this post was submitted on 08 Mar 2026
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Privacy
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I have nothing against Proton or any of their products, but I took the opportunity of switching away from big tech to also switch away from the all-services-in-one-provider model. Moving everything from let's say Google to let's say Proton just kicks the problem down the road. If Proton ever goes evil or goes out of business you're now looking for a new home for all your services again.
Its also generally good privacy practice to use a VPN provider that is wholly separate from any other provider you use so that provider can't relate your VPN traffic to all the other data they have on you. This is more true from providers who aren't trustworthy, but it's a rule I follow regardless.
Of course, this all depends on your threat model.
I am in the process of slowly buying up the hardware and learning the needed information to self host, I degoogled my life which was a hard thing and Proton was the easier place to go and it was intended to be a place holder till I feel confident enough to switch everything over to a self hosted setup. Using Proton's VPN is more a frugal choice.
I've setup my first Pi Nas (raspberry 5 pi nas) and that was my first step in my self hosting journey, I do own my domains for my emails so step 2 is to get another raspberry 5 and setup my own self hosted website server and email.
I've always been a tech savvy guy but my field is manufacturing, I'm not a software or web developer like a lot of the people on here so it's a bit of a slower pace and learning curve for me but I'm working on it. Also it doesn't help that it's getting more and more expensive to self host by the day.
I do value the input and information I learn on here and appreciate the explanation.
I felt this in my bones. I do a lot of tech work, but basically none of it is programming or web dev. So lots of the self hosting stuff goes right over my head unless I really take the time to dive in. The worst part about self hosting is realizing how much you don’t know, but also knowing there’s probably a lot more that isn’t even on your radar.
Everyone has heard horror stories about the newbie self hoster just forwarding ports for every single service they run, not realizing that it’s turning their firewall into a sieve. And it’s the “not realizing” part that is scary. Especially when basically every Reddit thread about hosting something like Jellyfin will inevitably have a comment near the top, which is along the lines of “lol I just forward my port and it works.” Misinformation about best security practices is rampant, and filtering it out can be overwhelming for a newbie. Especially since the “not realizing” threat is always present. It’s always possible you made some dumb mistake that just exposed your entire LAN to the internet. And you won’t even know you made the mistake until all of your shit is ransomwared or being used to mine bitcoin.
Using separate providers for cloud storage, passwords, email and VPN is way less convenient and more expensive than having it all under Proton. It’s not perfect but it’s miles ahead of what most people use.
how is it way less convenient? I switched from Proton to other services and I conveniency has increased since quality of services has increased. and because I don't really see many fundamental benefits of them being tied together.
Proton is a big supporter of Trump regime
Not challenging you, but do you have evidence that's easy for you to get to? I am considering their mail service. Thanks!
I guess they mean the tweet of the Proton CEO, which was blown far out of proportion and without context and caused a sensationalist shitstorm on Reddit.
If you want a detailed write up: https://scribe.rip/@ovenplayer/does-proton-really-support-trump-a-deeper-analysis-and-surprising-findings-aed4fee4305e
Dude basically just said that Reps were more responsive than Dems when he tried to lobby. Everyone's translation was that he must love Trump.
Good write up, thank you for the context.
I think I've gotten this info on Lemmy somewhere. Searching got me this https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=44808694
https://theintercept.com/2025/01/28/proton-mail-andy-yen-trump-republicans/
So it seems like it's not such a clear cut case as i made it out to be. Thanks for "challenging" me, even though that wasn't your goal.
Thanks for the update!