Products · Product
Proton
Raised as a usability problem by 46 people on Hacker News over 7 years (2020–2026), in 36 threads.
People raised many different problems with Proton, but no single problem has yet been raised by 3 people in 3 different months and threads.
Unreviewed issues were grouped by machine: Claude Haiku labelled each comment as a usability complaint, named what it's about and summed up the problem in a line, and a small model grouped similar problems. Nobody has checked them by hand. Expect mistakes.
The newest 47 complaints
- App fills local storage with photo copies, with no obvious way to trim them2026-10-19
- Browser plugin cannot be fully operated with the keyboard2026-10-10
- Proton's services are hard to use, described as a pain to navigate2026-08-17
- Each game needs hours of trial-and-error to find the right Proton version and launch settings2026-07-24
- Following the instructions fails with a libsecret error, and the download link doesn't point to the CLI2026-06-10
- Documents take about 11 seconds to load, causing friction2026-05-06
- Keeps pushing users toward other services repeatedly on every visit2026-04-03
- Website is hard to read and uses annoying dark patterns2026-04-03
- Dismissing one promo just replaces it with another, so the ads keep coming back2026-01-24
- Drive transfers are so slow the service is nearly unusable2026-01-23
- Can't search Mail or Drive, previews files poorly, and Pass autocomplete is weak2025-12-30
- Can't sort or filter hundreds of servers, and the list view is tiny2025-12-14
- Hard to use on Linux and Android, so the user barely uses it2025-11-24
- Hard to get data back out of the service after migrating away2025-11-23
- Split-tunneling sometimes doesn't work and the user can't figure out why2025-10-07
- Proton's app listing is on an unexpected domain, confusing users about legitimate download locations2025-09-09
- VPN app takes a very long time to load and connect2025-07-24
- Photo sync only works while the app is open, which is annoying2025-03-18
- Password manager has horrible user experience and only a browser extension2025-03-08
- Keeps creating sync conflict files when syncing frequently edited files like an Obsidian vault2025-01-15
- Calendar opens on a different day than the last one viewed, which is disorienting2025-01-14
- Keeps upselling add-ons again and again, harassing the user2024-11-26
- Must log into web UI and dig for invoices monthly2024-07-03
- Mobile client is limited and photo integration is half baked2024-07-03
- Android app fails to load any content when offline2024-07-03
- Proton is basically unusable without Steam unless you do a lot of work2024-06-09
- Separate wineprefixes make mod managers and tools clunky to run with games2024-05-18
- Calendar was too hard to figure out, so the commenter stopped using it2024-04-22
- Full end-to-end encryption made the calendar impossible to use with other apps or people2024-04-22
- Changes made in Google Calendar silently don't appear in Proton Calendar2024-04-22
- Running games on Linux requires fighting WINE and Proton, which may be a nightmare2023-12-08
- Gets stuck in captcha challenges for minutes inside the desktop app2023-11-03
- Kill switch falsely thinks there is no network connection, needs toggling off and on2023-07-19
- Calendar integration is clunky and lacks usability of iCal on mobile and macOS2023-05-05
- Edit button opens the wrong entry, overwriting unrelated passwords on iOS2023-04-20
- Must fiddle to find which Proton version works per game2022-11-23
- Cancelling forfeits remaining paid months, and no way to remove card details2022-10-28
- Games fail to launch and there is no clear path to fixing the problem2022-03-04
- Games often need fiddling to run, and controllers sometimes stop working without a hack2021-08-02
- Games often need config file edits and workarounds before they run, taking hours to figure out2021-08-02
- Most games need fiddling with weird settings and tweaks to work2021-07-15
- Most favorite games fail or need janky tweaks to run on Linux2021-05-14
- Took hours of manual workarounds: NTFS fails, drives not visible, settings reset by hand2021-03-06
- Emulated AppData folders use arbitrary numbers, making save game files time consuming to locate2021-03-05
- Many games rated well on ProtonDB are barely playable2021-03-05
- Audio sometimes needs manual device selection the first time some games run2021-03-05
- Input lag is noticeable when playing Half-Life 2 under Proton2020-12-10