This year I moved my personal and business mail away from Proton to mailbox.org and I could not be happier with the decision.

The catalyst was not any of the recent self-inflicted problems by Proton’s CEO, it was actually Proton CEO Andy Yen’s cheerleading for the incoming Trump administration back in January of 2025. That set a chain of events in motion for me to get the migration planned and executed earlier this year, but my frustrations had been building for years.

Proton insists that in order to offer “secure” email, you must use their non-standards compliant software. Their slow web application. Their slow Electron-based desktop software. Their slow Android application. If you want to use another mail client you have to use their slow, and buggy Bridge application. If you care about email they are actually a terrible choice because they seem to hate the technologies that make email work.

Over many years I tolerated this shitty stack because I believed the marketing that Proton was a good company. That was until their CEO helpfully exhibited the rot within their leadership culture.

This week’s reporting from 404 Media has made me feel even more vindicated in leaving. The first article detailing how Proton is “re-interviewing” staff about AI to decide who gets to keep their job:

“These re-interviews are consequential,” a leaked email seen by 404 Media reads.

Followed by the manifestos piece:

Proton CEO Andy Yen projects a calm persona and rails against Big Tech and critiques AI. Internally, he is pushing engineers to build Proton with AI, even when they have security concerns.

The toxic culture from Andy Yen described in those reports does not surprise me but is disappointing for the staff who likely believe in the mission and marketing as I had.

In contrast, mailbox.org is a mail service. They understand that their job is to provide mail, and they do it with boring, reliable, standards-compliant IMAP and SMTP. No forced apps, no Electron, no lock-in.

I am back to using K-9 Mail on my phone, neomutt in the terminal, and mbsync to keep everything in sync. It is quite a breath of fresh air, especially with the visible AI psychosis at my former mail provider.