Thanks for introducing me to IVPN. Seems like a good VPN, uses WireGuard.
Can you elaborate on the problem with the relationship between Tesonet, NordVPN and ProtonVPN. Also does your problem with ProtonVPN extend to protonmail? Should I be considering switching to a new email?
There's an old HN thread about it. Basically, the ProtonMail and PIA CEOs got in a catfight, and traded accusations. I don't recall what PIA was accused of. Maybe connections with China? But I've seen nothing more about that.
The PIA CEO basically claimed that Tesonet operated ProtonVPN for the ProtonMail team. And then additional articles appeared, detailing the connections. And adding NordVPN to the mix.
But many of their HN posts were deleted. And much of the other online coverage disappeared, presumably because of pressure from NordVPN and/or ProtonVPN. But I found caches for three of them.[0,1,2]
Maybe it's all bullshit. But it leaves me suspicious. And I gotta say that ProtonVPN's responses seemed evasive.
There might really be nothing to it, as the Proton* people claim. Or at least, just a somewhat iffy roll-out of their VPN, using Tesonet staff.
But on the other hand, I gather that Mozilla has picked ProtonVPN for its integrated VPN testing. And they seem competent and privacy-friendly.
Also, whatever they did with ProtonVPN, there's no reason to believe that there's anything wrong with ProtonMail. That's arguably their core competency. And they arguably brought in Tesonet because VPNs were not part of their core competency.
If you are migrating away from a centralized email provider you should move to a personal domain. That way you won't be trapped by any service in the future. There are numerous companies[0] that you can point your domain to and they will handle everything else. This costs a bit of money but it means that you will be the customer rather than the product.
[0] I use migadu.com but fastmail.com seems to be very popular with the HN crowd.
Can you elaborate on the problem with the relationship between Tesonet, NordVPN and ProtonVPN. Also does your problem with ProtonVPN extend to protonmail? Should I be considering switching to a new email?