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
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.