I switched to windscribe last month because the proton CEO starting spewing politcal BS, and I wanted port forwarding that wasn't locked behind a shitty GUI.
As far as I was concerned setup was super easy, the VPN speeds were great, and port forwarding worked really nicely. The whole price for a fixed server and port forward, + unlimited data was a bit much (at $95/year) but for the ease of use and speeds I was getting, I was happy to stick with them.
My setup is a always-on server with a 1gbps connection, where yes, I fucking seed my shit, all of it. I have about 30TB of linux ISOs and counting, and it's rare that my combined upload speed is less than 1MBps, ever.
Which lead me to getting banned from windscribe with no notice or warning in the middle of last week. This lead to me having to spend tracker points to avoid HnR, and i'm also unable to grab any new ISOs until I find a new VPN provider that won't ban me for actually using the service full time.
I did shoot them an email (after talking' with their AI bot first), and they were actually helpful enough. The offered to restore support, so long as I promised to not torrent with them again (which, I honestly did promise not to. I'm not sticking with a VPN service that can't handle me actually using it for what it's advertised for) and they did unban the account. Whole email chain took about three days to get resolved.
My sticking point is that they still have instructions on setting up torrents on their own website, and that they specifically allow for unlimited data (with the plan i paid for) so long as it's just one user. I did not break those rules. After clarifying that in the support email, they still said that I was using too much data (despite the unlimited data advertisement) and that torrenting was not allowed on their service.
TL:DR: Windscribe bans you if you use a lot of data, and support says torrents aren't allowed, despite their website advertising such. Proof in the attached images.
If y'all have any other suggestions for a VPN that allow port forwarding i'd really appreciate it.
What started it I think is this twitter post praising trump and the republican party: https://xcancel.com/andyyen/status/1864436449942110660
He later doubled down on it (if I recall correctly) and the company has generally been making some highly questionable decisions since
Goddamnit, I just made an email with them, trying to get out of google's monopoly. Does anyone know an email service that doesn't suck?
The most popular alternative seems to be tutanota, though there should be a lot of alternatives though they may be very niche
(it seems tuta has some technical limitations if you want to do automated emailing, and the UI is a bit clunky, but it's not a privacy or security problem)
Posteo, but also this question is asked every week on lemmy.
Self hosting
That is in the back of my mind. God help me I may just do it.
It is actually quite a lot of work if you're not already familiar with the ideas, I'd only suggest it if you personally want to develop the skills.
The whole "scandal" is bullshit.
Look at the linked tweet, mate. Trump appointed Gil Slater as Assistant Attorney General or the Antitrust Division.
Slater was known for being anti-Big Tech.
Yen is famously anti-Big Tech.
He calls the appointment a good choice.
That's it. He doesn't say "Trump is great", he doesn't say ANYTHING about Trump himself, he just comments that "appointing this person (who we know is anti-Big Tech) to a high position in the Antitrust Division is a good choice".
But since we live in the world where saying "Trump, maybe, potentially, accidentally did something good" means you're in a cult because you didn't call to hang him for everything he does, we are where we are.
I am not American, but this doesn't sound particularly convincing.
Irrespective of where you stand on the political spectrum, you can reasonably state that Trump and his regime are extremely corrupt and are unlikely to have any good faith interest in targeting American technology oligarchs via anti-trust.
Yen almost certainly knows this. So there had to be something else going on. Doesn't necessarily have to be support for Trump, could be an attempt to gain favour.
At any rate, Yen clearly disrespect his customers by engaging in faux-anti-trust polemics.
NOW you can.
In 2024, you couldn't, because his previous admin, as bullshit-filled, corrupt and dishonest as it was, DID do some good things (mostly in a bad way - if it was all good, it was usually by accident). The anti-trust stuff was some of those good things.
And don't get me wrong - I know full well that Trump never intended any of that stuff to benefit the "Average Joe". I'm willing to bet my life's savings that he and his admin did it to show "who's the boss" to all the "tech bros" (who were famously anti-Trump at the time). I guess you could say it worked, considering how they all sided with him now.
But, again, we NOW know what the true intentions were. In 2024, looking at the first term, you COULD honestly say that Trump did some good in a fight against Big Tech.
And, again, all Yen said was that appointing someone known for being anti-Big Tech into such a high position in the DOJ was a good move, and stated the obvious (at the time) fact, that Dems were very much siding with Big Tech, which did not benefit the average citizen.
From a purely tribal ("us vs them", "Republicans vs Democrats") perspective ("anything they do is wrong and evil, anything we do is correct and good") - yes, you're right. From a more saner perspective of just looking at facts of life (anti-trust work, the appointment to the DOJ, Dems' stance on Big Tech), I don't see any disrespect at all.
The disrespect I am referring to has nothing to do with US politics or tribalism.
It's disrespectful because he think his customers are stupid enough to buy his ruse about "genuinely" thinking that a Trump admin would be concerned about anti-trust.
In a global context, skepticism of oligarch groups is not a "minority position". In many countries, if you start spouting random polemics about how "Oligarch X actually cares or might do some good", people will think you hit your head or you're trying to launch a new career as a standup comedian with a focus on politics.
You referenced the current US admin assigning someone who is allegedly anti-trust? So what? What does this have to with anything? This is not some sort of silver bullet and it's a bit sophomoric to claim this is of any significant importance.
This is not at all convincing. There are multiple examples of two-stage oligarch/authoritarian takeovers in flawed democracies (I can come several of the top of my head). This is not unique to the US. An oligarch regime is not going to suddenly have a massive change in heart.
What exactly were the good things? Which major company was broken up? Which executives went to jail?
Try and look at what I am saying outside the lens of internal US politics. As I said earlier, I am not even necessarily saying that the Proton CEO is a Trump supporter, that doesn't make the situation any better.
But... He never said that?
He said that "democrats used to stand for the little guy, but tables have turned". Again, in context he's 100% correct - Dems went to bed with a lot of big business while Reps started a lot of anti-trust anti-BigTech moves (which, due to tribalism, Dems criticised).
He doesn't say anything else - nothing about him "thinking the Trump admin is concerned about X", he just states a simple fact.
And we live in a time when stating a fact makes you "the enemy of the people" because, apparently, "my feeling are more important than facts" rings true on both sides of the political divide... And that's shameful.
Well... only just the fact that this is precisely what he was commenting on?
What do you mean "what dos that have to do with anything"?? It's got literally the entirety of it.
DOJ Antitrust Lawsuit Against Google (2020)- Focused on Google’s deals with Apple and others to maintain default search engine status, thus harming competitors.
FTC Antitrust Lawsuit Against Facebook (December 2020)- To potentially break up Facebook by forcing it to divest those companies.
DOJ Antitrust Review of Big Tech (2019)- Laid groundwork for later actions, like the 2020 Google lawsuit.
FTC Tech Task Force (2019)- Re-examined acquisitions like Facebook’s of Instagram and WhatsApp.
Trump’s Executive Order on Section 230 (May 2020) to weaken legal protections that shield social media platforms from liability over user content and moderation decisions. - didn't get much done as actual change would require Congressional action. But it intensified scrutiny of Big Tech.
And indirectly: Trump supported conservative-led Congressional hearings and investigations into Big Tech’s political power and influence or pushed the idea that companies like Amazon were harming small businesses and exploiting USPS.
Obviously, most of these were fuelled by his pettiness (he always complained about social media having anti-conservative bias and wanted to hurt them in retaliation), but you cannot look at these and go "all of this is shite" and not be considered either insane or a fundamentalist.
Don't be childish. We're not talking about completely redefining the tech landscape, we're talking about reining a couple of "too big" companies in.
What you seem to be saying is: "he didn't criticise Trump, therefore he went against his client-base's belief system, and that's a bad thing".
Am I getting this right? Maybe elaborate on what's your exact stance on Yen if I'm getting something confused?
As I mentioned earlier, try and look at what I am saying outside the lens of internal US politics.
I don't buy into Yen's (and seemingly your) statements about little guys, big guys and anti-trust. From my perspective, this makes no sense.
An oligarch gang does not engage in good faith with respect to anti-trust. This is not up for discussion as far as I concerned (remember that I said I am not American).
To try and imply otherwise (and be all high and mighty about it) is essentially mocking your customers.
The examples you cited mean nothing, if they did mean something, then you would actually highlight some real world results (can you cite an outcome not preliminary actions, I don't believe in American polemics about their judiciary and so on). But there are none, so instead you go with calling childish.
Although I will say there is a beautiful irony in the following phrase:
Maybe you have your answer here (one that, I repeat, is not tied to internal US political matters).
I'm not from the US, I think this is how I'm looking at this.
I already said this a couple of times, but seems like I have to repeat it: nobody in the conversation (Yen included) believes Trump did anything "in good faith". I specifically stated that I believe whatever anti-trust policies and actions Trump has made were done explicitly in bad faith, as an attempt to get back at "Big Tech" for being "anti-right-wing".
He didn't "imply otherwise". Not once has he stated that he "believes in the long term mission of the Republican party to fight for the rights of the consumers". He only said that Reps became anti-Big Tech recently and that it's good.
Again: there are no statements of intent, ONLY statement of fact.
I'm sorry, what??
You asked "what were the good things [Reps did]". I gave you examples. You didn't ask "what did the attempts accomplish", did you?
Considering it's the US we're talking about, and how hilariously long some court cases can take, it'd be a miracle to see ANYTHING come out of these cases before 2030 (assuming they're not trashed now that Big Tech is back in bed with Trump, of course).
However, it is an undeniable, objective FACT that these cases are a start, that these examples show anti-Big Tech attitude, and that these are examples of Trump admin's (accidental) fight for the betterment of the life of "the little guy".
Did you forget about the Tik-Tok ban? Again, you asked for examples of actions, not results. Considering how fresh things are (it all started fairly late into his previous term), I don't know why you're expecting many examples of results, that's just being extremely unrealistic.
Well, that's because you still seem to be thinking in a kind of "all or nothing" way. It's either "Trump == Hitler" or "OMG I love Trump" for you - no inbetween. It's either "they completely obliterated Big Tech" or "absolutely nothing accomplished". It's like you don't believe in small steps? I honestly am baffled by your responses so far.
This whole situation is baffling. It's literally:
It's just... weird to me.
Anyway, maybe read THIS comment by Yen which he made just 3 months ago, and THIS post from a day later.. It sheds some more light about his stance on things.
I don't see any malicious intent in there, do you?
I have already read the first link you posted. As I mentioned in my OP for this thread, it is not convincing or logically sound. He literally says "It is not a bad thing that Republicans have moved so far on this issue". Zero critical thought about this.
Keep on acting obtuse. Hitler/Bitler. "You didn’t ask “what did the attempts accomplish”, did you?" Asking for outcomes on anti-trust is the same thing as “they completely obliterated Big Tech”. Small steps? What small steps are you talking about? We both know there are none and if any future action will happen it will be for show only and will never have any real impact.
This sort sleazeball rhetoric is why I don't trust people like Yen and you.
I am done here.
Yeah, absolutely nothing's been done (other than two court cases, one ban, and a bunch of further actions I outlined).
It's a shame that you're so thoroughly brainwashed into this tribal attitude, mate. You seem like a smart person, but somehow, when it comes to this "us vs them" you revert to a mindless fundamentalist no different than a Taliban blowing up statues...
I hope you find it in yourself to take a step back and look at things from a wider perspective, to see that you can applaud the good moves of a bad party, while still pointing out the bad ones.
Peace!
Appreciate the comparison to the Taliban. Makes you look very reasonable and not all unhinged.
Pro-tip: stop being a fundamentalist, and you won't be getting compared to one.
He literally said that they are now the party of the little guys. That's what "the tables have turned" means. That says a lot about how he feels about Trump, and a lot about how much you can trust his judgement on anything.
Yeah, if you cut up his Tweet into single sentences and then read each one completely outside of any context, then you could argue that Andy Yen got brainwashed into being MAGA.
But that's not how language works.
HERE'S the full Tweet. For your convenience, I'll quote it in full:
Nothing he wrote here are lies. The antitrust actions against Big Tech were started by Trump's administration. The whole thing about banning Tik-Tok was their idea.
Appointing someone who's known to be "anti-Big Tech" to the second highest position in the Antitrust Division at the DOJ objectively sounds great and is a good move.
So, with the Dems fighting to stop Trump admin's moves against Big Tech, the tables were turned at the point in time the Tweet was written - in 2024, before the inauguration and the swearing-in of Trump!
I'm assuming that if you asked Yen today what he thinks about Trump and his administration, he'd have a vastly different opinion. But calling him a "Trump supporter" based off of that tweet is just... either ignorance, or some silly form of fundamentalism.
If anyone thought Trump's party was the party of "the little guys" at any point in time now or before the inauguration, they shouldn't be trusted with a pair of blunt scissors, much less a key piece of IT infrastructure.
And if you're gullible enough to think that's a reasonable defence, I'd put you in that category too. I'm not really interested in anything else you have to say, that was just a disqualifyingly vapid argument you just made.
Bye.
I just find it sad that we came to a point where any public discourse is this tribal.
There are things the Trump admin did objectively right (often for all the wrong reasons), but people like you will not only not allow themselves to acknowledge that, you'll put people like me, who do, to the "Trump supporter or gullible fool" basket without giving it a second thought.
We blame the right-wing for creating a massive divide in society, and then this happens? The left-wing is equally as responsible for this divide, it seems. At least for maintaining, if not deepening, it.
He says Trump supports the little guy and prefers him to democrats who he says are the party of big business.
I'm sorry you want to support people who support fascists.
Not "Trump" but "Republicans", via the "tables have turned".
Considering the actions of the Democrats at the time (viciously pro-Big Tech just on the basis of "let's criticise everything Trump admin does"), and the actions of the Republicans at the time (last administration started a lot of the anti-trust moves against Big Tech), he's right.
OK, quote that part of the tweet. I posted its entire content in another comment in this thread.
He's right. They vehemently criticised all the anti-Big Tech actions from the Trump admin during his previous term.
I'm sorry your fundamentalism blinds to simple English.
Alright, have you actually read his tweet?
I know you just linked it, but have you actually read it, the context, and given it some thought?
You know that isn't op, right?
Umm.... Yes? What's that got to do with anything?
The poster asked for context, context was provided in a relatively neutral way, then you respond as if the person providing a helpful link is making the same statements as op when in fact they were just providing the factual background.
Was it, though?
That's a pretty non-neutral way to present things, considering nothing like that happened in said tweet.
It's a message praising the republican party and actions taken under the trump admin, in response to a trump tweet. No, it would be bad faith to argue it isn't praising trump. You can argue he has a point, or that you don't care, or it's no big deal, but it's absolutely praising trump.
Very specific actions under a tweet about a very specific thing, yes.
For a specific thing in specific circumstances, yes. How is that a bad thing? Do you think that we should just carpet-bomb with hate every action that Trump and his administration does? Even if it's something objectively good for the average person?
That's some quality engineering at work there, are you using some of them in-post hidden motors like the sketchy cyclists ?
I can't even see any wheels.
I thought for sure them goalposts were fixed in to the ground, but no, they just zipped on by at a rate of speed.
Are you capable of stating what issue it is you see with my arguments?
I mean, I gave you a whole narrative about moving goalposts, if you can't get it from that im not sure im qualified to help you.
Hmm , actually, there is this I suppose but that's a lot more words than the previous reply so ... It could go either way.
OK, so you missed the point of the discussion and have nothing constructive to add. Got it.
So I gave you two examples that match your criteria and you still can't figure it out. Got it.
...or ..perhaps you did figure it out ..and have moved the goalposts again.. dammit , can't believe I fell for that, congratulations.
Once again, you are the person in this thread arguing about the rightness or wrongness. The fact is he made a post praising trump.
Elsewhere, yes, I will happily call the proton guy a nazi supporter. But that's elsewhere.
Further, what you just said looks like a carbon copy of other bad faith arguments I've seen on lemmy on this subject.
Oh God, we're running in circles, this conversation no longer makes sense.
I guess if I ever end up in a situation when I say "Trump accidentally did something good", I'm now a Trump supporter and I'm praising him, and I'm MAGA - in your book. Right? Oh, no, sorry, I'm actually a Nazi supporter! Well, fuck off, and fuck you.
Have you ever stopped to think that maybe the reason you've seen "carbon copies" of those arguments is because these are not arguments, these are statements of fact? And the only thing making them "bad faith arguments" in your mind is that they go against your fundamentalist worldview of "us vs them"?
Don't bother answering, I know you haven't.
EOT on my end.
Noone in this thread said you were a nazi supporter nor did anyone in this thread say the proton guy was a nazi supporter.
You are tilting at windmills.
Then what does this mean?
Sure you can look at it as just a bit of politicking (if a poorly thought out one), but it's really just the tip of the iceberg. Proton hasn't done anything that clearly crosses an unacceptable line, but they've made a lot of other highly questionable decisions in a relatively short timespan
oh, actually now that I looked it up closer, starting about 9 months ago they did a foot in the door manuever (a survey with leading questions followed up by misrepresenting the results) and then aggressively pushed an AI service that, you guessed it, tries to read all the emails you write and receive, totally undermining the end-to-end encryption. (the claim is it works locally, but most users have their data processed on the proton servers unencrypted)
And the way they did it is straight out of the enshittification playbook where they first promise that it's "business only" and then later try to push it to all users, and claiming it's off by default while it's actually on by default
https://pivot-to-ai.com/2024/07/18/proton-mail-goes-ai-security-focused-userbase-goes-what-on-earth/
(this article only covers the early portion of the debacle)
this isn't even all the problems with proton either, though all the other things are pretty minor by comparison (eg. quitting mastodon "because it's too expensive to maintain" (?))
Did you actually read it, though?
They claim to respect privacy and - to date - have done nothing to suggest that they don't.
It's running on European-run Mistral.ai, which is subject to all the standard GDPR rules.
IT'S OPTIONAL (there goes the "aggressive push" bit)
NOTHING EXCEPT FOR THE PROMPT IS SENT TO MISTRAL (there goes the "reads all emails" bit)
I get it. People see "AI" and immediately panic. But it doesn't seem like the panic HERE makes any sense at all.
I'd say having to either pay a guy to maintain the account or pay for software that allows cross-posting to both Twitter and Mastodon (with both having different limitations) gets expensive if you realise that they were getting minuscule engagement on Mastodon. It's a shit move, but I get where they're coming from. Same reason why Garuda Linux has a subreddit, but not a Lemmy Community.
Nothing you've shown me so far is anywhere near the point where I'd be suspicious of them.
Don't get me wrong: I'm not saying they're the end-all-be-all of privacy oriented services. There's a bunch of stuff they do wrong (especially with how they farm engagement on their TT account), but as far as privacy and security themselves? I've yet to see an issue.
Didn't they deliver environmental activists to Spain's authorities?
No.
I mean, it's probably reported as that a lot, but no, they didn't.
First of all: Proton provides privacy, NOT anonymity.
Second of all: the authorities knew the suspect used Wire. Subpoena on Wire revealed the user had a Proton email account. Subpoena on Proton revealed that they had an iCloud recovery email.
Once they subpoenaed Apple, they got all the data they needed - name, address, etc., etc.
Proton didn't give up their user, but they are legally obligated to provide any data they have on the user if a court orders them to. Had the user's recovery email been a Tuta address, or even another Proton mailbox, that would've been the end of it.
If you ignore all the fast and loose they play with privacy, sure, there is "nothing to suggest" they don't respect it.
It's not an aggressive push if you ignore the part where they repeatedly use the foot in the door technique where they first promise they won't do something, and then later do it anyways.
They claim it is optional but they just shove a pop-up in your face about AI, while misleading you about how it works. This is about 1 step away from how most companies "allow" you to "preserve your privacy" by carefully clicking "no" to a long list of popups suggesting you give them cookies and share your emails etc.
This may be easy to dismiss as "problem between keyboard and chair" but when it predictably leads to many users thinking it's off but being surprised when they find it turned on without them realizing it it's not much consolation
How do you figure that works? The server somehow corrects your spelling mistakes without reading the email containing the spelling mistake? Again, End-to-end encryption is a core advertised feature of protonmail, and this completely sidesteps it while actively misleading users into thinking it doesn't
I'm not ignoring it, I just never heard about it. Got some articles/examples?
Can't comment because I haven't seen the original announcement. Are you sure it wasn't to the tune of "it will be available for Business" and then people extrapolated that to mean "it will never, ever, ever-ever even remotely touch the 'civilian' accounts"?
Ah, yes, recommending new features, the Hitler of XXI c's IT.
Come on now...
Please elaborate.
I mean... Yeah, they added the button instead of having the user toggle a switch for the button to appear. But, as I'm reading it, it's not the feature that is "on" or "off" in the sense that you seem to see it. It's not "'on', therefore it's doing something behind the scenes". It's "on" as in: "the button is visible, and if you click it, you can start interacting with it, but it does nothing unless you tell it to do something". I may be wrong, of course, but I wouldn't discount the entire company on the basis of a Reddit comment.
If you ask Scribe to correct spelling mistakes, then the prompt contains the email you asked it to correct, that seems fairly obvious. It doesn't, however, "read your mailbox", because it can't.