I really thought this was about the DirectX compatibility layer for Linux and was hopelessly lost until a dozen sentences in.
what is it about?
The privacy focused email (among other things) provider
I thought it was about the fork of the Atom editor project.
The privacy-focused Swiss email provider
Well, proton mail and proton compatibility are both awesome tools.
See, I have the same issue the other way around. Hearing about Proton supporting games on Linux makes me always wonder how I can play games via my webmail account.
By emailing your input? Kinda like chess by post.
Or text based adventures
Frozen Synapse allows multiplayer by email.
So they’re adopting a similar structure to OpenAI, a for-profit company majority controlled by a non-profit organization.
Similar structure, yes, but this is the important part:
Swiss foundations and their board of trustees are legally obligated to act in accordance with the purpose for which they were established
So, just like the Louvre museum in Paris and the Luxor casino in Las Vegas have similar structures, pointing this out doesn’t really contribute much to the discussion.
For all I know, OpenAI’s purpose is to create Skynet and kill all humans. But Proton’s is:
Our legally binding purpose is to further the advancement of privacy, freedom, and democracy around the world.
And this might actually get me to use Proton. I’m currently with Tuta, and the experience there is… just okay. I went with them because they claim to have even less access to my stuff vs Proton, and Proton being private didn’t get me to trust them enough to use them instead (I’ve used them in the past though). But this structural change might convince me that they’re trustworthy enough to switch to.
We’ll see how it turns out. I’m still giving Tuta a shot because I like the idea of not bundling everything together, but once I get my NextCloud setup working, I’ll decide how much of Proton I’ll actually need, compare prices, etc.
How is it possible to have less data on your than Proton? I’m not aware of anything Proton has which isn’t fundamentally required.
Proton stores email subject lines unencrypted to facilitate search, Tuta does search client-side so everything can be completely encrypted. Both have access to unencrypted email when they receive it, so it’s not a huge difference, but given the cost difference, I figured I’d give Tuta a try first.
While it does help with search it was required to be compatible with OpenPGP.
I don’t think that’s true. They can always do PGP on the client after decrypting the email (so double-encrypt). It’s also not particularly interesting because almost nobody uses PGP. It’s a design decision that I’m not a big fan of, but if they’re legally obligated to maintain my privacy, maybe I’m okay with it. I’ll give it some time and see how that pans out.
OpenPGP is actively supported by dozens of clients, they cannot and do not encrypt subjects, so Proton chose to be compatible with that. I think dismissing cross-compatibility because of a hand wave “nobody uses it” isn’t very productive either.
i wonder how is the experience of searching between millions of emails client side
Not great. I have a couple hundred or so, and it’s already a bit slow on my phone.
Also Mozilla.
Doesn’t Ikea do something like this too?
That’s just for tax evasion
The Ikea Foundation of Furniture Lovers
And Mozilla/Firefox
Its pretty common.
Will be interesting to see how this goes in a year or two.
Nice to hear.
Really wish they transitioned to a “Not-for-profit” structure, rather than non-profit. Non-profits can still be profit driven, sadly.
They specifically chose non-profit because it allows them to remain profit driven, and continue to run the company as they have. The non-profit is the main shareholder now, and required by law to act in the interest of its founding principles. They basically did this for PR, because now, working in their customers’ best interests is mandatory, and they are protected against hostile takeovers
Weren’t they protected before? Afaik their major shareholder was the Swiss government.
