319

Proton is vibe coding some of its apps. (lemmy.ml)

submitted 2 months ago by irelephant@lemmy.dbzer0.com to c/privacy@lemmy.ml

73 comments fedilink hide all child comments

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.dbzer0.com/post/50693956

Transcript
A post by [object Object] (@zzt@mas.to) saying: courtesy of @davidgerard@circumstances.run, Proton is now the only privacy vendor I know of that vibe codes its apps: In the single most damning thing I can say about Proton in 2025, the Proton GitHub repository has a “cursorrules” file. They’re vibe-coding their public systems. Much secure! I am once again begging anyone who will listen to get off of Proton as soon as reasonably possible, and to avoid their new (terrible) apps in any case. https://circumstances.run/@davidgerard/114961415946154957

It has a reply by the author saying: in an unsurprising update for those familiar with how Proton operates, they silently rewrote their monorepo’s history to purge .cursor and hide that they were vibe coding: https://github.com/ProtonMail/WebClients/tree/2a5e2ad4db0c84f39050bf2353c944a96d38e07f

given the utter lack of communication from Proton on this, I can only guess they’ve extracted .cursor into an external repository and continue to use it out of sight of the public

top 50 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[-] simple@piefed.social 151 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Mastodon at it again with pitchforks and torches for the slightest inconvenience.

Using Cursor doesn't prove anything. Many people use Cursor as an advanced autocomplete, nothing else. It's not like they're hammering random AI-generated code and merging it without thinking. "Vibe coding" means generating barely-working code you don't understand to try and get thinks working.

This shit is why I hate the mastodon community, it's always strawmen and "you're one of THEM" style witchhunts with them

[-] kameecoding@lemmy.world 49 points 2 months ago

The anti-AI circlejerk even here on lemmy is now just about as bad as the pro-AI circlejerk in the general public, no room for nuance or rational thinking, just dunking on everyone who say anything remotely positive about AI, like when I said I like the autocomplete feature of copilot.

[-] Chulk@lemmy.ml 17 points 2 months ago

I'm a pretty big generative AI hater when it comes to art and writing. I don't think generative AI can make meaningful art because it cannot come up with new concepts. Art is something that AI should be freeing up time in our lives for us to do. But that's not how it's shaping up.

However, AI is very helpful for understanding codebases and doing things like autocompletion. This is because code is less expressive than human language and it's easier for AI to approximate what is necessary.

[-] dropped_packet@lemmy.zip 7 points 2 months ago

Natural language processing makes TTS way more usable for people with reading disabilities. But there are absolutely no good uses of AI.

[-] RipLemmDotEE@lemmy.today 5 points 2 months ago

What about cancer research? AI is bad when it's being used to find cures?

[-] HiddenLayer555@lemmy.ml 11 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

People refer to generative AI when they just say "AI" nowadays.

There are a ton of small, single purpose neural networks that work really well, but the "general purpose" AI paradigm has wiped those out in the public consciousness. Natural language processing and modern natural sounding text to speech are by definition AI as they use neural networks, but they're not the same as ChatGPT to the point that a lot of people don't even consider them AI.

Also AI is really good at computing protein shapes. Not in a "ChatGPT is good enough that it's not worth hiring actual writers to do it better" way, in a "this is both faster and more accurate than any other protein folding algorithm we had" way.

load more comments (2 replies)

[-] Chulk@lemmy.ml 17 points 2 months ago

Yep, anyone who assumes that the presence of a .cursor directory automatically means that:

Developers are vibe coding
The entire team is using cursor

Is either arguing in bad faith or has no idea what they're talking about.

It could be something as simple as one dev trying out cursor (an editor thats literally just a vscode fork with ai features) and accidentally committing their .cursor directory (really easy to do).

[-] mr_satan@lemmy.zip 4 points 2 months ago

Here I am just thinking I'm a better programmer without AI (LLMs).

For me it's just glorified autocomplete. I haven't tried it in any real capacity, but my colleagues did and I've seen some examples. It's all basic shit I already know. In no way I felt compelled or even seen anything really useful. It can give you a head start, but I already have the knowledge to have a head start.

Some colleagues are using it for SQL, because they're unfamiliar with it, and I'm like, it's all good if it works for you, but you're not gonna learn properly if you don't try to write stuff yourself.

This touches on another point I don't see too often — I code because I like solving problems. If I outsource that, then what's the point? And it's exactly this that makes me a competent, and dare I say, good programmer.
Another issue for me is this chat bot format. I don't what a chat bot! If I have to go out of my way to try and coerce a fucking chat bot into being a useful tool then it already lost its usefulness. The only acceptable format for AI coding is better autocomplete, i. e. ability to autofill boilerplate more, better and, most importantly, as seamlessly as current solutions in modern IDEs.

In general I don't feel threatened by AI and when the tools catch up I'll gladly use them or even retire and code just for fun.

[-] ObsidianZed@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

See my comment here.

load more comments (1 replies)

[-] x1gma@lemmy.world 101 points 2 months ago

Just because they are using Cursor, it doesn't mean that they are vibe coding. Anyone grabbing their pitchforks for that and screaming "they are vibecoding" only shows their own incompetence.

If they would be vibecoding, their whole software would've gone to shit long ago.

Just because some random people without an engineering background are using vibecoding to push their broken slop, it doesn't mean that any kind of AI assisted coding is bad.

[-] xthexder@l.sw0.com 34 points 2 months ago

If that was the case, maybe they would have responded with that instead of covering up the evidence

[-] x1gma@lemmy.world 15 points 2 months ago

It's definitely badly communicated and suspicious, I just called out jumping to extreme conclusions based on a suspicion alone. There probably will be people who are gonna review the code and see how much of it is probably LLM generated, and then we will know. I still think that it's pretty much impossible to vibe code something on that scale, but I haven't seen their cursorrules either.

load more comments (4 replies)

[-] Luci@lemmy.ca 46 points 2 months ago

You should jump into the other threads about this before you take out your pitchforks. They’re using cursor, it doesn’t prove they are vibe coding. Visual Studio also has AI features, that doesn’t mean you are vibe coding.

[-] asudox@lemmy.asudox.dev 30 points 2 months ago

Cursor is literally marketed as "The AI Code Editor". I am not sure why anyone would use an AI code editor if they aren't planning on vibe coding.

Proton is, in my opinion, a bad privacy company anyway. Vibe code or not, stop paying them.

[-] Luci@lemmy.ca 6 points 2 months ago

Some people like it for the ui and they recently announced the ability to turn off all ai features.

load more comments (1 replies)

[-] orca@orcas.enjoying.yachts 41 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Speaking as someone who hates generative AI but has been forced to adapt to using AI in the programming field to stay relevant, this doesn’t suggest they’re vibe coding. The programming world is the only place AI has actually added value (I should note it’s done some neat stuff helping with diagnoses in the medical world too), but like everything, you get what you put into it.

Feed it enough instruction and context, and it can handle the drudgery of things like tech debt updates and other things a programmer knows how to do, but would rather offload to a tool. I’ve had Claude do refactors like that while stepping through and reviewing every single change. It has saved me hours, spared me from hell, and made me look good at work.

That’s my grounded take as a person that has worked with Claude a ton.

But AI everywhere else? Fucking worthless. The whole point is to do the bullshit mundane tasks so that us humans can do art and passionate work, not the opposite.

[-] HiddenLayer555@lemmy.ml 11 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

The programming world is the only place AI has actually added value

I'd say this is mostly because you can immediately test the AI's results and rule out anything it got wrong, and whatever errors you generate can then be fed back into the AI so it can refine what it's already written. You never have to just trust the AI (assuming you yourself still know how to code) like you have to when using it for research or for solving problems where you don't get immediate feedback.

Whether this means programming is actually a viable niche for generative AI or whether this speaks more to the limitations and inherent unreliability of the "knowledge" the AI has, I can't say.

Also, I don't know if it's just me but I'm more scared by how fast AI is advancing rather than looking forward to what it can do for me. That definitely clouds my perception when something is AI generated and makes me a lot more dismissive of any real benefits AI might have brought.

[-] 18107@aussie.zone 5 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

It will allow you to see if the AI has made any syntax or runtime errors. It does not tell you about any logic errors.

Logic errors are already the most dangerous kind of programming error, and using AI just makes them even harder to find.

Using AI will only help you with syntax (which any good IDE should already be able to do) and finding information faster than a search engine (but leaving out important context). AI is not useful for programming anything that will be made public.

load more comments (1 replies)

[-] orca@orcas.enjoying.yachts 5 points 2 months ago

Yeah, you get immediate feedback, vs a scenario where you have to manually check the “facts” it provides in order to ensure it’s not hallucinating. I’ve had Copilot straight up hallucinate functions on me and I knew that they were bullshit instantly.

I iterate with it a ton and feed it back errors it makes, or things like type mismatches. It fixes them instantly and understands the issue almost every single time.

That’s the trick. Iterate often and always give it new instructions if it does something stupid. Basically be as verbose as needed and give it tons of context, desired standards, pitfalls to avoid, whatever. It helps a ton.

load more comments (2 replies)

[-] jokeyrhyme@lemmy.ml 22 points 2 months ago

The worrying part is rewriting repository history to cover it up

[-] ObsidianZed@lemmy.world 20 points 2 months ago

For added clarity:

You are an Senior SWE at Proton and make sure you do not send any information that is potentially secure in nature. You specialize in building highly-scalable and maintainable Frontend Systems.

https://github.com/ProtonMail/WebClients/blob/b4453c3f111d23d44ab96ceda4181812f2abd673/.cursor/rules/proton-inbox.mdc

[-] uninvitedguest@lemmy.ca 6 points 2 months ago

Non programmer here: This is the first time I've seen a cursor file but I genuinely like how it reads. It's like a business analyst wrote a coding requirements doc. I'd be thrilled if my staff asked 4-6 thoughtful questions when given a goal with an open ended approach.

For which LLM are cursor files used?

load more comments (1 replies)

[-] plm00@lemmy.ml 16 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

Plug for Tuta. 🤷‍♂️ The user experience isn't the best, but it's as secure as it gets. Small team, no vibe coding.

[-] privacydingus@lemmy.ml 15 points 2 months ago

Using Cursor =/= "Vibe Coding" people need to really stop with getting jumpy about everything in such a way.

[-] echedeylr 15 points 2 months ago

I mean, they were shit from the beginning promoting walled gardens and focusing on profit as the good shitty company they are

[-] 0x520@slrpnk.net 14 points 2 months ago

All the people making excuses for them are basically the same people that made excuses for Meta being on the fedaverse. You people always want to do a wait and see approach, meanwhite these companies run amok. Proton was dead when they started supporting Trump. All you pussies supporting them, keep supporting them. See what you get for it. Just another trash AI company putting out more garbage.

[-] vhstape@lemmy.sdf.org 14 points 2 months ago

I’m not sure why being a “privacy vendor” forbids you from using AI tools in your development process

[-] ShoeThrower@lemmy.zip 12 points 2 months ago

You are buying a bicycle online.

Both are the same price, but one is handmade by a skilled professional with decades of experience, the other is made by a sketchy machine that even it's creators don't really understand... and sometimes uses square wheels instead of round.

Your choice.

load more comments (2 replies)

[-] Soapbox@lemmy.zip 13 points 2 months ago

If they would vibe code a functional Proton Drive Linux client then I might be OK with it.

[-] AHemlocksLie@lemmy.zip 12 points 2 months ago

God dammit, I wish I could reasonably roll my own email, but noooo, spammers and blacklists had to fucking ruin it. Now I get to research a new provider and change email on a bunch of accounts...

[-] dogs0n@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 months ago

Spammers and blacklists may not be as big of an issue as you think, as long as you don't share you real email with untrusted apps (eg: only use email aliases from something like Simplelogin or anonaddy).

Nevertheless you could always setup your own domain with an email service, which lets you more easily migrate platforms.

I believe simplelogin lets you change your mailbox for aliases so in an even that you are changing email address, you can redirect those too.

[-] Evotech@lemmy.world 9 points 2 months ago

That's not the issue

It's a massive pain to actually get your emails to be received if you use a random self hosted ip

load more comments (2 replies)

[-] ExcessShiv@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

What's a good alternative VPN provider in EU, not based in Italy? Mullvad is not an option, port forwarding is an absolute requirement.

Also, is there anything out there that ties password/account management and temp emails together as well as proton pass?

[-] cupcakezealot@piefed.blahaj.zone 6 points 2 months ago

is eu absolutely required? i like windscribe (paid) but they're based in canada.

load more comments (3 replies)

[-] HappyFrog 12 points 2 months ago

I can believe that someone at proton vibecodes, and that their files got ob to the tree, but saying that proton as a whole does it is strange.

[-] cupcakezealot@piefed.blahaj.zone 9 points 2 months ago

not surprising when you know who andy yen is.

load more comments (1 replies)

[-] flandish@lemmy.world 6 points 2 months ago* (last edited 2 months ago)

what is a cursorfile? I’ve hit things like gpt when devdocs.io isn’t getting me what I want because lots of search engine things like “explain the google maps api” are becoming like searching for a dinner recipe; they contain 300 paragraphs of life story. When I just want to actually RTFM and shit’s hard to find. I don’t copy/paste code into projects just try to find better manuals.

[-] irelephant@lemmy.dbzer0.com 9 points 2 months ago

Cursor is a vscode fork with Ai features, cursorrules is a config file for it.

[-] akilou@sh.itjust.works 4 points 2 months ago

VS Code also has AI features. Would you be telling people to not use other suites if they were being developed in VS Code? Why should they be forced to use an IDE that explicitly excludes AI?

[-] irelephant@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 points 2 months ago

Is vscode marketed as an ai code editor?

load more comments (3 replies)

load more comments (1 replies)

[-] Jankatarch@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

Time to migrate my email accounts I guess.

[-] Mio@feddit.nu 4 points 2 months ago

I dont see any problem with AI coding. It can be done without the editor supporting it by just asking for a function like please implement a sort function given a list of numbers.

Proton code is open source, so all AI agents have already read everything. You as user just have to do the code review, fix it and test. I am not seeing any problem here.

[-] bitjunkie@lemmy.world 4 points 2 months ago

I thought this was the gaming compatibility layer at first

load more comments

this post was submitted on 08 Aug 2025

319 points (100.0% liked)

Privacy

42779 readers

929 users here now

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
Don't promote proprietary software
Try to keep things on topic
If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
Be nice :)

Related communities

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 6 years ago

MODERATORS