this post was submitted on 09 Aug 2025
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so now proton completely blocking account creation through their onion adress? I have standard protection, javascript enabled. Time to swith for those who use this service as they are ditching tor and switzerland?

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[–] francois@sh.itjust.works 3 points 6 days ago (2 children)

While on dread recently I stumbled across this old post regarding issues with their onion adresses https://encryp.ch/blog/disturbing-facts-about-protonmail/

When a user makes a new account with Protonmail on TOR they are re-directed from Protonmail’s “.onion” to “.com” address. This breaks your secure encrypted connection to their onion address, enabling your identification. There are absolutely no technical reasons for this feature. In fact, the only other websites that operate like this are suspected NSA/CIA Honeypots.

Goddamn. We live in a nightmare. There is someone fucking us all every goddamn second of the day.

[–] cookie019@lemmy.dbzer0.com -1 points 6 days ago

Yes, I knew this info, there is a lot of strange things with company

[–] Duke_Nukem_1990@feddit.org 101 points 1 week ago (25 children)

A lot of push against Proton on here lately. Makes me suspicious.

[–] geneva_convenience@lemmy.ml 15 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Valid criticism is suspicious?

[–] ReversalHatchery@beehaw.org 13 points 1 week ago

OP said they are blocking tor users. I say the error message might just be legit and someone is spamming username existence checks through Tor.

[–] lemmyknow@lemmy.today 10 points 1 week ago

Not saying it's some sort of conspiracy theory, but it do be kinda sus. People are just quick to hate Proton over anything. It's like bias confirmation. They seem to be justifying their hatred, or looking for reasons to do so. I mean, "leaving Switzerland"? Really?! I thought that was because Switzerland was considering a privacy-unfriendly law. That's bad, now?

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[–] JumpyWombat@lemmy.ml 58 points 1 week ago (2 children)

Is it that maybe someone on your exit node is trying to enumerate valid accounts?

[–] cookie019@lemmy.dbzer0.com 33 points 1 week ago (1 children)

I have tried a new circuite before publish this post - without success. but considering that I use their onion adress they could nit see my tor exit node as far as I now, anyway.

[–] JumpyWombat@lemmy.ml 20 points 1 week ago (1 children)

Good point, but also who is enumerating the accounts may have been using many circuits.

Yeah, I've had to go through 20 or 30 circuits once to make Google's captcha allow me through. It just failed with the message "Unusual traffic from your computer network". Someone was probably running a botnet, as this only happens rarely. If Google wanted to block Tor, they'd have done so by now anyway.

[–] mp3@lemmy.ca 23 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

He used the onion address, which doesn't go through an exit node like regular darknet-to-clearnet traffic.

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[–] upstroke4448@lemmy.dbzer0.com 55 points 1 week ago (9 children)

Have you actually asked proton support about this issue, if so what have they said?

It seems like you got frustrated and instead of trying to get help you decided to complain on lemmy.

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[–] artyom@piefed.social 28 points 1 week ago (1 children)

What makes you think this has anything to do with Tor?

[–] cookie019@lemmy.dbzer0.com 6 points 1 week ago (6 children)

Because i can easely create account on clearnet

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[–] coffeetastesbadlikecoffee@sh.itjust.works 26 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (2 children)

I previously commented I would write the support, now I actually read the docs first and found out why:

If you want to create an account over tor you can, just not via the clearnet URL, probably due to rate limiting by IP adress. However if you use their Onion Link as specified in this article by their support (https://proton.me/support/tor-setup) it works just fine (as far as I just tested). So great! Because using .onion services is far more secure than accessing clearnet over Tor anyway.

Here the url, verify it with the link in the support article tho: https://protonmailrmez3lotccipshtkleegetolb73fuirgj7r4o4vfu7ozyd.onion/

[–] cookie019@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 1 week ago (1 children)

The onion link was used, please see my screenshot first...

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[–] coffeetastesbadlikecoffee@sh.itjust.works 20 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (1 children)

Just tested it, same here. Clearnet works but tor not. I will contact support since part of the reason I like to pay for unlimited is to subsidize free, anonymous accounts.

Edit: here is my other comment:

I previously commented I would write the support, now I actually read the docs first and found out why:

If you want to create an account over tor you can, just not via the clearnet URL, probably due to rate limiting by IP adress. However if you use their Onion Link as specified in this article by their support (https://proton.me/support/tor-setup) it works just fine (as far as I just tested). So great! Because using .onion services is far more secure than accessing clearnet over Tor anyway.

Here the url, verify it with the link in the support article tho: https://protonmailrmez3lotccipshtkleegetolb73fuirgj7r4o4vfu7ozyd.onion/

[–] cookie019@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 6 days ago

Okay, if they will responder faster than in one month you could publish the respond here if you will like to do it. But I am surr they will say it is a "technical error". Every privacy leak now is described as technical error - apple, google, meta - all use this therm to justify their intentional action

[–] not_IO@lemmy.blahaj.zone 10 points 1 week ago (15 children)

Does anybody know valid alternatives to proton mail, I think they have been enshitified

[–] hanrahan@slrpnk.net 10 points 1 week ago

Tuta ? But only for mail AFAIK.

[–] markstos@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago

There is a relatively small number of shared Tor exit node IP addresses.

So it’s more likely using Tor will trigger “too many attempts for IP” throttling for any service with bot protection.

It’s nothing against Tor, but is an expected side-affect of attempting to be anonymous by sharing the same IP address with many people.

[–] Ephemeral@feddit.org 5 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Mailbox.org (option if you want custom domain) or Posteo.de

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[–] evilcultist@sh.itjust.works 9 points 1 week ago

A while back I tried to create an account with vpn and got notice that said something about how I couldn’t use it to validate other accounts without validating that account because other companies had threatened to label them as untrustworthy or spam.

[–] XenGi@feddit.org 8 points 1 week ago (4 children)

Proton always felt like a scam to me. Their claims on privacy and security are questionable at best.

[–] Taalnazi@lemmy.world 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

They should fire their pro-Trump CEO.

[–] XenGi@feddit.org 2 points 3 days ago

Didn" t know they had one. In that case I wouldn't use them anyways.

[–] Jason2357@lemmy.ca 8 points 1 week ago (6 children)

My issue exactly. Their marketing isn't careful, which I would expect from a security focused business.

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[–] 3abas@lemmy.world 5 points 1 week ago (8 children)

Their software is open source and you can verify it yourself.

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[–] Fizz@lemmy.nz 6 points 1 week ago

I got that same error when I was setting up my account.

[–] umbrella@lemmy.ml 5 points 1 week ago

yup, i keep saying it.

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