Proton launches Proton Meet (for everyone!)

I notice that Privacy Guides doesn’t cover video conferencing apps, properly because there’s no good option. I hope that Proton Meet proves its competency.

11 Likes

I didn’t even know that Apple did, but that is how Brave Talk works. The only difference is that Brave Talk is not E2EE yet, and it’s very buggy, so this gives Proton an opportunity to take the lead in the video conferencing privacy market.

2 Likes

From my few tests quality was good so far.

Fascinating enough but yes, Apple users can share a Facetime link. The video call quality is horrendous though (most likely to shame the recipient into switching over to an Apple device)

Perhaps. I do think there is room for a browser-based solution for enterprise, nonprofit, and even personal purposes.

Signal, while cross-platform, does not always have the best video quality and faces the issue of the network effect.

2 Likes

Yes. Mozilla should throw their hat in the ring too.

2 Likes

Thanks for sharing screenshots. I was going to share some myself and will here as well but I was happy to read your post and be able to play with it myself because you posted here and I missed the update about this early access. Haha!

3 Likes

Seems like a cool new product, not something I will personally use too much. They still have a lot of work to do on there existing portfolio.

Agreed with Jonah’s comment that somebody there has obviously board the AI hype train.

1 Like

I mean.. has to be the leadership + majority of the board right? Just hope they approach it all in a more deliberate and intentional manner than willy nilly do things.

See, I wasn’t far off thinking they didn’t fork an existing tool.

With some inspecting of the web page, I saw that they also are planning Proton Sheets.

1 Like

Yep the sub domain is configured.

ok now that makes it better, I’ve been complaining about how we didnt have sheets for a year, if proton was going to release Proton Meet soon, it’s about time they did sheets. This is becoming a reality it seems.

2 Likes

They confirmed it with a comment on this forum on the big Lumo thread when I complained. So it is indeed coming this year.

LiveKit is quite powerful future proof platform that it is used by OpenAI itself. So I think Proton is also thinking to integrate this real-time AI voice conversation features (of this platform) for Lumo.

Like in this video where famous cyber security expert talks he loose privacy while using OpenAI’s voice assistant, but he likes it so much he still use it: https://inv.nadeko.net/watch?v=DylXM7DPFRs&t=1255 (I set time 20:55). And I see people around me use it all the time as well.

I guess he would be super happy with new Proton Lumo Voice assistant instead. Maybe its bad that people are getting addicted? to it, but Proton would be (at least ‘confidential’) alternative of this with LiveKit.

This all 22 minute interview is very good, about important things, like anti-drone work he is doing.

Proton has put up more info: Proton Meet: Secure, end-to-end encrypted video conferencing | Proton

Mainly:

Proton Meet is available exclusively to Proton community members with Lifetime, Visionary and Enterprise plans during early access. If you are a large organization and would like to get early access to Meet, you can contact our sales team or your account manager.

6 Likes

What are you hoping for from Proton?

I’m confused. What does Proton Meet have to do with AI? They’re not training the system with our data like Zoom does. If they are using AI, I’m gonna have to agree with @jonah too.
If Proton’s only concern with AI is privacy, I see that as a problem.

It’s about time they intergrate Standard Notes too.

1 Like

It has nothing to do with AI, and they are not using AI.
Proton Meet is just built on top of futuristic platform which advertise AI as their core feature at the moment (https://livekit.io/), but Proton don’t use that part and unlikely to use it for Proton Meet specifically in the near future.

5 Likes

I see. Thanks for explaining.

This LiveKit possibilities resemble movie “Afraid (2024)”, where deepfake AI specifically video calls people acting as real people distorting reality (also hacks systems in the background, and mostly hacks human psychology) and spoiler: take over the world this way Afraid (2024) - IMDb

(movie has not great ratings, but I read the reviews and reviewers complain they expected a horror movie from the title and trailer, but got a movie which is too realistic instead).

Movie has some scenes promoting privacy like saying “If you’re wondering why a product is free… you’re the product” and similar.

Source code and builds of Proton Meet will need to be specifically thoroughly examined to make sure nothing nefarious is going on :grinning_face:

Kind of a positive - extra vigilant to make sure deep fake video calls like in the movie would not happen :slightly_smiling_face: in real life. Extra reason to strengthen cyber security.

Personally, I like this. Obviously this is aimed at businesses not individuals. Having support for a reliable videoconferencing software is effectively required for businesses, so this could help lower the cost for a business on Proton versus maintaining separate Proton + Zoom subscriptions. It brings Proton plans closer to parity to Google/Microsoft.

4 Likes