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Comment by phyzome | Hacker News Reader

There have been a number of signs over the past few years that they are very much not the good guys.

Can you reference some? I recall never trusting Proton, but I never had a reason why, just gut feeling. This stuff is vindicating, but I'm curious if I actually had a reason to feel the way I did or was right by accident. I don't have a great track record; I trusted Bitwarden and regret it, and the Mullvad situation is very disappointing (though not really related to the quality of the tech).

Someone in the comments on a previous 404 article listed a few things -- nothing necessarily "cancellable" in its own right, but drawing a pattern:

https://www.404media.co/proton-to-re-interview-staff-about-a...

- Praising the Republican Party and endorsing a Trump appointee.

- Andy choosing a username with 88 in it (a common Nazi dogwhistle) but then claiming it had a different meaning.

- Sponsoring a far-right French YouTuber and claiming they had no idea.

Again, nothing hard and fast. But it meant I was not at all surprised to find out how fucked up the company is on the inside.

The 88 thing is probably just because he's chinese.

And don't they sponsor like a crap ton of youtubers?

Yeah, I'll give him a pass on the 88 thing. Lots of Chinese people have these types of numbers for license plates, phone numbers, or bank account numbers. It has nothing to do with Nazis; they're just lucky numbers. Eight sounds like "发", which means becoming wealthy.

yeah, it's the "getting rich" part that...tips you off.

IIRC weren't they a non-profit for a while?

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