This is reassuring. Thank you for the clarification. I’m familiar with affiliate links, so I really should have dug deeper to check if this guy was using one. Their vetting process does seem very loose, but that’s a much more common and understandable oversight (one that I’ve seen a lot of good people/services make).

My understanding is that Vincent Lapierre was a direct partnership, but Proton have already addressed this. Hopefully, his endorsement remains a one-off abberation.

See timestamp 8:26 for Proton banner adds. I don’t speak the language so I can’t tell what’s actually being said, but it has all the aesthetic of an advertisement.

I’m very disappointed in Proton. This level of carelessness has been enough to make me permanently avoid some software/services. I feel like I’m clutching at straws to find a reason I shouldn’t stop using them. Shooting from the hip and sponsoring multiple far right folks should be disqualifying to anybody patronizing them for ethical reasons.

I’m hoping that I have not correctly understood the situation.

You’re right that we should hold companies to account and expect them to do homework. Vigilance is good. Let’s extend that vigilance to monitoring Proton too. I think they’d approve of that.

Below is some stuff I think is interesting, but that is tangential and not intended as either endorsement or condemnation of Proton. (All intended in good faith!)

Your comment prompted me to look up their finances. For anyone interested, Proton AG seems to be valued at about 300 million (https://getlatka.com/companies/protonmail). However, I didn’t realize they are majority owned by a non-profit.

Some personal reflection, I am a French citizen living outside France (dual national). I had not heard of this guy. I probably should have. This is the kind of low awareness that makes me feel guilty about voting in the FR elections.

I use Adobe Acrobat professionally. I am also on Linux as a daily driver.

Bad news, it’s very very difficult.

If your gf’s use case involves sharing PDFs with other people at scale, there just isn’t a “low tech” solution. Every workaround I use involves some level of programmatic nonsense. For reading and relatively simple tasks, many of the open source alternatives do wonders, but they aren’t able to replicate some of the heavier features. Even when they are, you loose compatibility; something critical in certain workflows.

I am stubborn. I force my gimp files upon my Photoshop using colleagues. I edit videos in Blender instead of Premiere Pro (would recommend). I send open source documents and spreadsheets that work neither with my Google nor Microsoft devoted co-workers. But Adobe Acrobat wins. The FOSS readers are probably better, but for interactive, highly formatted outputs you can’t get around it.

I have a lonely second box at my work that I reluctantly boot windows on. I too would love an alternative.

I think this is an excellent suggestion. I used Cloudflare tunnels until recently, and it was very effective. However, I stopped because of a minor issue, which I’ll mention in case its a deal breaker for anyone.

Technically, using Cloudflare tunnels for Jellyfin is a ToS violation. You’re only allowed to do so if you have an enterprise account, which is quite expensive.

I heard from a “friend of a friend” that everyday users don’t need to worry about this. Cloudflare are aware of people using tunnels with Jellyfin and they aren’t fussed. The rule is supposedly there to combat large scale piracy.

However, I have heard that cloudflare does decide to start caring if they can use jellyfin use as an extra excuse to kick anybody involved in other ToS violations.

In all likelihood, this won’t be a problem for you. While I used tunnels, they worked perfectly. However, given that you are going to go to the effort of sorting out some level of infrastructure for yourself, its something to keep in mind.

I overestimated the popularity of that quote!

It’s as described elsewhere in the thread. She was an academic with good but incomplete early work, that pivoted hard into the conspiracy world. However because of some almost spooky but incidental similarities to the excellent Naomi Klein, the two were constantly mistaken for one another.

I highly recommend Klein’s book Doppleganger. It’s an analysis of the modern tech/media space that I imagine would very much appeal to the Fediverse user base.

“If the Naomi be Klein/ you’re doing just fine./ If the Naomi be Wolf/ Oh, buddy. Ooooof.”

Jumped a little when I saw the name.

Adding perhaps an additional layer of nuance - You’re totally right that there is an nomenclature issue around AI, and that the technology (basically like most technology) is value neutral. But, I think it remains a valid decision to make a choice to personally avoid it, and to engage with services and communities accordingly.

I’m perfectly happy to agree that there is “AI” use which is groovy. Maybe as result of narrowing the definition or using it conscientiously. I understand the difference forms it can come in. But me, personally, I want to use a service that strives for no AI, regardless of if it is good, bad, or neutral. Searching for a niche like this is actually why I started using lemmy (pretty recently).

I don’t begrudge lemmy taking an approach like “AI must be disclosed and reviewed” as suggested here (https://github.com/LemmyNet/lemmy-docs/pull/414/changes). Let Lemmy party however it wants! Honestly, I appreciate the disclosure, because it lets me know upfront that this isn’t the niche I was looking for. No shade, but I’m out. Nothing but peace and love to everybody who remains.