Well, I am concerned. I paid $100+ on a proton bundle subscription during the Black Friday sale, it came with half a terabyte cloud storage, a fast and Private vpn, and a proton pass which integrates well with the email provider. It was cheap, and private, and it all works well together.

Proton is owned 60 something percent by the proton non profit organisation, which makes regular donations to other private project's like GrapheneOS. It’s worked well for me. But this is really concerning considering I oppose fascism, and broadly want to support a leftist, anti-capitalist movement.

This also sucks because the far right want their internet privacy as much as the anti capitalist left. Does this mean proton is an evil company, that even if it has good, private technology, should be boycotted? When frankly, if the left boycotted, and didn’t participate in any capitalist organisation, we would likely starve to death.

Could this just be a marketing issue? Ffs the consumer should not be blamed for the faults of a company, and using their product.

Ironically I am happier with cock.li than proton

(context: owned by 4chan user (with a grain of salt(?)) but it's best i've found :/ )

They also sponsor a far-right influencer in Brazil.

This guy is literally a grandson of a dictator of the military dictatorship. He was also one of the articulators of the 2023 coup attempt, pressing the military to join

very cool proton

edit: giving more context in case someone wants to post this in their subreddit (I won't): his name is Paulo Figueiredo and he still have a proton vpn sponsor link in every video on youtube.

The corporation sponsors the pro capitalist ideologue? I'm shocked.

Three things on Proton:

1. Proton mail has been in a rampage with sponsor YouTube channels and, in my opinion, that is a mistake. I would have kept it an organic growth, but that is me... a nobody, and Proton has become far more successful than no other email provider in the privacy world.

2. Considering even that, Proton is not vetting who is sponsoring. This is a fiasco. For instance they try to sponsor the channel "The hated one" that never takes any sponsors and even constantly criticizes channels that does it. That is a mayor blunder for Proton, there is no scrutiny at all with their marketing deployment. By the way, we learned that that youtubers get a juicy amount by Proton in these sponsorships (I think was $70 per subscription).

3. Proton, for years, has been aiming for the masses, not the most serious in privacy (for instance, androidś Proton email still uses Google push services). That is not bad per se, I still recommend Proton to many. But those with a more ideological approach to privacy or those requiring top notch on it, should be aiming for other service providers.

I'm so happy I moved away from them a year and something ago. This was totally predictable

I was afraid Proton would eventually go down the far right route... and it seems like my fears came true

Using Proton always seemed like a bad idea. People come to Proton in order to deGoogle or de-big-tech but then lock themselves into their ecosystem, defeating the entire purpose.
Not mention how scummy their PR-Team, their CEO and their Business Practices are.
So many Proton sponsered content creators spread lies about how Proton Mail is supposedly E2E encrypted or how Proton VPN is supposedly a privacy and security tool.
Time and time again they have lied about how much data they have and how much they have disclosed to investigating agencies.

The only way I could ever undestand someone using Proton Mail would be to use their service but behind your own domain, such that migrating away stays easy.

Thanks for the heads up. Haven't really used Proton, but I have a few accounts in case of... But now they will be deleted.

Such companies "sponsor" everyone. It's cheaper than normal advertisements.