Don't want to go in to too much detail about what they said, because it may break forum rules (you can read more about that https://theintercept.com/2025/01/28/proton-mail-andy-yen-trump-republicans/.) But in a nutshell they've recently expressed some opinions that have upset a lot of customers and caused an exodus of customers closing their accounts and leaving them. The crux of the matter is that some former customers feel it is clear as day to them that they are not, or at least, no longer the 'neutral and safe haven for your personal data, committed to defending your freedom' that they asserted they were.
That being said there are some decent public alternatives out there. These are ones that I have shortliseted, I can vouch for, as solid products and services with decent customer support (except for the free stuff) and either personally use or am very familiar with. Feel free to add your own recommendations:
Encrypted email
Tuta - based in Germany. Also offer a zero-knowledge calendar.
Mailfence - based in Belgium (good for security, maybe not as good as tuta for privacy)
Encrypted Drives
Tresorit - based in Switzerland. Zero knowledge e2ee cloud storage.
pCloud - based in Switzerland. Claim to be the most secure encrypted cloud storage provider
VPN
Mulvad
Torguard (just stay away from their US based servers for torrenting thought).
Password Managers
1Password
Keepass
Bitwarden
Crypto Wallet
I have no idea, not my area of expertise, i'm quite happy with my Exodus wallet though lol
Personally never been much of a fan. I've used most of their stuff. The VPN was solid but personally everything seemed quite flaky without a paid plan. At which point you're forced to buy the jungle when all your wanted was a tree. Like I just want an encrypted mail with decent storage, not pay for a whole suite of your app pasted across my phone and computers ffs. Personally I was often a bit suspicious about why they would offer gmail integration as a self-appointed champion of pro-privacy rights.
Anyhow, lots of customers are mad. And there were people out there that have been saying for years till they were blue in their face that proton was https://privacy-watchdog.io/protonmails-creation-with-cia-nsa/ from the get-go.
Make of all this what you will ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
That being said there are some decent public alternatives out there. These are ones that I have shortliseted, I can vouch for, as solid products and services with decent customer support (except for the free stuff) and either personally use or am very familiar with. Feel free to add your own recommendations:
Encrypted email
Tuta - based in Germany. Also offer a zero-knowledge calendar.
Mailfence - based in Belgium (good for security, maybe not as good as tuta for privacy)
Encrypted Drives
Tresorit - based in Switzerland. Zero knowledge e2ee cloud storage.
pCloud - based in Switzerland. Claim to be the most secure encrypted cloud storage provider
VPN
Mulvad
Torguard (just stay away from their US based servers for torrenting thought).
Password Managers
1Password
Keepass
Bitwarden
Crypto Wallet
I have no idea, not my area of expertise, i'm quite happy with my Exodus wallet though lol
Personally never been much of a fan. I've used most of their stuff. The VPN was solid but personally everything seemed quite flaky without a paid plan. At which point you're forced to buy the jungle when all your wanted was a tree. Like I just want an encrypted mail with decent storage, not pay for a whole suite of your app pasted across my phone and computers ffs. Personally I was often a bit suspicious about why they would offer gmail integration as a self-appointed champion of pro-privacy rights.
Anyhow, lots of customers are mad. And there were people out there that have been saying for years till they were blue in their face that proton was https://privacy-watchdog.io/protonmails-creation-with-cia-nsa/ from the get-go.
Make of all this what you will ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
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