No prob dude. Ideally I hope they take the idea requests I submitted to heart. It’s a good service but the hostile ad needs to be stopped as it’s not okay.

If they respond to us and make these changes to listen to their communities, I think I’d be more inclined to recommend them.

For now I’ll ride out my subscription and then I’ll return to Mullvad.

100% agree with you dude. As customers, we do want to know about sales. But companies need to meet us in the middle. Give us the option to opt out. And in your app, embed a non-annoying advertisement about your sale.

Show a sales banner that does not obstruct the functional UI or take up signficiant real estate. Have a “Deals” or “Offers” button that is animated - wiggle, shake, whatever! That’s the best compromise for the user experience.

Steam has pop ups, but you can opt out of that pop up that shows your Recommendation queue in a carousel you can click through to see different games. I think that’s cool! But I have the option to disable it and so I have done so. If I want to see my recommendations, I can look at the main page and simply click left and right through them to discover new games.

We need Proton to think about the user experience and give us the option to opt out of those things.

Right! I think if I was a free user, yeah I’d be annoyed that I got a huge pop up. But I’d accept that - I’m using a service for free and benefiting from it entirely.

As a paid user if that pop up appears, there better be a tick box right below that ad that gives me the option to tick “Don’t show promotional pop ups again”. And if it is not in the pop up window, I better see a toggle in Settings. If it did exist, I would have been annoyed it popped up but would have been relieved I could disable them in perpetuity. I never would have made this post on Lemmy if that were the case! :)

But they have devs to pay, managers, customer service reps, SRE, infrasture providers, vendors, marketing, etc. Embed a “Sale” banner in the app that doesn’t annoy or take up significant UX space. I want to see an “Offers” or “Sale” button that wiggles/shakes/animated. Things like that are necessary because they need to make money. I’m okay with that! But oof those pop ups - gosh I hate them.

Yep totally. I think that’s the way to go. Granted this is the first time I’m using “Proton” services and also that I’m paying for their VPN. I imagine they send you emails like this to give you a heads up your subscription is expiring.

What you wrote though is exactly what I want to see. It’s a non-annoyance and expected. I do know they have bills to pay and a lot of employees that won’t work for free. So what I would appreciate from their apps are no pop ups. Give me an embedded banner in the app when you have a sale. Make an “Offers” button animated or wiggle/shake to alert the user there is a cool sale going on. I just don’t want pop ups, especially when they take up 30% of my screen real estate. I would not have been mad at all if there was a tick box that said “Don’t show offers again” in that pop up window. I would have said, “cool, I can turn this stupid thing off” and never would have made this post on Lemmy nor engaged Proton support because I would know they consider the experience of their users.

Saving money is always good for me. I’m willing to pay more for an excellent service. When I was younger and money was very tight for me, I went with the cheap crap and dealt with frustrations. I’ll continue to use the VPN service I paid for, and unless it totally blows me away with wonderful features and greater uptime than Mullvad, I most likely will not renew with them. Mullvad worked exceptionally well, but at least a handful of times a week I would get connection errors and would need to switch to a new IP (a minor annoyance).

Thanks! So this wallpaper is embedded in “Wallpaper Engine” from Steam. I don’t have the original, but the artist for these wallpapers is “ITZAH”. Here’s their Steam community workshop: https://steamcommunity.com/id/1tzah/

Edit: I snipped a screenshot of what it looks like. This is not saved in a proper wallpaper desktop resolution since I simply just used a snip of my desktop wallpaper. A formative game from my younger years - The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time.

I hear ya. I’m in a bit of a tricky and conflicted position here because I know obviously companies need to advertise. And Proton switched to the non-profit model in June 2024 and established the Proton Foundation (https://proton.me/blog/proton-non-profit-foundation). I was hoping this announcement would help ease back their aggressive advertising.

They need money, and employees don’t work for free. They have a lot of people to pay. My compromise is if they can limit the ads that turn people off: pop ups and annoyances. If there’s a big sale coming up, I welcome them embedding a banner in their app to say “Hey, check out this offer!”. That’s totally fine with me. If I like a service, I’ll explore it more and pay for it. But once it gets too hostile, I’m immediately turned off and start looking elsewhere.

I saw another user posted about UserVoice, which is linked officially as a Community feedback forum for Proton.

I created this feature request: https://protonmail.uservoice.com/forums/932836-proton-vpn/suggestions/49046906-add-settings-toggle-to-disable-pop-up-promotional

And while browsing, I also stumbled upon this one created on Oct 14th: https://protonmail.uservoice.com/forums/932836-proton-vpn/suggestions/48959543-pop-up-notifications-in-the-proton-vpn-application

Thank you so much for voting on the idea! I’m hopefully they’ll consider a good compromise and let us at least have a settings toggle so we can opt out.

By the way bro what kind of name is Tazerface? :D Now I’m in the mood to rewatch Guardians of the Galaxy

Great call! I submitted an idea request.

My submitted idea under a throwaway username:

“Add settings toggle to disable pop up promotional ads from Proton (e.g., Black Friday promo)” - https://protonmail.uservoice.com/forums/932836-proton-vpn/suggestions/49046906-add-settings-toggle-to-disable-pop-up-promotional

And interestingly I found another user that posted something almost a month ago, too. Looks like I’m not the only one who is concerned about this:

“Pop-up notifications in the Proton VPN application, specifically those promoting Proton Duo” - https://protonmail.uservoice.com/forums/932836-proton-vpn/suggestions/48959543-pop-up-notifications-in-the-proton-vpn-application#comments

I couldn’t really find the date when the promo ends, but this appears to be the landing site for their black friday promos:

https://proton.me/mail/black-friday

Yeah I mean I guess you’re right. I just don’t like to be angry. I want to get to a point where I can have a more measured reaction and be emotionally more mature when things bother me.

The root cause of the issue is certainly justified of course! I don’t want pop up ads! I said good bye to those things in the Windows XP days. Come on, Proton, what are you doing? Let us opt out

That’s the plan! And my first reaction today when I made that post was anger. After I’ve had breakfast and a coffee and am working (don’t tell my boss I’m on Lemmy), I realise I’m overreacting.

My first response shouldn’t be anger, but it’s just frustrating and I hate ads, especially when I pay for a service.

Now that I’ve had time to think about it, I’m really just disappointed. If this pop up appears once during the Black Friday era - fine, I get it. They want to make money. But I’d rather have a small banner appear in their VPN app or an “Offers/Promo” button. I just don’t want pop ups and I refuse to accept that when their competitor, Mullvad, doesn’t do that.

Sorry, I’m just having a reflective moment and I decided I’d do that in the comment to your comment ha ha. :)

Good point. I’m not sure how to do that I only use Lemmy in the Fediverse, but when I get some downtime I’ll consider looping in their official Mastodon account (I assume this is their official account).

Meanwhile I’ll await eventual response from the Support ticket I filed with them.

“Its advertising you a plan because its a free thing, they just advertised the reduced price of the full version for the product you use for free. Just click it away.”

I’m a Paid subscriber of Proton. Not a free user.

Thanks dude. I’ve already created a ticket in their Zendesk system to inquire if there is a way to permanently disable it. I’m hopeful their support is staffed by Support engineers rather than customer service help desk techs.

Why shun them? Shouldn’t we welcome them when they decide to join us?

No one likes an evangelist, so I think it’s best to not try to recruit people; Rather, we can make others aware of this problem by making announcements that state facts about what’s going on. Then we leave the 99% to figure it out and decide for themselves.

I never heard of Lemmy, but I’ve been disenfranchised by other social medias and simply walked away. After the Reddit API scandal, I discovered the Fediverse (after hearing vaguely about Mastodon years ago). Let them come on their own. We should welcome all refugees.

Fair point you raise. Competitors can certainly sue where warranted.

And we can certainly start public outcry. It will be a difficult, uphill battle for those that understand the implications of this motive.

You’ve got it right. the thing is that corporations will have to adopt to these standards, but that doesn’t stop us from opting out via decentralized methods and, if you favor it, piracy.

You can spin up your own media server like Jellyfin and serve content to users in your own enclave. Open it to the public and it’s ripe for DMCA takedown.

We can spin up our own social media places and collaborate together. There’s lots of options out there to meet every need. Maybe over time as storage gets cheaper, we’ll figure out how to decentralize large media like movies and tv shows over some kind of distributed service like an open blockchain, and then we can say goodbye to YouTube. Or the YouTube alternatives (not the front ends) will become easier with less friction, and user-supported server costs.

The one thing we couldn’t spin up though are core services that I mentioned - banking, healthcare, government sites, etc.

Absolutely. But there’s the catch - if Google passes this (and they will, because they don’t like ad blockers since it hurts their revenue), others will implement it.

Other Chromium browsers will be forced to adopt Mv3 too. If they don’t adopt it, the users that continue to use those browsers will find that certain web sites or services won’t work, and they’ll uninstall them and leave the service. “Why can’t Opera/Brave load my stupid bank? This is so stupid. I just want to check my balance. Whoa! It works in Chrome! That’s awesome! Why are these idiots at Brave even developers if they can’t fix the simplest shit? They should learn from Google, I’m switching to Chrome.”

And thus, Google Chrome isn’t necessarily “a monopoly”, because other Chromium browsers will adopt it if they want to stay in business. Opera belongs to China, Brave feeds their advertisements and has Basic Attention Token (BAT) cryptocurrency, Microsoft Edge is everything Google is but with a heaping pile of Microsoft privacy invasions. They’ll adopt it, they don’t have a choice.

Other Chromium browsers like Ungoogled Chromium, which is made by voluntary developers in their free time, will not adopt it. But because they’re unpaid, how long can they fight Mv3? Eventually, Ungoogled Chromium will disappear.

Firefox and its forks (Librewolf, Waterfox, etc.) are safe for now. In 10 years when Web sites don’t work, if they don’t adopt Mv3, they too will disappear. Firefox is a corporation that has salaries and a bottom line - they’ll have no choice but to comply or they will perish.

The only way this can somehow get turned around is if Google is upended and a new competitor emerges that the majority of users flocks to. The largest competitor is Firefox, which is not Chromium. Web developers and corporations design their services for the majority of users, so maximum compatibility is for Chromium. I don’t see that happening ever. Hopefully Brave and Microsoft have enough power and decide they don’t want to use Mv3. That’s our only chance.

A quick, non-technical explanation:

• Google is working toward implementing a new protocol in Google Chrome, “Manifest v3”, that will be intrusive and help enforce Digital Rights Management, as well as stopping ad blockers.
• Under the guise of this being safe, secure, and to curb bots, Mv3 will require users to become Trusted by using the Chrome browser.
• Since the majority of users are using Google Chrome, this will heavily influence corporations to adopt this protocol in their service.
• A Trusted user can access Netflix in the browser. If you’re using Firefox or are an untrusted user, you will not be able to access Netflix in your browser.
• This protocol will appear one day in some form, and it will greatly shift the internet and force more users into Google’s ecosystem.
• This will spread to all areas of the internet - Banking web sites, government web sites, healthcare, entertainment, education, etc.
• The internet will become less “free” over time. More censorship, less rights.
• Lots of ads can contain malware. Considering that Google allows phishing sites to pay for an ad to appear directly in Google search results, there is no confidence that Mv3 will be safe or secure.

See my other comments in this Post for more details.

We won’t be able to tear them down. We don’t have the resources to break apart these large corporations. They climbed to the top via the best strategy: find a pipe of money or flow of money in the economy, straddle it and start extracting bits of it like a parasite. In other words, “rent-seeking behavior”. Eventually you get enough money that you buy all the corporations and competitors around and above you so you get bigger. Then you buy the congressman at the top that oversees the laws and regulations, and you use them to make laws in your favor that make it difficult for your competitors to compete with you or keep up with regulation. The end result is that your competition gets buried, and you balloon to the top. Then it’s your goal to get as much money as possible.

Since we can’t tear down large corporations because they captured the regulators (or are financed by governments), the only thing we can do is opt out. You, reader, have already started opting out by using the Fediverse.

The danger of centralization becomes more apparent over time. Continue to use decentralized solutions. Don’t be an evangelist and try to convert people.

Instead, when people get burned (and they will), they will find us. The grassroots people, the anarchists, the ones that just want their freedom from their oppressors.

Give it time. Write your politicians, vote like a good citizen, and when your rights get taken away from you, don’t make letter bombs or rage against your fellows in the working class. Instead, opt out. Take back control by using decentralized systems that can’t be controlled.

Happy to help. As I sat here and reflected on my post I figured out a good way I can satisfy the “Explain Like I’m Five” better. So I’ll share this for posterity:

• Google and Chrome is like mom and dad. You live in your house in a nice neighborhood. You use the internet, watch tv, and go to your friends’ houses to play with them.
• One day mom and dad want to make sure that you’re safe since they don’t know what you’re up to. So they now request you to ask them for permission before you can go to your friends. You also now have to let them know what you’re doing. It goes well, your mom and dad are happy.
• Other moms and dads notice how nice and respectful you are, and they decide they’ll be like your parents since they can trust them.
• Over time, other parents also enable these same rules so they can keep the kids safe while knowing what they’re up to.
• Moms and dads monitor your sleepovers. They press their ears against your closed door while you hang out with your friends.
• They didn’t like that show you were laughing at, so they decided you shouldn’t watch it any more and stopped it. Now, you have to ask permission for some things you want to watch, and some shows you really loved because they were more adult and had bad language are… not there anymore. I guess mom and dad hid them from you. Oh well.
• Eventually your mom and dad decide you don’t need your computer and phone, and they give you new ones that are so much easier to use but require their permission to use. You can still visit your friends and message them, but you have to do it on that computer or phone, else you won’t be able to talk to them.
• Other moms and dads do the same, seeing that they can now trust everyone.
• The neighborhood is now safer. All the parents know what the kids are up to.
• You on the other hand, miss what it was like before. It makes you a little sad that you have to get all this permission and you feel like you’re being watched. But, you guess it’s okay. At least you can see your friends. But it just feels different for some reason and you can’t really explain why.
• The kids aren’t alright.

It’s a long video with many points and better if you watch it. However, here’s a break down of key points, made to be as simple as possible - there’s a lot more technical stuff, but I’ll try to keep it concise and less technical.

This is probably about a 10 minute read if these concepts are not familiar to you:

1. Google owns Chrome (not Chromium), and they dominate the market ever since they won the internet browser wars.
2. As an amoral corporation (not evil, simply lacking morals), their business runs on advertisements.
3. They’re revealing a new feature called Manifest v3 which is a locked down version of the browser that’s built around what they feel is security and trust.
4. Under their proposal for Manivest v3, your browser will have to be “verified” in an attempt to keep you “safe”. Are you a human or a bot? They’re making a more trusted internet with trusted software.
5. Companies like Netflix, news web sites, etc. will eat this up and implement the proper protocols to use Manifest v3. To visit your bank’s web site which has this protocol, you’ll need to use Chrome’s browser.
6. Using Chrome’s browser, you’ll need to authenticate yourself and become a “trusted” user. With this enabled, you can then visit your bank’s web site.
7. If you use an alternative browser that isn’t approved, you won’t be able to use that web site.
8. Eventually other corporations will implement these protocols, too, and you’ll be locked out from participating in the internet.
9. Google, an ad company, gets to control advertisements better, gets to learn more about their users, and now gets to mark them as “trusted”. In other words, you get the North Korean version of the internet, “Mommy and Daddy’s Safe and Approved Internet”. Meanwhile, North Korea and Mom/Dad get to spy on you, see what you’re up to, monitor you, control you, and shape you. The benefit is they also make money off you by selling the information they learn about you.

Why is this bad:

1. It’s censorship. It’s like your mom and dad grabbing your phone, computer, enabling severe parental controls, giving it back to you, and they get to see and approve what you’re allowed to do and say at any time. Apply that same protocol to your money, too. Want to send money through the internet using PayPal? Even more censorship. Want to watch Netflix? Your parents lock it down so only certain things can be watched, at certain times, and certainly under their permission.
2. It buries competition and makes Google even more of a monopoly. We already know Google Search is bad (advertisements, phishing web sites, auto-generated content web sites are always the first results in Google.
3. Digital Rights Management. Just a bit north of 20 years ago, when you purchased a digital product, you could own it. Streaming didn’t exist. In an age where “buying” no longer means “owning”, this new protocol will further enforce DRM. Pay for Netflix and want to watch it? You’ll have to be a Trusted User that uses Chrome. Bought a new video game you’re excited to play on Steam? You’ll need to be a Trusted User. Don’t want to stream music through Spotify and instead use something like Bandcamp? To make a purchase at Bandcamp, you’ll need to be a Trusted User. Don’t want to buy something through Bandcamp and instead just download what you already paid for? You guessed right - you’ll need to be a trusted user to even login and reach your downloads. Don’t forget your downloads are hosted on servers that are run by Google and Amazon - you’ll have to be a trusted user in order to download from that server.

Can I use Firefox and stop using any Chromium browser

• Most browsers are Chromium: Chrome, Brave, Ungoogled Chromium to name a few. They will all eventually implement Manifest v3, and if they don’t, they will disappear.
• Firefox is not Chromium, but think about how many users use Firefox now. Google Chrome has the overwhelming market share and has captured users into their platform.
• Because the majority of users use Chrome, corporations have to evolve to adopt Manifest v3: banking web sites, governments, job applications, benefits, healthcare, personal emergency, etc. All of these will be forced to adopt it because that’s where the users are, and Google will force corporations to participate. After all, banking web sites will face less downtime through Manifest v3, because bots won’t be able to spam them and try to get in. Netflix will have to spend less money on security, because only trusted users will be able to even reach Netflix. Your “free” email service through Gmail now stops all spam because it only accepts incoming messages from trusted users. Of course everyone will adopt it - Google is safe, secure, and trusted. And best of all it’s “free”!
• If you use Firefox now and continue to use it, you’ll be safe for several years. For now.

What can we do?

• Right now, you can opt out of using Chrome by using Firefox and other decentralized tools.
• In the not too distant future, there’s not much that you can do. Educating users to switch from Chrome, use Linux, use stock Android (e.g., Graphene OS), will not help.
• Eventually, the users that use Firefox, Linux, stock de-googled Android will get locked out. An average user isn’t going to invest their time to learn these platforms. They’ll stick with what works: “I can login to Chrome and watch my Netflix and pay my bills. You’re telling me that this Linux thing doesn’t let me do that? Screw that, I’ll use Chrome OS - at least my shit works! What’s wrong with these Linux developers, they can’t get anything right! They should take a lesson from Google and fix their shit.”
• Write your politicians and hope that some governments will help restrict this rollout. Keep in mind though that some version of this will get passed and approved. Also don’t forget that corrupt regulators and politicians are captured and owned by corporations. This will get passed, there’s no doubt about it.

What will happen 20 years from now?

• Humans have tenacity. You can only frustrate humans so much before they break. Take away too many of their freedoms, impose many restrictions, and eventually they will break.
• The trick for all of time, seen throughout history by all our overlords, kings, emperors, etc. is to find a careful balance. Take away “just enough” freedoms. Give them “just enough”. Work them until they’re tired, but don’t let them break. And of course, give them a few handouts here and there, but not enough to make their lives easy.
• Manifest v3 (or its derivative) will be implemented. There’s no doubt about that at all.
• The 99% of the population will continue to use these services because they want to be able to participate: They have to pay bills, access money, access healthcare, use government systems, do education, have entertainment, etc.
• The 99% will continue to use this because they won’t care. So long as they can be happy enough, they will persist.
• Eventually, an infinitesimally small minority will be affected by something. Something will break and cause them to snap, and they will do the only thing that an individual human can do: opt out.
• That small minority will leave, opt out, and refuse to participate in the system. Those clusters will grow at an extremely small rate because they’re able to recognize the whole picture and see that personal freedoms are so restricted. They’ll remember their history and learn from it.
• Enter decentralization - the removal of power from centralized authority.
• Those who recognize decentralization will build new platforms, and others will eventually follow. This is why the Fediverse and Bitcoin exist. They recognize the problem of centralization and are full of users who decided to opt out. The Fediverse adoption exploded with the 2023 Reddit API problem, and the constant Twitter issues under Elon Musk. Bitcoin happened in 2009 out of anger from the 2008 global financial crisis when “Satoshi Nakomoto” gave, as a gift to the world, a permissionless peer-to-peer decentralized economy of money that had “rules, but without rulers”.

What happens 20+ years from now?

• In 30 years when more of the population realizes their freedoms are under attack, they’ll consult the ones who left 10 years previously.
• In 40 years, you might have choice. There may be a “new Firefox” that pops up after the old Firefox was wiped out 10 years ago, and let’s you use the internet, your IP, and your content in a different way.
• The trick is to train yourself to see the big picture. You’ll never defeat your overlords - they’re behind tall walls and they control the money. However, you can opt out. You can refuse to participate. But by doing so, remember that you will be locked out. That’s not an easy choice to make.
• But those users that do opt out, they will be the ones that were pushed too far. This is why refugees leave their homes - they just want to be safe, they want to be alright, they want their freedom from their opressors.
• We will have “Google Internet” (Manifest v3) refugees one day.

“We no longer have choice. We no longer have voice. And what is left when you have no choice and no voice? Exit.” - Andreas Antonopoulos