this post was submitted on 25 Sep 2024
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Privacy

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Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 2 weeks ago

I started with their email services many years ago, and today I user their email + free calendar. To be true, they went too much far with all these apps, but as long as it works for them thats fine.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I want to make the jump from Google apps but I can't because I use GCal heavily and Proton Calendar doesn't (yet) sync to GCal. I can enter in something in GCal and it'll appear in Proton Calendar, but I can't enter in something in Proton Calendar and it shows up in GCal. Hopefully they add that soon.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

If you want to move away from Google apps, why keep using Google Calendar? Maybe someone has a suggestion for a way to work with it if you say what your continued use case for it is and what kind of limitations you are working with.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

I have shared calendars with family and friends that I need to keep using.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 weeks ago

Then your plan is kinda flawed from the start, eh?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Ok. The way I'm set up with my partner is to have two calendars, one on Nextcloud (me) and one on Google Calendar (my partner). We subscribe to each others calendars, and I'm also formatting it the same so it appears to be one. However, we cannot edit each others entries, but for our use case that is not needed, we just need to share certain events between us. So while this is not Proton, I believe the same is doable there.

I can see how this is not a very practical with multiple people (but potentially doable, it has been set-and-forget in my case), and if you need the ability to edit each others entries, then it is a non-starter.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 weeks ago

Oh gotcha, I see what you're doing. Samsung Calendar (I use the S24 Ultra) has 2-way syncing with GCal. Everyone else is on iOS and they all have Google accounts so GCal was the easiest way to handle it.

[–] [email protected] 33 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Will they be now on FDroid? I think only one Proton app is there and it's a little bit sad.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Proton VPN and proton pass

IRRC they even removed all telemetry from pass but not VPN.

They should definitely push drive and calendar there too.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

Why the fuck does their VPN have telemetry?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 2 weeks ago

Telemetry is not bad in itself. It can be used for bug/crash reports, or usage statistics, without tracking or personal data collection.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

Do you want good products? That happens through telemetry. Simple as that.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 weeks ago (1 children)

I'm curious, any advice on that? How does one do "good" telemetry? I'm the first to complain about Microsoft, Apple, (even worst) Google, Meta and now OpenAI collecting data to sell me stuff... but it's true that also some data is needed to get some kind of introspection in terms of usage. Developers need to understand what is actually happening with the software they develop.

Now I'm wondering specifically about 2 side :

  • how to do the data collection correctly (e.g local only, only send on crash, only send without PII, store only aggregate)
  • how to get informed consent from users (e.g off by default, UX that supports understanding of why it's done and how)

I'm genuinely glad that the mindset around privacy have changed since the last few years but I'm wondering how, when it's a genuinely positive good case (to truly make better products), to do it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 weeks ago

Your app has a button on its front page. No one ever presses that button. With good telemetry, you will know this and remove the button. The only thing you need to know is how many times each user opens the app and how many times they tapped that button. Crash reports can include the causes of errors. Without this data the app might have that unused button there forever and crash everytime anyone taps the donate button and you wouldnt know why you arent getting any dontaions.

Telemetry is usually collected on non metered networks. Usually it is opt-out by default, set by the user in the apps settings. Personally, I'd inform the user of this and let them decice on first startup.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 2 weeks ago

It's a VPN! What did you expected? /hj

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