I’m quite angry at this. I’ve used Mullvad VPN without any obtrusive ads, with a clean interface that worked very well.
I stumbled upon a new Proton plan and decided I’d pay and sign up to give it a go to meet my growing needs. After turning on my computer, I’m greeted with a massive pop up advertisement that takes up ~30% of my screen. While scanning settings, I do not see an easy way to disable these promotional ads.
I feel like I’ve gone back in time and am using Norton software that I got with my HP Pavilion Windows XP pc.
I did a quick Internet search and see there’s a Reddit post from a year ago where a user complained about the same thing, but no solution was provided. If I find anything I’ll update this post. But right now I’m quite angry, and I’m venting because this is my first reaction to seeing this crap. I’m paying for a service and the last thing I want to see are pop up ads.
I’m going to have a serious think about whether or not I should cancel my subscription and instead just keep my Mullvad.
EDIT:
I finished checking Proton VPN’s settings and there is no option to disable promotional ads. I’ll contact Proton support and see what they advise. Will revert after I hear back from them and complete the Support interaction.
EDIT 2: I posted a reflective comment below, but I figure I’ll update this post. I first made this post shortly after I woke up, and my reaction was anger. Now that it’s been some time and I have had breakfast, my coffee, and been at work for a while, I realise I shouldn’t have reacted that way. I’m more disappointed than angry. I get it if Proton wants to have a pop up that appears once around the Black Friday sales day, which is fine. But at least Steam lets me disable pop up promotions. Why can’t Proton? If they won’t add a toggle to disable those, then fine I get it - but I only want to appear once. Or at least embed a banner in the Proton app, or just have an “Offers” button. I pay for a service, I don’t want pop ups as I personally feel they’re hostile to the User experience. Why should that feature exist when Mullvad’s UI is seamless, intuitive, and has no pop up ads? Anyway, I’m an adult and I reacted like I’m still a kid. Need to learn from this type of thing and be a better person - sorry, I’m having a reflective introspective moment here that no one should care about except me ha ha.
EDIT 3: Another user recommended I submit a feature request to improve Proton, which I have done so.
Here is where I posted and voted on my idea request:
“Add Settings toggle to disable pop up promotional ads from Proton (e.g., Black Friday promo)” - https://protonmail.uservoice.com/forums/932836-proton-vpn/suggestions/48959543-pop-up-notifications-in-the-proton-vpn-application#comments
And here is another idea request I found from someone else who posted something similar a few weeks ago on oct 14th, although their request is to just disable pop up ads entirely:
“Pop-up notifications in the Proton VPN application, specifically those promoting Proton Duo” - https://protonmail.uservoice.com/forums/932836-proton-vpn/suggestions/48959543-pop-up-notifications-in-the-proton-vpn-application#comments
I think the suggestion here is that if you’re a Proton user and if this bothers you, it might be worth commenting and voting on my idea request to help with visibility to the Proton dev team.
I’ll post a final update once I complete my support interaction with proton support.
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I think it’s not that bad if it would save you money over your current subscription.
Anyways, unrelated, but: Amazing wallpaper. I absolutely adore the pixelart style. Do you still have the Original?
Completely understand your frustration with this… This isn’t their first rodeo when it comes to these popup sales either… I know there have been multiple other posts about this here on Lemmy previously. Anyway keep us posted, I’ve done my part and upvoted the uservoice post 👍
That’s pretty excessive, yeah. Especially if you’re a paying user, which you are.
Add a request through proton’s uservoice, so it’s visible and people can actually vote on it https://protonmail.uservoice.com/
Great call! I submitted an idea request.
My submitted idea under a throwaway username:
“Add settings toggle to disable pop up promotional ads from Proton (e.g., Black Friday promo)” - https://protonmail.uservoice.com/forums/932836-proton-vpn/suggestions/49046906-add-settings-toggle-to-disable-pop-up-promotional
And interestingly I found another user that posted something almost a month ago, too. Looks like I’m not the only one who is concerned about this:
“Pop-up notifications in the Proton VPN application, specifically those promoting Proton Duo” - https://protonmail.uservoice.com/forums/932836-proton-vpn/suggestions/48959543-pop-up-notifications-in-the-proton-vpn-application#comments
I voted for both and picked “critical”
Thank you so much for voting on the idea! I’m hopefully they’ll consider a good compromise and let us at least have a settings toggle so we can opt out.
By the way bro what kind of name is Tazerface? :D Now I’m in the mood to rewatch Guardians of the Galaxy
That is my favourite scene in all the MCU.
I think your first reaction was fine. Putting up with these things is part of the enshitification to me. companies want customers then keep them happy and don’t make them angry.
Remember when they put some offers for education which was a shitty discount for one month of subscription?
Yeah I mean I guess you’re right. I just don’t like to be angry. I want to get to a point where I can have a more measured reaction and be emotionally more mature when things bother me.
The root cause of the issue is certainly justified of course! I don’t want pop up ads! I said good bye to those things in the Windows XP days. Come on, Proton, what are you doing? Let us opt out
I appreciate the updates. I’ve been in the same place. It’s all small beans but on top of everything else in life these little things can put me over the edge. Proton has an aggressive advertising model and it’s turned me away from their products.
I understand that. I feel the same way but also feel like the way everything is going is making it harder and harder to keep cool.
Called it a few times before and its getting increasingly obvious with every month. Proton has entered the spiraling slide into enshittification.
Email them at
support@protonmail.zendesk.com. Hopefully if enough complain, they will add a toggle.They also have a community cli client where the one example of a nag message is easy enough to remove on line 80 of cli.py https://github.com/jonasjancarik/protonvpn-cli-community/
https://protonmail.uservoice.com/ Might be more visible to the product managers in terms of demand
I saw another user posted about UserVoice, which is linked officially as a Community feedback forum for Proton.
I created this feature request: https://protonmail.uservoice.com/forums/932836-proton-vpn/suggestions/49046906-add-settings-toggle-to-disable-pop-up-promotional
And while browsing, I also stumbled upon this one created on Oct 14th: https://protonmail.uservoice.com/forums/932836-proton-vpn/suggestions/48959543-pop-up-notifications-in-the-proton-vpn-application
Thanks dude. I’ve already created a ticket in their Zendesk system to inquire if there is a way to permanently disable it. I’m hopeful their support is staffed by Support engineers rather than customer service help desk techs.
You might want to include @protonprivacy@mastodon.social
Good point. I’m not sure how to do that I only use Lemmy in the Fediverse, but when I get some downtime I’ll consider looping in their official Mastodon account (I assume this is their official account).
Meanwhile I’ll await eventual response from the Support ticket I filed with them.
I believe in Lemmy, in replies (but not in the original message), including a Fediverse ID sends the reply to that address. So I hope they’ll come take a look. Yes, it’s officially their account.
I agree with your annoyance. Good luck!
@Jerry @CatZoomies As a mastodon user I can tell you that the account is not clickable so I do not know if it is really linked.
Just added it again as an Mastodon user. Hope this helps
That must feel shitty, especially since it costs twice as much as Mullvad.
Comparing apple and oranges. One has more services
Such as ads?
Drive, Email, Calendar, and Password Manager…?
That’s just the ones you can get for free anyway. The proper ones cost all extra.
They all have a free tier, even the VPN. Can’t say the same for mullvad, which only does one thing. Of course proton cost more.
They all have a free version. Proton Pass is seriously worth paying for since it offers unlimited alias.
Keep us updated
That’s the plan! And my first reaction today when I made that post was anger. After I’ve had breakfast and a coffee and am working (don’t tell my boss I’m on Lemmy), I realise I’m overreacting.
My first response shouldn’t be anger, but it’s just frustrating and I hate ads, especially when I pay for a service.
Now that I’ve had time to think about it, I’m really just disappointed. If this pop up appears once during the Black Friday era - fine, I get it. They want to make money. But I’d rather have a small banner appear in their VPN app or an “Offers/Promo” button. I just don’t want pop ups and I refuse to accept that when their competitor, Mullvad, doesn’t do that.
Sorry, I’m just having a reflective moment and I decided I’d do that in the comment to your comment ha ha. :)
That’s totally fair. I had the same pop up appear today and yes it’s really no big deal and quick to just close but we absolutely should have the option to not get promo ads especially that appear on our desktops in a huge panel. A small note in the apps is fine if out of the way.
It is also fair to do this if the user isn’t paying for the service currently. Then ads are expected. But if I have an active sub, I should not be getting ads forced at all.
Side note though, I am glad I saw this ad as I was thinking of switching from just vpn to ultimate as I started switching my emails over to proton and would also like the drive storage. So this will come in handy. Do you know when the promo ends?
I couldn’t really find the date when the promo ends, but this appears to be the landing site for their black friday promos:
Its advertising you a plan because its a free thing, they just advertised the reduced price of the full version for the product you use for free. Just click it away.
“Its advertising you a plan because its a free thing, they just advertised the reduced price of the full version for the product you use for free. Just click it away.”
I’m a Paid subscriber of Proton. Not a free user.
Oh wow then its not OK.
I’m an Unlimited subscriber and I’ve gotten ads. Has nothing to do with using the free tier.
Yeah never seen any of them since I subscribed. But I also use mostly the Linux stuff.
I have a enterprise plan.
