For some reason I have it in the back of my mind that they were at one point accused of being a honeypot for US intelligence because of their association with MIT. Probably complete BS, but maybe not. Are they as open source as they claim to be? Looks like they’re on github. F-Droid seems to think they have some Google libraries or whatever that they use.
ProtonMail users, how do you like/dislike it?
Been using them for a while before switching to their paid version. Of course they are closed source and a business, so any hype and over the top praise is misplaced. That said they are indeed one of max a handful companies that never did anything to make me feel that my trust is misplaced. Their service is great, the products are well polished and reliable. Development is slow and they aren’t cheap. Their target audience is very security and privacy aware so any betrayal of trust would be punished incredibly hard. In that light, their own self interest should be a good insurance, should you be uncertain.
Wait, they are or aren’t closed source?
They are open source
Some of the tech they developed and use is open source. But the core tech is closed. For me, that’s good enough as long as they keep up acting with integrity they do.
They’re open source now
They have open sourced their client software and libraries, but the core of what they provide is closed source software that runs on their servers.
Where can I read more about this? Big fan of proton but don’t want to communicate their status incorrectly either.
https://web.archive.org/web/20210710030151/https://twitter.com/ProtonMail/status/1309380464118030342
and
https://libreddit.pussthecat.org/r/ProtonMail/comments/b847n7/it_has_been_7_months_since_protonmail_said_we_are/ejysilb/
Have a look at their Wikipedia article as well:
“The source code for the back-end remains closed source.[26][27] However, Proton Mail released the source code for the web interface under an open-source license.[28] Proton Mail also open sourced their mobile clients for iOS and Android,[29][30] as well the Proton Mail Bridge app.[31]”
Thanks!