Proton has lied outrageously in the past (since its founding) and then, in 2021, updated its website regarding IP storage—or rather, removed the statement claiming that no IP addresses are stored. You definitely shouldn’t trust that statement.
Do you have an article about that? I don’t remember hearing about this
Legal requests by law enforcement / government can often be followed up on. If someone was unmasked in a way that could be used in court, then we’d see it being used in court?
In 2021, it caused quite a stir when they removed the “We do not keep any IP logs” statement…
Anyway, I was already in contact with them about this back in 2019, and all I got from them were lies. Nevertheless, Proton is still the least worst provider. (Unfortunately, I didn’t save the answers.)
It goes without saying, of course, that Proton must abide by the law, and there’s nothing wrong with that. What is reprehensible, however, is that they did this for years while claiming something else on their website, thereby deceiving users—and that this lie gave them a competitive advantage over other providers who were upfront and honest from the start, resulting in those providers attracting fewer users because people were more likely to go with Proton due to the deception.
As I said, it’s still the least bad provider. As for VPNs, I definitely won’t name my provider (it doesn’t have to be public), but before I’d use Proton VPN, I’d rather go with Mullvad.
Rent a VPS outside the 5/9/14 Eyes alliance and set up a vpn there yourself, etc.
Combine all of this with I2P or Tor.
Encrypt emails separately with PGP.
But it’s 2026… Western countries are already taking action against all of that anyway.
Proton has lied outrageously in the past (since its founding) and then, in 2021, updated its website regarding IP storage—or rather, removed the statement claiming that no IP addresses are stored. You definitely shouldn’t trust that statement.
Do you have an article about that? I don’t remember hearing about this
Legal requests by law enforcement / government can often be followed up on. If someone was unmasked in a way that could be used in court, then we’d see it being used in court?
https://cyberinsider.com/protonmail-logs-users/
https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2021/09/privacy-focused-protonmail-provided-a-users-ip-address-to-authorities/
https://techcrunch.com/2021/09/06/protonmail-logged-ip-address-of-french-activist-after-order-by-swiss-authorities/
In 2021, it caused quite a stir when they removed the “We do not keep any IP logs” statement… Anyway, I was already in contact with them about this back in 2019, and all I got from them were lies. Nevertheless, Proton is still the least worst provider. (Unfortunately, I didn’t save the answers.)
It goes without saying, of course, that Proton must abide by the law, and there’s nothing wrong with that. What is reprehensible, however, is that they did this for years while claiming something else on their website, thereby deceiving users—and that this lie gave them a competitive advantage over other providers who were upfront and honest from the start, resulting in those providers attracting fewer users because people were more likely to go with Proton due to the deception.
So what’s a good alt to proton
As I said, it’s still the least bad provider. As for VPNs, I definitely won’t name my provider (it doesn’t have to be public), but before I’d use Proton VPN, I’d rather go with Mullvad. Rent a VPS outside the 5/9/14 Eyes alliance and set up a vpn there yourself, etc. Combine all of this with I2P or Tor. Encrypt emails separately with PGP.
But it’s 2026… Western countries are already taking action against all of that anyway.