Today we’re announcing a new end-to-end encrypted, collaborative document editor that puts your privacy first. Docs in Proton Drive are built on the same privacy and security principles as all our services, starting with end-to-end encryption. Docs let you collaborate in real time, leave comments, add photos, and store your files securely. Best of all, it’s all private — even keystrokes and cursor movements are encrypted.
Literally the second paragraph of the post (but I'm sure you haven't read it, since you seem so busy replying to every comment here about how Proton is becoming Microsoft or something).
So sending a company your private key and trusting their servers to do E2E encryption despite them being able to modify their code whenever they feel like it to capture your password without encryption and masked in obfuscated JavaScript is now considered security? Wow, people really are gullible.
I agree with your general sentiment here (that such an arrangement is not trustworthy enough for me to feel completely private) but your delivery of said sentiment is really fucking rude, dude.
Even if it's not secure enough for you or I to feel private, it likely exceeds the security necessary to satisfy most people's threat models so they can not only feel private but objectively be more private than if they just used Google docs.
incremental or opportunistic privacy improvements are better than none, a fact that has seemed to be lost in elitist privacy circles these days.
Dude, you've made your point on virtually every comment on this thread. We get it, you don't trust them. The world has given all of us every reason not to blindly trust this sort of thing. But I've done enough digging that I'M happy with the security, and the fact they're not feeding my private content to the AI monster.
Please, for the love of the flying spaghetti monster, don't keep spamming EVERYONE with the same 3 points you've already made elsewhere.
I'm not sure what you're talking about ?
You're not sending your private key to their server without first encrypting it first locally.
Their servers are not doing the E2EE, your client is.
The website front and apps are open source.
Yes they could send you a compromised front if you use it via their website, that's a compromise you accept, otherwhise you could only use their apps which are open source.
Tell me.. when you visit a website that gets updated daily, if not hourly. If it served you a different version of JavaScript than what it served someone else.. would you know?
I already answered that.
Yes you can't trust a website's content, that's why they offer apps.
It's your choice to trust the website which is as secure as they can make it, or you simply use the apps...
Last I checked the apps are mostly just wrappers around WebView, so either way you're getting served different content randomly without ever knowing. AND, Proton specifically prevents the desktop apps from functioning on unpaid accounts. That would be like Gmail disabling IMAP for unpaid users.
That's not how electron apps works.
When you load a website with your web browser you get served the front and execute it.
When you have an electron app, the front is in the source code of the app, and you decide when to update it so you don't get served unexpected compromised updates.
As for the paid service : They don't sell your data and don't show you ads so they need money, it's that simple.
They act just like Microsoft. Lot's of people think Microsoft is successful. If you think Microsoft is the champion of privacy though you might be in a cult.
Really? So Proton saying that they can't open source the backend code to improve security isn't something Microsoft would say as well? Proton sells statements, but they don't back up those statements with proof.
Exposing their backend code to the public would be inviting bad actors to find loopholes in the logic. Your excuse for how they're not secure is in fact one of their security features. No code is perfect, and you give enough people enough time to peruse through your software they'll find a flaw to exploit. So they only provide their code to 3rd party audit companies they trust.
I'll tell you what. When proton ships a product that takes a screenshot of my desktop every 5 seconds and stores it in an unsecured DB any user on my computer can access, we'll call them even.
I'll tell you what. If you can prove to me by pointing to the specific source code that would prevent Proton from capturing your private key password when you login or decrypt using their standard clients then I'll join the Proton cult.
I mean, you're certainly not providing much proof that you have any measurable software skills that enables you to do the proper evaluation even if you received the code from proton. Why should anyone believe this unsubstantiated claim from you?
Edit: for the record, I'm don't give a shit and I'm just yanking your chain here.
First off, who gives out belts for languages? I've been writing software for over a decade and never got any belts. You'd better believe I'd actually wear that sucker on my gi.
Such source code isn't possible with the general audience service they offer, even if being open source were a requirement for credibility in any way.
You're comparing them to a company with a long history of actively hostile behavior despite the fact that there's never been a single hint of anything resembling hostile behavior from them, they operate from a country with meaningful privacy protections and only surrender data when compelled by their own courts (who only do so in circumstances that actually warrant it), and haven't actually given up information that's useful when required to because they don't have it.
Even if they published open-source code for their backend, it wouldn't prove that it's actually what their systems are running.
And when you are storing your data on their servers, and decrypting it by sending over your password, there's no way you can actually truly prevent them from accessing your data, if they were to modify how their systems function overall. (this is true for every company)
Even if they were using zero-knowledge proofs to verify and prove to you the computation done on the server matched what would be expected from published open-source code, then either their very own systems (and by extension, their administrators), or a different company's proprietary TPM module, would be the root of trust for those ZK proofs, and would still have the same underlying trust assumptions of at least 1 company having the ability to potentially steal your information.
If you want to rail against Proton for this, you have to be against every single cloud-based instance of code that hosts encrypted data, by any company, for any user.
Saying Proton acts just like Microsoft is a laughable comparison to make in order to justify claiming a lack of privacy or security on Proton's part.
Why? Is it because they're both companies that offer online services? Guess what, loads of companies do that. But you know what Proton doesn't do? Give away the contents of people's files, like Microsoft states they do in their own transparency reports, that they conveniently stopped publishing in 2022. Microsoft handed over the content (not just IP, email, etc, but actual docs, communications, stored files, etc) of thousands of people's accounts to law enforcement. Proton hasn't given out content once.
And this doesn't even consider the fact that Proton's business model is privacy. For Microsoft, their users will keep using their services regardless of their privacy, but for Proton, if it comes out that their services are no longer private, nobody will use them anymore, because nobody who got them for privacy would need them at that point.
I love Proton and will advocate for it any chance I get, but I can also see that it might be good to have people like you who don't put all their eggs in one basket
I degoogled to Proton mail initially. I didn't like that I couldn't search my emails (a security thing or something? But annoying) and then their Drive was absolutely useless on macos. I had about 100gb and it couldn't sync even half of it.
After much help from support I eventually moved away to a combo of Fastmail, Mega and OnlyOffice.
I did the same thing. The first privacy-oriented service I heard about was Proton. And, to be fair, they're quite good. But the email search issues and struggles I had with their bridge eventually turned me off.
I left for mailbox(.)org and haven't looked back. It's great Proton has so many cool services, but the last thing I want is to get dependent on one company again, not after how hard it was to get away from Google.
Interesting.
I will try to find out if it's 1:1 in handling .docx like OnlyOffice which i hope it is. It sucks that OnlyOffice won't run natively on Wayland.
No they're not. They can't even finish a single solution, let alone actually make anything functional when you're not using their proprietary servers. They're becoming Microsoft.
Whatever, dude. They're most probably not a native English speaker, and even if they are, a spelling error doesn't make them an "idiot". You're being a complete dick.
Drive has no Linux client, Photos is extremely barebones and locks you basically in, as there is no export function.
Pass still has no proper SimpleLogin integration, no credit card support and UX wise is the browser extension pretty bad. Funny enough, years after launch you still can't auto fill on Reddit.
The only thing I don't like about Mail is that you still have to create reverse aliases through SimpleLogin. Better integration would be great.
Contacts still don't sync to you local mobile contacts. Which means you either do it manually or you have to keep two sets updated.
Calendar is good too, I've heard it has no offline support though. Although I haven't verified that.
Last thing I would like to see is notification support without Play Services.
Some of those things might be super unimportant to some, but for me it makes the use of their stuff unnecessary cumbersome. Especially if you consider that those are all Proton products and should work together well.
My by far biggest problem is their communication and general development speed though. Stuff like contact sync has been requested for 5(?) years now but there hasn't been so much as a "we're working on it".
It feels to me they come out with new products all the time, like the document editor now, without addressing the little things that would make their ecosystem great.
Anyway, long ramble. But I appreciate that you asked for more details without insulting me.
These are some excellent points, thank you for sharing rather than just giving a blanket "they bad" statement.
I believe Pass has integrated SimpleMail now, you can create aliases which forward to your email without setting up reverse aliases.
You can also add credit cards to Pass now, this was actually one of the things keeping me on Bitwarden for ages.
Can't say that their communication has improved though, all I can find on contact sync is that "Soon you'll be able to sync the contacts in your proton mail app to the default contact app on your mobile device" so if poor communication is your biggest problem then I can't fault you for avoiding them.
I'm actually pretty sure they have one. I was doing a lot of exploring the last 2 days to make sure it was worth it to me to spend money on. And I landed on a downloads page on my Linux desktop that had a download link for drive for fedora, or debian. I can't find it on mobile (where I am now), but I'll look later on my PC and see if I can link it.
Was wrong, not sure what I found. Must have been the vpn or mail app.
Photos is extremely barebones and locks you basically in, as there is no export function
Interesting, thanks for the heads up. Hopefully it gets better later on, but for the moment I'm glad I made my own solution using a NAS, and a sync client.
Contacts still don't sync
This was one of my first concerns, I'm also annoyed by it.
Additionally, I was hoping their big "docs update" would also include spreadsheets, but hopefully soon.
A SaaS solution that claims to be private but won't provide the backend code to prove it. You don't find it at all suspicious that they claim releasing backend code would make it less secure? What kind of security product is not open for inspection? The same kind of "security" you get from Microsoft.
Enterprises are using a plethora of open source tools at this point. They may still utilize closed source solutions, but they definitely have quite a bit of open source solutions tied in.
I imagine it probably is inspected, just not by the public. They probably do it themselves.
And they may have contracts with certain companies specializing in this sort of security that also inspect it.
And there's also the cybersecurity companies that test it whether they're contracted or not. At some companies, their entire job revolves around finding bugs (especially security bugs) in other companies' software.
Just because it's not on GitHub doesn't mean it's not a good product that hasn't been thoroughly tested.
You realize that Microsoft code is inspected as well, even more heavily and regulated... and yet they still end up with major breaches. Security evolves through open source collaboration and inspection by experts that aren't being paid to say you're doing a good job.
They're not actually good points at all... Proton's open sourcing of the clients is for the purpose of trust in terms of security and privacy. The backend doesn't matter because the point is that the data is encrypted before it ever gets to the backend. The goal with Proton's open sourcing is not the ability to make it self-hostable. Sure, a lot of concerns are valid, but this isn't like Microsoft or Google. Nearly all of Proton is verifiably and provably secure. Well, at least as long as you trust the web clients being served are the ones whose code is publicly available. But again... You can't verify that with any SaaS. Such a risk is even present with self-hosting tbh. But that's another discussion.
That's where the second and third paragraphs come in. Because other companies likely test it themselves, too.
They'll typically report security bugs privately and then, after X amount of months, publicly announce the bug. Doing it this way will, ideally, force the other company to patch the bug prior to the announcement. If not, they'll end up with a publicly known security bug that bad actors can now exploit. The announcement will also let the public (including companies) know to update their software.
Yes, and those other paragraphs are the same thing other proprietary companies do. Your opening paragraph is just absurd on the face of it because "inspected" does not mean "by themselves".
The second paragraph is literally speculation about something that might happen.
The third paragraph is about bug bounties, which every major software company does and which does not involve code inspection.
You just smokescreened and talked around the fact that your opening statement "it probably is inspected" is entirely unverifiable and non-credible even if true. I guess since you started that sentence with "I imagine" then it is technically true. You did imagine that.
I admittedly should've done more research before my first comment, but it does actually turn out that everything I said is true. Proton's technology was previously audited by Mozilla and is currently audited by SEC Consult and other companies regularly, and the audits are available for everyone to view. Additionally, they do have a bug bounty program. Also (and this is something I didn't mention), the ProtonVPN and Proton Mail apps are all open source.
It's about the server-side code. If that's not an issue then someone needs to make the argument, not throw up smokescreens about the apps and frontend code.
You're right that the encryption needs to be verifiable on the client side, but then why not share the server side code?
I mean if they did, anyone could theoretically spin up an instance, which would be good, actually.
Good for us. Bad for business. I explained this in another comment too but Proton's idea of "open source" is simply to build trust in the security and privacy offered by the service. At least, as much as you can trust any SaaS.
but then why not share the server side code?
And to answer this... Well, business and practicality... One more than the other ofc unfortunately... Why would they take on the additional burden of making it self-hostable, make the backend fully open source, etc just to make competition for themselves? And that maintenance burden is huge btw, especially when the backend was probably never intended for self-hosting in the first place.
If Proton, as a company or foundation, didn't keep making the right decisions in terms of privacy and security, we might have had a reason to doubt their backend. But so far, there's been nothing. And steps like turning to a foundation-based model just inspires more trust. By using client-side encryption, even within the browser, they're trying to eliminate the need for trusting the closed source backend. Open sourcing the backend wouldn't improve trust in the service itself anyway since you can't verify that the code running in the backend is the same as the open sourced code. If you're concerned about data, they also offer exports in open formats for every service they offer.
Why wouldn't you trust them just because their backend is closed source? Ideologically, yeah I'd like them to open source absolutely everything. But as a service, whose income source is exclusively the service itself, how can it make sense for them to open source the backend when it cannot tangibly benefit their model of trust?
These are all good points and I have nothing to argue about with this comment. I really just wanted someone to answer the issue raised instead of changing the subject, and you've done that.
As for the linked comment, there are ways to verify that backend code is the same as open source. Not on a software level of course, but if you trust audits for logging practices presumably you can trust them for checking that the code base is the same.
Also you can verify that a web client is running the same code as open sourced, especially if it's a scripted client, since it would deliver code uncompiled. You can also check the signatures of binaries. Most people won't do this, but it only takes one security expert to check and discover that there's a discrepancy. If they then decompile it and find malware, that's the ballgame. Trust gone. There's a strong incentive for a premium service whose main selling point is privacy and transparency to never even flirt with that.
I agree that Proton has made themselves about as trustworthy as any private company can be, and maybe with the shift to foundation they can alter their model to not rely on being the singular operator. However, when you say "good for us, bad for business", that's the issue. The reason the fediverse works is that nobody can develop a monopoly on it. I mean, you've already said that ideally it should all be open source, so we agree on that too.
I understand that a closed backend isn't a deal breaker for a lot of people and that makes sense given the client side encryption. It's just that it is a potential problem in the longer term. It's an artefact of them having to exist in a capitalist context. Maybe they'll find a way through without succumbing to capitalist logic. I certainly hope they can.
In general, I agree with you. I would very much prefer if they did more open sourcing too. Just want to address some additional stuff.
especially if it's a scripted client, since it would deliver code uncompiled.
Unfortunately, this isn't really true anymore because of the necessity of minification. It introduces obscurity but is necessary for performance. But yes, the rest is correct, which is why I specified "web clients". You can verify the native clients, which is why native clients are so important imo. The concern of a hacked server serving a keylogging web client is unfortunately very real. Kind of makes it impossible to fully trust any SaaS at all.
if you trust audits for logging practices presumably you can trust them for checking that the code base is the same
The thing is, they already do public third party audits already. You can view their audit reports on their site. This is unlike companies like Google and Microsoft who conduct audits and keep the reports private. If you end up having to trust third party audits anyway, it doesn't help their model of trust since they do already do that in a transparent manner.
But yeah... stuff like the monopoly is kind of intentional. The exports are a mitigation, a huge one at that. Proton Mail exports are supported by services like FastMail, Proton Pass exports are supported by Bitwarden, etc. But in the end, the best case scenario would be some level of open sourcing. It's just that this "monopoly" is by design. For better or for worse, the fact that there is only one Proton is also good for Proton's model of trust tbh since the user doesn't have to wonder if the "instance" they're using is a good one for example. The fediverse model will not work for something that is so heavily based on trust. Proton wants to appeal to the general user, more than us folks... for better or for worse...
I hope they succeed too. I don't trust many companies. Proton has been one of the exceptions and I hope it stays that way...
The way I read it, they already (in the third paragraph of the blog post) had companies auditing their backend technology and (in the fourth paragraph) were starting to have companies audit their apps, too.
You don’t find it at all suspicious that they claim releasing backend code would make it less secure? What kind of security product is not open for inspection?
No, because Proton has 3rd party audits all the time and they share the results openly.
Microsoft has third party audits all the time and say they're secure, and then you learn of new backdoors every 6 months. Audit companies are unreliable and paid to give good feedback while doing the least work possible.
Because their primary audience is those gullible enough to believe they somehow can't read your messages, yet they can easily capture your private password.
It is entirely possible to keep secure data on a server that only someone else with the password can access. They don't store your password in plaintext, they don't test whether what you typed is the same thing they keep on their servers. If the password works to decrypt your data then your client can read the emails. If not, your client gets gibberish and knows your password was wrong. With a secure system your password should never be sent to the server at all.
Now, that doesn't mean it's trustworthy. There could be holes in the security, and I certainly would feel better controlling my own server, but it's not automatically insecure just because it's hosted by them.
So, if you want to have any sense of a service respecting you, it should be hosted on a server you can control?
No difference at all between the server of the world's biggest advertiser and a server by a company that opens itself for audits and is in a country whole laws require no bullshit? Are you sure those two are the same? All or nothing?
I like how there seems to be more and more alternatives to MS Office, even from big companies like Google. Best case scenario, this could lead to companies actually starting to use an open format, like ODF, so that all these different office applications can be used without causing issues in the file and that would pave the way for open source alternatives, like LibreOffice or OnlyOffice, to become viable alternatives for a lot more people and companies. Do Google Docs and Proton Drive use/support ODF? I'm pretty sure MS Office supports it.
Word is a pain in the ass. Resize a table column by 1px and the rest of the document gets absolutely fucked
Excel suffers from similarly frustrating UI issues, but my main problem with it is that it's being used for things that it was never intended to be used for. On the extreme side, a company will shove all their HR info into one xlsx file and then someone will accidentally, somehow unrecoverably, delete it
More commonly, I've had to use it as a progress tracking/ticketing tool. An entire team adding rows, deleting rows, accidentally clearing formulas, highlighting random fucking cells, resizing columns etc. all at the same time. It's just hell.
Probably true for most companies but I worked at one that had plenty of DB servers and developers, even developed their own database tech. Still, Excelitis as we called it was rampant.
The only use case I can see for Access is when you absolutely must have a database and your company will not provide you a real database solution. I have experience with both, but haven't touched Access in years (and hope to never do so again). To be fair, I also regularly use Excel for things that I should probably be using Word for because it is easier to get formatting right in Excel.
When I started studying IT at a Berufskolleg (German word, literal transaltion would be something like job college or job school), we started learning about databases by using Access. We were all so happy when we were done with that and just used SQL. I fucking hate Access.
It’s criminal that Microsoft has such a monopoly on word processing, they can’t even render text properly. It’s not an issue in Mac or Linux, but it is in all windows applications that aren’t using a chromium base.
Employer: Print out this .doc and bring it to work.
Me, with a Mac: alright, here you go.
Employer: why did you print it like this?
Me: that’s what you sent me.
Uses compute platform that's spent (all of personal computer history) trying to exclude any outsiders from working with them, a design intention of Steve Jobs from day one leading to significant waste and suffering for the past 50 years.
Sad that Microsoft doesn't care
At least Linux has a leg to stand on. The culture can be exhausting but is generally in the right.
Sadly, the lock-in is pretty extreme... as is user inertia. Office 365 has made the problem worse as well, even if you have something like OnlyOffice that does a good job of compatibility with Office, it can't sync with OneDrive.
If you collaborate with non-technical people, they will expect you to work in Office formats, and won't even entertain discussion of any alternative.
Wait who are the technical people you work with who are using things besides Excel?? Or by technical people do you specifically mean computer science people? Cause you get mech, civil, or electrical engineers in a room and I think I would have a heart attack if their designs were not all in Excel or word (+altium, solidkindaworks, etc)
Where I was working Excel was used for the specification of scientific data. You get stuff like thousands of rows in several sheets themselves in multiple files that inherit from one another and everything is edited by hand...
And I maintained a tool that combined them to create binary files from this mess. Lot of fun.
It...was intended for those things. Excel is modern business' multi-tool. You're not going to excise it until there is a solution for the HR person to do basic bulk data processing, basic Excel programming without having to acknowledge they are doing programming, etc.
The other path is better spreadsheet software, but let's be honest most of the others are poor clones. Gsheets are nearly useless, only office is solid but...well, it's just Excel but free. Open office is Excel millennium edition and libre while better than open, and has a few nice quality of life improvements, it's still Excel.
I feel you on that first part, I always use Markdown nowadays when I don't have to use Word (or LibreOffice Writer in my case), I even use Marp to make presentations with Markdown. Since there's no dragging stuff around and eyeballing if it's actually coherent, it's much quicker, the layout is always perfect and changing the layout doesn't fuck up the entire slide/document.
FWIW collabora and open office can integrate with other clouds like Seafile and owncloud Infinite scale. So even without NextCloud it can be used. It can also be used stand alone.
Get started by creating a free Proton Drive account today (if you don’t already have one). We are rolling out Docs starting today, and the feature will be available to all users over the next couple of days.
Specify that, "free" means two things in English, otherwise use "libre", which means freedom in Spanish and it's sometimes used to refer to free or libre software.
Most "free" things aren't free, you pay by them collecting your information and selling it. Anyone that automatically thinks something is bad because it isn't free is dumb as fuck.
And so what happens to your passwords if Proton were to go offline and you needed to continue using Proton Pass? Do they have an open source server you can use like Bitwarden does or vaultwarden? Or are you essentially locking yourself into a new walled garden for no reason other than name recognition? Why not just use KeePassXC which is encrypted locally rather than share your password with a third party who can easily capture your private key password?
I think a lot of these cloud-based password vaults will have a local database that syncs with the cloud. I think you can unlock them and access your passwords without internet access
Keyword... unlock, not add information or use them offline where they can sync to an open source backend. They are cloud-based password managers that are designed to operate online. The backend is not open source. It is designed to lock you into a walled garden.
Browser integration with quality biometric login is a beautiful thing. Keepass' implementation of both is trash, and keepassxc's browser integration may actually be worse than the original.
That having been said I always recommend to people they use two managers, with keepass being the secure base for things you don't often need convenient access to like savings accounts, password manager passwords, tax services, etc.
bitwarden, proton, et al I use for the day-to-day...I don't give any fucks if my Lemmy account is lost for example.
It will cache credentials for a short time so you can still access some of your passwords. It will not let you add new credentials. It's like a web browser working in offline mode for a period of time. It is a cloud-based password manager with a closed-source server backend.
"A walled garden is a garden enclosed by high walls, especially when this is done for horticultural rather than security purposes, although originally all gardens may have been enclosed for protection from animal or human intruders."
Agreed proton isn't this
"A closed platform, walled garden, or closed ecosystem[1][2] is a software system wherein the carrier or service provider has control over applications, content, and/or media, and restricts convenient access to non-approved applicants or content. "
Still, that seems like a combo of "comes with the territory of encrypted email" and "their software could use some major improvements". I think closed platform is closed by design.
AFAIK they haven't tried to standardize their implementation, which to me implies that they're not interested in interoperability. That's unfortunate. I wouldn't want to be locked in to a vendor like that.
At least some providers do try. FastMail published the spec for their modern, stateless replacement to IMAP through the IETF as "JMAP", and built on top of existing RFCs where possible.
Nah, fundamentally proton uses the same encryption as everyone else, they just have a central server to exchange keys rather than one of the open servers.
My only gripe with Proton Pass so far is that I'm used to Bitwarden's right-click autofill menu and some sites' 2FA codes don't automatically pop up for some reason.
Don't put all your eggs in one basket again, that's what makes degoogling such a difficult thing. There's several proton services I intentionally avoid and use alternatives for so I don't have to uproot my entire digital life to leave them if they start being shitty. If you go from using all google services to all proton you're setting yourself up to need the same sort of big migration down the road. 15 years ago google was also an awesome company that kept making incredibly useful things for users just because they could and look at them now.
Does pass support custom url filters yet? I self host and so I have a lot of 192.168 bookmarks...when I tried pass it had no way to organize them by url prefix (port number).
I wish they could provide more storage for paid users, or allow users to a la carte add storage. $4/mo to merely match Gmail's 15GB feels a bit steep, and it must be feasible for them to offer their mail service with 100GB+ for $5/mo.
I get the thought process from a market standpoint, but this is a trap we all fall into because the big services subsidize subsidize subsidize to keep you locked in. If you want 15gb free, you sell your privacy. That's the equation, not "service a and b are equivalent except more gbs".
i am not comparing their storage with gmail, i just think 500 mb might be little less. i love proton for what it is, but i can't continue using their services if the limit hits.
Agreed there may be a middle ground somewhere. 1 GB in 2024 feels pretty light given I just bought 36 tb for the same price a cheap tablet...it's just never gonna be parity.
