I'm just a girl, incrementing the counter on the number of times I have been sent a plaintext email from a Protonmail user telling me that the message is encrypted.

@evacide

Do you think Proton's marketing is a bit confusing here? They keep saying their emails are encrypted, I assume what they mean is that they keep the info encrypted on their server. And maybe they also use end-to-end encryption if both the sender and recipient are using Protonmail - tho I'm not really sure about this one so correct me if I'm wrong.

@futureisfoss Correct. Most people do not understand the difference between E2EE and TLS encryption.
@evacide @futureisfoss to be fair to most people, we in tech really suck at explaining how things work. And in many fields we are actively spreading miss-information in order to sell products.

@jjacobsson @evacide

"Military grade encryption" is another one šŸ˜‚ Actually anything "military-grade" is almost always used as a marketing term, not just in tech products.

Personally I always try to use noncommercial alternatives where I can, like Mastodon for example. It's so much saner when they're not trying to sell you something, like the listings here - https://www.directory.trade-free.org

And people should donate to these good projects to support them.

Trade-Free Directory

These goods and services are submitted and reviewed by people like you. We cannot guarantee that all of what you see here is trade-free, since at times it is very difficult to review them all and do so properly. This is why we need your help! Submit and Review! Let’s create a wonderful directory of trade-free stuff! Because we are trying to be 100% transparent, we are making public all of the submissions that were rejected. You can find the list here where you can also object to that decision. OpenWrt OpenWrt (from open wireless router) is an open-source project for embedded operating systems based on… read more GParted GParted (acronym of GNOME Partition Editor) is a GTK front-end to GNU Parted and an… read more CudaText CudaText is a cross-platform text editor, written in Object Pascal. It is open source project… read more Foliate View .epub, .mobi, .azw, and .azw3 files. Foliate is based on Epub.js, and supports both… read more molly.im Molly is an independent Signal fork for Android read more TROMJaro A Trade-Free operating system based on Manjaro Linux. We think it’s easier to use than… read more Cheese Cheese is a GNOME webcam application, i.e. an application to handle UVC streams. It was… read more Fedilab Fedilab is a multifunctional Android client to access the distributed Fediverse, consisting of microblogging, photo… read more GColor3 A simple color chooser written in GTK3 (like gcolor2) read more foodsharing.de We are an initiative that is committed to combating food waste. We ā€œsaveā€ unwanted and… read more Against Malaria Foundation The Against Malaria Foundation (AMF) is a United Kingdom-based charity that provides long-lasting insecticidal nets… read more VLC media player VLC media player (previously the VideoLAN Client and commonly known as simply VLC) is a… read more Layan Theme Layan is a flat Material Design theme for GTK 3, GTK 2 and Gnome-Shell which… read more Pixelfed Pixelfed is a free and open-source image sharing social network service. It is decentralized, therefore… read more Cwtch Cwtch is decentralized and focused on metadata-privacy in addition to communications privacy. Unlike other communication… read more Slic3r Slic3r is free software 3D slicing engine for 3D printers. It generates G-code from 3D… read more PrivateBin PrivateBin is a minimalist, open source online pastebin where the server has zero knowledge of… read more podupti.me Poduptime helps you find a pod to use and join the Fediverse (Federated Network). The… read more Wikiversity Wikiversity is a Wikimedia Foundation project that supports learning communities, their learning materials, and resulting… read more International Committee of the Red Cross The International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) is a humanitarian institution based in Geneva,… read more what are they offering? audio player bittorrent client books browser cloud storage cursor data desktop theme documentaries education Etherpad Instance feed file hosting file sharing games humanitarian aid icon theme Jitsi Meet Instance Linux distribution maps media player medical care messaging messenger microblogging mobile operating system movies Mumble Instance music music player operating system p2p privatebin instance puzzle game routing engine rss search engine sharing platform social network software text editor torrents video editor videos web browser Search Search latest reviews No Title 14/03/2026 Review of Find Your Love Private Service well, what to say about this ā€œserviceā€ – seems to be a trade-free ā€œdating plattformā€? there seem to be really no ads on the website, but everyone should be aware about ā€œfinding the love of your life onlineā€. They also don’t provide any warranty for this service: ā€œThis service is provided without any warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement. The service is provided on an ā€œas isā€ basis, and we do not guarantee that it will be error-free, completely secure, or uninterrupted.ā€ (https://fml.srht.site/terms.html) No Title 14/03/2026 Review of wanderer Wanderer is an exciting decentralised project and can be listed in this directory, as it is freely available and does not ask anything of its users (the community). There is no data trading, no premium or pro features, etc. No Title 14/03/2026 Review of The Apple Wiki except a cloudflare tracker, this wiki seems trade-free which is why 4/5 blocks may be given. No Title 28/01/2026 Review of Invidious Instances List This is a good alternative for YouTube, I really like it. No Title 20/12/2025 Review of waterwaymap a super cool map that shows waterflows and rivers all around the world. When I looked closely, I could see via the browser extension privacy badger (https://privacybadger.org/) that there is a tracker (analytics.ahrefs.com) on the website which is unnecessary I think. Also ublock origin (https://ublockorigin.com/) blocked gc.zgo.at which seems to be a open source web analytics platform (https://pkg.go.dev/zgo.at/goatcounter/v2#section-readme). Maybe 3/5 blocks because of that.

Trade-Free Directory
@futureisfoss @jjacobsson @evacide you mean my F15 lacrosse pole was not really the same titanium used in fighter planes? Maybe that is why they exploded on contact....
@LovesTha @futureisfoss @jjacobsson @evacide That must have been awkward during your lacrosse matches. Did you get penalized when it happened?

@roadskater @futureisfoss @jjacobsson @evacide Didn't happen to me, but there was a recall that was done with pretty generous terms. As the exploding when hitting something did happen.

(Fact checking myself, I found this article, which may be a news paper relaying what STX was saying about them, which would have had PR spin included: https://www.chicagotribune.com/1997/07/09/manufacturers-recall-lacrosse-sticks-and-chaise-lounge-chairs/ )