So I guess considering the price changes - Pass is now marginally cheaper then a premium SimpleLogin account with the same functionality. $35.88 vs $36
Not surprising they are trying to move customers away from SimpleLogin and into the Proton environment. I would guess at some point SimpleLogin as a standalone will cease to exist.
To reflect the new functionality we’ve added, the price for a Pass Plus subscription for new users is now $2.99/m on a 12-month plan (billed at $35.88). Starting today
This make sense. If they do so I hope they will keep a way to.self-host S, and keep aliases for life, unkike with PP.
No chance imo. Proton is open source just for marketing and customer capture. If they haven’t helped self host something as critical as Proton Pass which is way more open compared to their other offerings, I don’t think they will do it for SL.
None of Proton’s products were ever self-hostable or promised to be at any time in the future. Meanwhile, SimpleLogin was like that from the start. Proton’s backend code is also proprietary because it contains a lot of anti-abuse logic that would get exposed if the code was open-sourced. Even if they would open-source it, Proton stated that it’s very complex and would be pretty much useless to the user.
Strong anti-abuse logic to provide free services that are privacy-respecting and providing all Proton users with good UX is a lot more important than some power users not being able to self-host their own password manager.
Even if one would want to, it’s questionable to selfhost things because you will be the one responsible for security, reliability, and everything else, but for those who want that, there is Vaultwarden.
Both Proton Pass and Bitwarden/Vaultwarden have their places, and saying that Proton is open source just for marketing and customer capture is just coming after Proton for absolutely no reason, at least in my opinion.
Proton is also the only company that turned into a non-profit to make sure that they will always be going towards their mission, which they’ve been doing since 2014.
I am as big a proton advocate as any. I do see them as a good alternative to Google, with them being an Open Source Privacy oriented service provider. I also agree Proton is not actually backing away from any promises.
I am just noting the historical precedent of Proton not being self hosting friendly, even for something that can already be self hosted if one looks at competitors (like Proton Pass & BW). They usually match and exceed competition in features unless it is something similar to self hosting, which is why I qualified it with “imo”. Also the part about marketing and customer capture can be framed better yes, but the FOSS gambit IS a market and customer capture gambit (since they weren’t FOSS from the start)
In my opinion, Proton won’t support self hosting on Proton Pass if they ever merge with SL and stop offering separate products.
My point was not that they should op n-source PP backend, but that the SL backend will keep being maintained as an open-source code.