Free servers can now be used without account. Can be useful for certain cases I suppose.
4 Likes
Interesting.
Recently I tried to create my first ever Proton account to test their VPN and it actually denied my signup saying something along the lines of “suspicious activity from your network” despite using just plain clearnet normal residential internet service.
Presumably they’ll have even stricter checks for this.
Nice but what’s still missing is a way of anonymously paying for the paid VPN service. Theoretically there’s cash by mail to Switzerland but I doubt many people actually do that. They already support Bitcoin, so why not Monero?
2 Likes
Certainly, that would be desirable, and I believe we all concur on this matter.
Theoretically there’s cash by mail to Switzerland but I doubt many people actually do that.
I hold a similar view regarding XMR payments. Its likely that only a minor proportion of Proton’s clientele would utilize it. This likely explains why it is not currently offered.
The co-founder of Kagi once disclosed in a forum post [1] that merely 0.3% of users would opt to pay with cryptocurrency (BTC), with the proportion of users willing to pay in XMR likely being even smaller. Introducing a new payment method requires substantial effort and resources. Of course, Kagi and Proton are fundamentally different services. I am certain that the average Proton user is generally more inclined to pay with cryptocurrency than the average Kagi user. However, the rationale behind Proton not offering XMR payment is probably similar: the cost and effort involved in implementation are not justified by the low adoption rate of customers using it.
While this may make economic sense, it does not align with Proton’s privacy aspiration. Other services manage to offer XMR payments despite similar challenges. Therefore, I concur with your view that Proton should definitively introduce XMR payment.
3 Likes
Proton has the economic ability to do this, and it is a feature in high demand among users:
https://protonmail.uservoice.com/forums/935538-accounts-payments/filters/top
It is currently second in order of highest rated ideas in the “Accounts and Payments” section.
4 Likes
Have done this. Great experience. Mostly did it for testing in case anyone here asked about it.
1 Like
I do not doubt Proton’s financial capacity to implement this feature. However, I am questioning the economic prudence of allocating their resources towards a service that would likely be utilized by only a small fraction of users, particularly given that Proton already offers an anonymous payment method (cash via mail). While user feedback is valuable, it is important to consider that lifetime plans, which are just behind Monero payments in popularity, are also unlikely to be reinstated due to their lack of long-term profitability.
All I’m saying is purely speculative. I am not engaged with Proton in any capacity. This is merely my conjecture regarding why Proton has not yet implemented XMR payments.
Not really, they can setup their own BTCPay Server and support Monero. A lot of companies does that like IVPN. Proton just refuses to do it for no reason given.
Depends, if the project focuses on privacy then this proportion of users is likely going to increase.
2 Likes
Where did you read no account is needed ?
1 Like
Monero support is just at the bottom of their priorities, and because of that, they will not support it, no matter how easy it is. That’s how they operate.
Take Proton Drive, for example. F-Droid did all the work for Proton Drive to be published on F-Droid, and Proton can’t be bothered to merge a little bit of text: Proton Drive (#2380) · Issues · F-Droid / Requests For Packaging · GitLab
1 Like
This is nice. Although I will also want them to provide ways for people in countries without election to acess the Free Internet . By implementing Shadow Socks for example.
Tor?
Tor is not possibly usable in everyday life (talking about China). Dead slow. Maybe it changed with their WebSocks integrating though.
I know Tor is branded as censorship circumvention tool, but really people in authoritarian states just use whatever VPNs they can use.
This is stinky, it only works in the Google Play version, not the F-Droid or GitHub version.
Yikes…