Become a MacRumors Supporter for $50/year with no ads, ability to filter front page stories, and private forums.

Bananasaurus

Suspended
Aug 16, 2023
753
2,631
Proton is based in Switzerland. Swiss law requires companies to log email IP addresses, not VPN IP addresses. If a user uses a VPN to access his email, then a company does not have to log.
Yes, I'm aware of what their laws are. Their laws aren't the issue. Proton lying is the issue. And please don't link to "clarifications" from Proton's site.
 

Hele

macrumors member
May 14, 2022
99
76
Rhode Island
They said they never log IP addresses on ProtonMail. That if asked, they would not be able to divulge that information because they don't have it. They logged someone's IP address when asked. They then removed their statement on their website that said they never log IP addresses.
There is no lie here; they clarified this. If asked to provide my metadata for yesterday (after the fact), they would not be able to provide the information. If Proton received a Swiss court order to log my metadata from now on (tomorrow) they might be forced to comply. They would also notify me and not comply with some gag order like most US companies do. (Under Swiss law the subject of this surveillance must be notified.) I also use Proton’s Onion site with or without the VPN.
 

Bananasaurus

Suspended
Aug 16, 2023
753
2,631
There is no lie here; they clarified this. If asked to provide my metadata for yesterday (after the fact), they would not be able to provide the information. If Proton received a Swiss court order to log my metadata from now on (tomorrow) they might be forced to comply. They would also notify me and not comply with some gag order like most US companies do. (Under Swiss law the subject of this surveillance must be notified.) I also use Proton’s Onion site with or without the VPN.
They said they keep no logs of IP addresses on their website. That if they were asked by the law, they couldn't provide it as they wouldn't have this information. This was a selling point on their website years ago. There is no clarification. When they received backlash, they promptly removed this part of their website. They lied. There is nothing to clarify. You can blindly trust them if you want to.
 

Hele

macrumors member
May 14, 2022
99
76
Rhode Island
… You can blindly trust them if you want to.
Yes, I trust Proton implicitly. Proton’s site is filled with transparency all day long. I explained the subtle difference that you interpret as a malicious lie.

Proton exists in the real world, and what Proton offers and delivers is the best there is. You might try the dark web to find what you’re looking for, but I doubt you’ll find anything better (yet). As I said, ProtonMail has an onion site, but you’re probably one of the types who thinks Tor is compromised to the extent that journalists operating in oppressive regimes shouldn’t use it.
 

Bananasaurus

Suspended
Aug 16, 2023
753
2,631
Yes, I trust Proton implicitly.
You shouldn't trust any of these companies implicitly.

you’re probably one of the types who thinks Tor is compromised to the extent that journalists operating in oppressive regimes shouldn’t use it.
Discussions cease to function when logical fallacies such as this are used.
 

Hele

macrumors member
May 14, 2022
99
76
Rhode Island
You shouldn't trust any of these companies implicitly.


Discussions cease to function when logical fallacies such as this are used.
Ok, I get it. I shouldn’t use ProtonMail, not even on an onion site. Proton is out to get climate activists so deviously it would only offer this onion site if ProtonMail and Tor were compromised. Proton is a “shady” company. 🙄
 

Bananasaurus

Suspended
Aug 16, 2023
753
2,631
Ok, I get it. I shouldn’t use ProtonMail, not even on an onion site. Proton is out to get climate activists so deviously it would only offer this onion site if ProtonMail and Tor were compromised. Proton is a “shady” company. 🙄
Yes more logical fallacies. This is going well.
 

Hele

macrumors member
May 14, 2022
99
76
Rhode Island
“Yes more logical fallacies. This is going well.”

More hyperbole.

“Proton is a shady company.”
(Bananasaurus proved this beyond all doubt.)
 

svenmany

macrumors demi-god
Jun 19, 2011
2,060
1,335
I read this https://arstechnica.com/information...l-provided-a-users-ip-address-to-authorities/. They showed that the previous wording in their advertisement was "By default, we do not keep any IP logs...". It doesn't seem that they said they would never do it if they were legally required to for a particular individual. I guess people could interpret "By default" differently and that's why there was such blow back and they had to remove that sentence altogether. But, I don't see any evidence that they lied.

But, wouldn't any company have to comply with the legal requirements of the country they're in? It's true that Google, for example, might not be keeping any logs now. But if some judge issued a ruling that required them to turn on logging for a particular individual, wouldn't they do it? Since Google has so much money, they could fight such a court order in court, but I bet they wouldn't.
 
  • Like
Reactions: confirmed and Hele

confirmed

macrumors regular
Dec 30, 2001
173
265
New York, NY
The use of any consumer VPN service comes down to trust. I choose to trust Proton. Part of that trust is due to their transparency. Yes.. they had an instance where they had to update their public policy based on a case that required them by law to have and provide information. I’ll take the company that is open about that rather than the company that never disclosed the incident.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Hele

Airforcekid

macrumors 68000
Sep 29, 2008
1,707
680
United States of America
Compatibility and stability with operating on the latest Mac hardware and OS are also extremely important. How does ProtonVPN do in this regard? NordVPN doesn’t do very well in this regard.
Proton has a free teir you can try out the app with it. My go to is still Cloudflare's WARP it offers speed and security improvements the privacy aspect isn't a big deal to me but they offer as much as most mainstream VPNs even more when you consider theres no signup required.
 

maflynn

macrumors Haswell
May 3, 2009
73,575
43,562
Proton has a free teir you can try out the app with it.
I have proton and like it a lot but with that said I found the free tier to be very slow. The premium tier is very fast so if anyone is considering proton keep that in mind
 
  • Like
Reactions: Chuckeee

andreamb

macrumors newbie
Oct 31, 2017
18
3
Somewhere in Switzerland :)
Compatibility and stability with operating on the latest Mac hardware and OS are also extremely important. How does ProtonVPN do in this regard? NordVPN doesn’t do very well in this regard.
I use proton since more than a year and they are very much caring the quality of their services and the quality of they software. Beside all the paranoic comment I see in this tread Proton spin off from CERN where the open web started. The traditional trust value chain behind their back is solid, they also give the most secure email service, as I know, secure, trustable and available today to civil people. The code they write for their app seems public and available for review or they are reviewed indipendently on yearly basis. The only ones that have to be scared using this company services are the ones most of us would like to see captived or jailed because of their criminal actions. And even criminals or people that try to abuse the civil society in Switzerland are by law protected before a regular judgmen. The law in this country is a serious stuff and people has rights and by chance even a great medical assistance completely free the ones can’t pay for it… so deciding to use them is not only a choice of few bucks more or less is just a choice of which side of the world willing to stay.
 

svenmany

macrumors demi-god
Jun 19, 2011
2,060
1,335
I have proton and like it a lot but with that said I found the free tier to be very slow. The premium tier is very fast so if anyone is considering proton keep that in mind
Ditto. I thought it was OK when I was using the free version, good enough to buy it. But the paid version is much better. There are many more servers in the paid version.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Chuckeee

maflynn

macrumors Haswell
May 3, 2009
73,575
43,562
Some VPN's IP addresses are flagged/blocked. Ive been finding that there are some sites that black list protonvpn IP addresses, where as they were fine with ExpressVPN.

There are things I liked with ExpressVPN, but some of the business decisions, were such that I've lost confidence in them, where as proton's privacy stance is something I appreciate. Also, and its probably the most important reason. I'm paying for their email service and I have the tier plan that allows custom domains, so I'm basically getting the VPN along with my email service. Why pay for another VPN service ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
 

svenmany

macrumors demi-god
Jun 19, 2011
2,060
1,335
Some VPN's IP addresses are flagged/blocked. Ive been finding that there are some sites that black list protonvpn IP addresses, where as they were fine with ExpressVPN.

There are things I liked with ExpressVPN, but some of the business decisions, were such that I've lost confidence in them, where as proton's privacy stance is something I appreciate. Also, and its probably the most important reason. I'm paying for their email service and I have the tier plan that allows custom domains, so I'm basically getting the VPN along with my email service. Why pay for another VPN service ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

When proton vpn was blocked did you try other of its servers? There are so many servers across the globe.

I considered Proton's mail service. I ended up with Fastmail. Fastmail allows me to set up unlimited number of domains; I have a bunch and am actively receiving email on four. Proton only allowed for three.
 

svenmany

macrumors demi-god
Jun 19, 2011
2,060
1,335
Tbh, I just disconnected

I remember that either Surfshark or NordVPN couldn't connect to my bank. Their support had me try a different server which worked. That seems like a reasonable fallback when blocked.

How is fastmail's spam handling. I'm finding Proton's to be very good. Much better then Apple's

At the risk of temporarily hijacking the thread...

I'm not sure how to quantify it. I would say I get 15 spam emails a day. They all end up in the spam folder. Now and then I get a legitimate but unsolicited email. I mark it as spam. It then gets autodetected. I use their iPhone app or web app to mark things. I don't know whether marking an email in Apple Mail or other IMAPn client would train their server. I guess I could test since they show me counters for miscategorizations that I've corrected.

Their spam filter is configurable but I've left it at the default of "Standard". The options are "Off", "Standard", "Aggressive", and "Custom". "Custom" gives you a choice of spam score threshold. Also, if you know sieve, you can edit your own script to handle it yourself. They give you spots to insert your custom code in between the uneditable sieve code. The uneditable stuff includes things that you've set up with options in their UI.
 
  • Like
Reactions: maflynn

Tajhad

macrumors member
Apr 4, 2017
63
24
Newcastle
I don’t understand when a company says “ up to 6 devices” and others say “unlimited”. Is this to be taken literally. Or only different devices in different locations? I alone have 4 devices ( 5 if I count the Apple TV). Others in the household have a number of devices. We certainly go over 6 devices, Probably more like a total of 15. Can anyone clarify ?
 
Register on MacRumors! This sidebar will go away, and you'll see fewer ads.