this post was submitted on 14 Jan 2024
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Hey Proton how about you quit privacy-washing and actually prioritize and release feature parity products for Linux so your customers aren't being herded onto windows' data harvesting platform just so they can use your supposedly privacy forward products
The Linux Experiment recently interviewed the CEO who answered this question.
Basically it's the same as anything else. Linux requires more effort to code for due to its variety of distributions, and has a significantly smaller userbase.
In short, don't blame Proton, blame the (lack of) users.
I mean, can’t you just package your app in flatpack or even snap? Bam, your app works on 99% of distributions for little effort. That’s what Spotify does, and I’d argue they have even less incentive to support Linux than proton does
Spoken like someone who has never developed a app package
I don't know, I'm not a developer. Lots of companies don't make their products available on Linux, most cite similar reasoning, so it's unsurprising. But I agree it's disappointing. I really wish Linux was more user-friendly.
He also answered this claim, it is right for apps that aren't stuff like Proton VPN that can't work in a sandboxed environment. They are working on it iirc
Screw VPNs, give us everything else!
Well... A drive app will need to access the filesystem pretty in deep to support file syncing, whuch is harder to do on flatpak, their password manager is an extension so on linux too, and for the mail bridge app I think it's already on linux. Those are all the existing proton services
Sure, as long as you don't need any integration with other software, don't need arbitrary IPC, and actually keep some dependencies in line with some common denominator because there's only so much you can do with static linking (oh excuse me, distributing the shared libraries in the same package as your binaries as if it's a new thing) once it reach the "program must actually run" part.
Flatpack and every other similar solution that are described as "works everywhere" always come with a heck of limitations.
Thunderbird, MegaSync, Bitwarden all distribute as flatpak just fine, and it covers most of the functionality of proton suite.
Ironically the only two services this list doesn't cover, Proton VPN and Proton Bridge, are on flathub...
Last in checked email ain't all that complex, so seems like a good match
Variety of distributions doesn't affect the effort in coding, it adds overhead for package management. Only rarely does it require the developer to add some extra code for either an edge case or some specific library requirement.
On top of that, Flatpak and AppImage exist to solve this issue if you don't want to deal with it.
This is a pretty rich statement coming from Proton who has very publicly given out "private" info about its users to law enforcement without even so much as a hint of resistance. I doubt they would want to spend any resources on cross platform if they don't even back up their claim about true privacy.
Even zoom has a lazy script that packages their app in literally every possible format possible because it runs the exact same on every distro. It is not that hard. Literally the only way this doesn't work if you hired some 3rd party MSFT dev to create some insane C++ app with pure Windows API calls instead of using a library.
That's a bullshit excuse. Looks at Arch's AUR. Look at Gentoo's guru. What happens for proprietary stuff is a deb or rpm package is downloaded, extracted and files copies where they should be. That's it. And it works, because the cornerstone of the system is libc and the kernel. And these, for the overwhelming majority of applications, behave exactly the same on all distros.
I think the bigger issue is the variety of distros that end up not being compatible. Even if you overall have a lot of Linux users if they, for the sake of argument, distribute evenly between all distros then it's still a lot of effort to code. The only difference is that the argument will change from "Linux has a small userbase" to "Distribution X has a small userbase".
Linux doesn't just need more users to be worthwhile to develop for, it also needs a distro agnostic solution to run software. That or significantly reducing (or streamlining) the amount of distros so the developers would have far less configurations to account for.
Flatpaks and nix packages work on pretty much every distro.
That's why I mentioned both 🙂
Edit : okay yea i fd up guys anything to support women was only thinking of the slezzers
I don't want google to read emails from my doctor, or between me and my friend in a country that has an authoritarian government, or really anything. If you think you have nothing you need to keep out of the massive surveillance network most companies have become, you're mistaken.
Is this satire '/s'?
Do you realize that right now there are US states trying to make publicly existing as a transgender person prosecutable as an obscene act? Or that there are states where abortion is illegal? I'm assuming you are american but that also applies to other countries. In Russia any public indication that one is LGBT is liable to get one persecuted by law and by bands of raging homophobes.
At the best of times this attitude "if you have done nothing wrong, you got nothing to hide" is naive. But these days, as the many flaws of the justice system and the raging bigotry of many people are transparent to see and widely commented on, it's downright clueless to say something like this.
you are right i didnt remember there are good people too
I don't use proton so forgive me if this is a stupid question...
But do you need an app? Can't you just use whatever browser you want for their services?
Of course you can access everything through the web on Linux. I really like Proton's web mail interface. Unfortunately, Proton does not have a Linux analog to their windows client that provides automatic file syncing. I think that what the commenter is complaining about.
There is a dedicated Linux client for Proton VPN and in my experience it integrates quite well on Debian-based distributions.
Ya no drive client is the worst, followed by the fact the VPN app lacks a ton of features compared to their windows one. I don't care about a desktop mail app personally since I use Thunderbird.
Also, there's Thunderbird if you NEED a fat client for your email. Except Proton's strength is where the service is located and the security of access. Having a full copy locally on your system kind of defeats that.
If you have properly implemented LUKS I don't see any reason that should be a concern.
Unless you also employ very strict sandboxing, a rogue app or script could read those emails from your running system while LUKS is unlocked. There are plenty of CVEs relating to code execution; an infected JPEG, browser exploit, or any number of other things could expose your Thunderbird email database or the running memory to an attacker, particularly if you use "secure" services like Proton because you're the kind of person who would be targeted by state actors.
You need a special app that they call a "bridge" because Proton doesn't support normal IMAP and SMTP, so you have to use the bridge to be able to use normal email clients.
But they are now porting their webmail as a cross-platform desktop Electron app, after which they'll just likely discontinue the bridge "for safety". And so this issue will become moot.
I'm grateful you put "for safety" in quotes there. That's definitely bullshit talk. I'm further grateful that I just self-host my email. I can skip the bullshit of companies making random decisions that are ultimately against my wishes.
I finally said screw it and am leaving Proton for a proper paid service. I never upgraded Proton to a paid tier because it never matured enough for me to use for real. I never once migrated contacts over to it (just a couple people who understood I was testing it).
Yea, so there's a connection to my credit card. At least it's with a professional org that has proper modern mail management (something post-2000), and gives you tools to manage your email.
I really wanted Proton to work out so I could recommend it to friends and family. But it's a terrible user experience. I missed 50 emails because it keeps moving them to spam even after I set the sender as not spam. Oh, and spam management requires (according to support) logging into the web, not thru the mobile client. 🤦♂️
Can you imagine telling a customer this with a straight face and not seeing a problem with it? I'm using your app and can't manage spam?
That sucks! I have never experienced any of these issues
What service are you moving to? I'm curious of other alternatives.
Here's a good starting point. All of them are hosted in Europe and enjoy strong privacy protection as an extra bonus.
https://european-alternatives.eu/category/email-providers
I mean, this is the mail service whose own docs candidly state that their mobile app "sometimes doesn't work". 'Nuff said.
Don't worry, they're preparing to discontinue all their desktop-native apps in favor of webmail (and webmail running in Electron).
After which I expect they'll start squeezing their paying customers, since they won't be able to leave anymore. Or sell the company, get out with "clean hands" and a wad of cash, and let someone else do the squeezing.