Replying here so it's close to the top (sorry):

What do people recommend as truly good alternatives? Particularly non-American ones due to Snowden's revelations etc. etc.

Exactly. I mean, my proton accounts being taken over won't be catastrophic for me, but the whole premise of having them is they are secure enough for the case where it would be. This is not the place to jump head-first into the latest fad. I want them to be as slow and deliberate and conservative as possible. Experiment on something else, "secure email" shouldn't be it. I'm not anti-AI zealot in the least, but this clearly shows under-appreciation of the risks and complexities of using AI in engineering.

almost like he's a ... CEO. sigh

Yeah chasing velocity like that is for startups. Proton already has a product, a competent team, and (had) a lot of soft capital in the form of a good trusted name and goodwill.

That's enough momentum to coast on for a very long time, especially since their whole deal is that they're owned by a nonprofit and don't even have shareholders to pressure them.

They really had to nothing and they'd won, the only way to lose in a situation like that is... exactly this. Andy could have probably just sat on his ass for 20 years like Gabe Newell and probably been able to buy a similar yacht at the end of it.

This. I don't want some huge "business productivity suite", or whatever other crap they've been building lately. I paid initially Proton for secure email that wasn't being mined for adds. Now they have chatbots and who knows what else in the works, and are simply trying to chase revenue. Pass.

I run my business on Proton and we do miss some things. But they’ve been doing a good job making things happen slowly but surely, and I can be patient.

What I can’t tolerate is if they stop putting security first, which it sounds like they are under Yen’s leadership.

Because they hired the wrong CEO for that?

The foundation has trustees, whose job is to ensure the goals of the foundation are being met, and they hire the CEO. In this case, one of the trustees is the CEO, which is a bit of a conflict of interest.

“Our legally binding purpose is to further the advancement of privacy, freedom, and democracy around the world. … We measure our return on investment not through financial metrics, but through impact.” (proton.me)

> A company like Proton lives and dies by its reputation, trust, and goodwill.

This is essentially what I wrote in the "reason for leaving" comment box when I cancelled my annual subscription. I'm sure many others have/will as well; I'm less sure Proton will course-correct before it's too late.

The real kicker is that he sees any thorough human review of security critical code - even if that code is 100% AI generated - as "handcrafting code".

You just can't trust software being developed under such a man's leadership to be secure. It's a fatal mark against their raison d'etre.

Mullvad. Best option on the market, and what I'm moving to

I was looking into moving to Proton just yesterday. I was leaning toward it over Tuta, but this completely kills it as an option for me.

> Already looking for exit strategies.

Leaving Proton has been in the back of my mind for a while, and this is probably the last straw for me. I've previously heard that Fastmail is good, but I'm interested in what others are doing. I agree with you that email privacy and security are top of the list. I don't care about a private AI feature (eg, Proton's Lumo), and I don't need their productivity suite (docs, sheets, meetings). Just do one thing really well.

Looking for others' input on the right way to offboard from Proton.

> If the company needs to provide competitive services vs. everyone else who is using AI, they're just going to get left behind

Why not just build a damn good product that has a steady revenue stream? You don’t have to compete in a race to the bottom. There are other ways.

My email provider is boring. They do email and nothing else. Feature development is glacial but reliable. I doubt they’re rich. I doubt they’re tripling their ARR. But they have a stable business as best as I can tell and seem happy with it.

This whole “the only way to compete is to eat the world” is stupid and only makes things worse.

AI is not the issue here. But when your business is based on security and privacy you better adopt it carefully and deliberately. If you're measuring your teams on how much AI they use, I don't trust that you're putting security front and center. AI can be used to improve security, but you can absolutely do the opposite if you push too hard.

Also, any time anything comes out it gives a clear impression that the leadership are bullies, from the CEO on down. That creates an environment in which people are afraid to speak up, which means issues get overlooked. Which isn't great for security either.

I would have absolutely no problem with a CEO setting a solid, well-founded direction about the use of AI to improve their products while keeping a foundation of security and privacy. But Yen just sounds like a Silicon Valley tokenmaxxing douchebag.

> And even for security: like if their engineers are skeptical about adopting AI how can they protect their system in a world with Mythos and all other kinds of AI running around attacking them

Rotfl there's even this idea that you need vibecoded crap to resist Mythos? Oh my freaking god.

Portraying a subject unflatteringly does not automatically make an article a "smear".