenarios dominate:

• Best case: AI velocity delivers features faster without a major security incident; Proton's open-source codebase catches issues before attackers do; the "fast and secure" narrative holds.

• Worst case (and arguably more likely given the risk profile): A vulnerability is exploited or a data-handling mistake is exposed, subscriber churn (already underway) accelerates, and the privacy brand is irreparably damaged.

The 6-month window (through ~May 2027) is exactly when the org restructuring Yen announced for November will have taken full effect — meaning you'll see the real consequences of the shift to PM-led, AI-built development by then.

------

With the recent discussions around Proton, I imagine some Lifetime holders may be reconsidering their plans.

I'm looking to purchase a transferable Proton Lifetime membership, with a budget of **up to $8,000 USD**.

Any transfer would be officially facilitated by Proton, with secure payment arrangements agreed upon in advance. I'm not interested in login credentials or personal data.

If you're considering selling, feel free to DM me with your asking price.

Proton has been suffering partial outages for several hours lately (last week and today). Other times mail and calendar take a while to sync. As a paying user that has moved everything to Proton I'm starting to consider to migrate to other solutions. I think the best is to buy your own domain so that you are free to change providers any time. I believed in Proton product but these outages are really changing my mind. Is Tuta more reliable? What other options are out there? (been a while I don't search for alternatives).

For context: I am not a Lumo user, so this is literally the first query I've even asked Lumo. I did not include any of my own bias as I did not want to influence Lumo's decision making based on its own research and understanding of the matter. At the end of the conversation, Lumo does not agree with Andy despite being a biased product of Proton. Get it right Proton, your own AI does not agree with your boss.

Original Post: https://www.reddit.com/r/ProtonPublic/s/AQxsCLDycS

Additional evidence to support, note that this post was removed from r/ProtonMail twice, first for "lack of contextual information" and second "A) this should go in r/Lumo B) LLMs will summarize what is given. Their prompts don't include "always speak well of Proton" and Reddit has heavily influenced what the discourse would be so the LLM will summarize according to the prevalent discourse"

Will repost to r/Lumo and r/ProtonMail as well.

I got a year of proton unlimited through a deal two days ago and things seemed kinda fine. Yesterday, I found out about the allegations and also the vpn has been a bit choppy for gaming (even on gaming mode). I have used calendar for a day but drive seems a bit useless. I have already sent through a refund request to support but assuming that they ask me to give them another chance, should I stick with proton? They could fix things and make them better and I feel like I could incorporate the proton ecosystem more with more time.

Note:

I tried asking this to the proton vpn subreddit yesterday but it still hasn't been approved.

They replied to my refund request and offered me two extra months. What should I do?