I don’t like that the very first thing you see when you click on download is “purchase for $40” and then they list the benefits of doing so, which basically boil down to:

1- custom gnome themes 2- Professional-grade creative suite of apps 3- Advanced productivity software

Number 1 is a joke. Number 2 & 3 I think are basically scams. What apps? They don’t list them at all. If they are proprietary then how can you support these apps with this pricing model, if they are not, then are they just downloadable by anyone on almost any distro for free?

The entire thing smells bad. I vote to stay far away.

I guess to me, being open source is more about the ability that it can be audited. I don’t care whatsoever about hosting my own proton mail / drive / vpn (which I use constantly all the time) but I do care if it’s audited and secure.

That said, I know they claim to be open source and audited, but I’ve never double checked those claims. Probably should.

The ads are out of control, so no, it’s not great unless you use an adblocker, which on mobile doesn’t work with the native client.

I use NewsBlur as a backend and Unread as a front end and absolutely love it. For whatever reason unread can often pull the entire article when NewsBlur won’t. Works great!