The Death of Skiff & Why It Matters.

Skiff, the document, email, collaboration, calendar, drive suite has shut down and has joined with Notion in an unexpected update to the privacy & security space. Here's what Skiff users need to know, as well as why it's important for everyone in the digital rights space and how they can pick services that are more likely to stick around.
Proton vs Tutanota video: • Proton vs Tutanota - W...
Join our patreon to support our content: / techlore
Techlore thread on our forum regarding skiff: discuss.techlore.tech/t/skiff...
🔐 Our Website: techlore.tech
🕵 Go Incognito Course - to learn about privacy: techlore.tech/goincognito
🏫 Techlore Coaching - to get direct support: techlore.tech/coaching
💻 Techlore Forum - to connect with other advocates: discuss.techlore.tech
🦣 Mastodon - to stay updated: social.lol/@techlore
We cannot provide our content without our Patrons, huge thanks to:
BRIGHTSIDE, Clark, Ente, Larry, Afonso, Boori, Brad, Casper, Cookie, Floyd, JohnnyO, kevin, love your content, NotSure, Poaclu, x
🧡 Join them on Patreon: / techlore
💚 To see our production gear, privacy tools we use, and other affiliates: techlore.tech/affiliates
💖 All Techlore Support Methods: techlore.tech/support
00:00 The Death of Skiff
00:14 About Skiff
01:12 About The Shutdown
02:16 Takeaway 1: Test of Time
04:08 Takeaway 2: Be Patient
04:32 Takeaway 3: Do Not Worry
06:14 My Commentary on Hype
#skiff #email #privacy

[@irisw7484]

Nooooo I just finished switching from Gmail to Skiff. This is so insanely annoying

[@LucasFerreira-gx9yh]

🤡

[@visthj]

​@@LucasFerreira-gx9yhwhat's the probkem?

[@mohammadiaa]

Hahahagahagaghagha

[@simimik.]

Bro just switched again... to Proton or Tuta. ❤😊

[@mortal_engine]

Then Proton or Tuta continues to terminate their serivices.

[@mdturnerinoz]

The current model of much open source is that of Silicon Valley: write it, get it popular, sell it off, head off to the Caribbean; was that way most of my 45 year softdev career and 30 of that which was in Silicon Valley. Good luck!

[@MCWolf14]

That sucks. Guess I'm migrating over to Proton mail.

[@I_look_like_an_egg]

Me too

[@ViolentMLG]

I switched from Skiff to proton after using them for about 6 months. My 3 main reasons were: 1: Ironically I had concerns they'd shut down given they had no history. 2: Less evidence of privacy-caring history. 3: It felt buggy and unstable. I LOVED (and I mean LOVED) the Skiff pages, I still use it, but sometimes when dragging and dropping, or accessing folders, etc, it gets buggy. The drive at times was just completely unusable and frustrating. The calendar was straight trash. Even the email client itself just felt buggy when sorting through emails, reading emails, etc. It eventually just started to feel like those "Cool" "futuristic" "minimalistic" things that look nice but are buggy AF and are clearly unpolished. So I moved over to Proton about 6 months ago, its a better client, I don't regret it, but will miss the pages part of it.

[@pabloscloud]

Literally so annoying

[@techlore]

It's definitely frustrating :/

[@pabloscloud]

​@@techlore I've been a skiff user for like 2 months. I moved from proton mail and still have an account there but I think I'm going to stick with fastmail as their interface is much more polished and they do allow for unlimited custom domain aliases :D

[@lukeg9891]

Thanks for your great commentary, Henry! I love hearing your thoughts!

[@tinatingles5419]

I signed up with Skiff because they were privacy-focused and had such a robust free plan…though I wondered how their pricing model was sustainable. I guess there’s my answer.

[@xE92vD]

Classic american startup.

[@ventacode]

I have used skiff pages alternative for notion, now everything came to an end -> deleting my skiff account now

[@kyukappa]

I loved that you mentioned floorp about the hype overlooking the product. I commented on techlore clips about how in Japan, floorp has seen active users since mid 2022, only now to gain popularity in the english speaking cybersecurity community. ive had floorp for a while and I'm pretty grateful for CTT's video to really showcase it. i feel like it just doesn't have the multilingual communication from mods. Really happy about surapuyousei's english though, there used to be lots of lack of English communications in the past that have now improved

[@lyricsarchive8808]

I remember creating an account there in the early days, but being suspicious that I couldn't find any info on them, so I just never used it. Shame

[@ferd9438]

I totally appreciate and support your conservativness in terms of the tools you are recommending ❤

[@cw4861]

Incredibly based! Thank you for your approach to this.

[@benjotest5990]

Awesome video Henry! I knew the service was too good to be true, when free users had 10 gb

[@Josteldrasfurion]

WHAT?! noo, this sucks, how sad.

[@zeeweenor]

from protonmail to ctemplar to skiff back to proton again its pretty frustrating

[@mr.normalguy69]

I'm upset that I'm learning about all this NOW! 😐

[@jackoneil3933]

Thanks for the heads up Henery. Last year when Skiff was introduced I grabbed a few accounts in case it turned out to be a legitimate service, but given the somewhat suspect service name, in murky details of the company, it had a bit of a honey pot aroma. It seems that it's worth keeping in mind with any "privacy service" to consider that the global monster state sees private and anonymous communications, and data as an existential threat, and the lengths and tactics to which they will resort to infiltrate and curtail privacy may extend beyond what most realize or could imagine.

[@DarkGhostHacker]

Exactly. Most people in the privacy area don't comprehend this very well. Only a few people I've seen seem to be aware of this and at least point this out. They are trying very hard to counter and bypass privacy and security measures that the public uses. It's horrifying. I remember before 2016, smart phones had the ability to get phone call recording apps which worked. Now I can't find a single one that works. Nor are any of the workarounds successful either. And other options like external hardware doesn't work either. I can't find external hardware that connects to the smart phone which is proven to be reliable. Things will continue to get this way for a while. It will worsen.

[@jackoneil3933]

@@DarkGhostHacker That's the reality. The frame of reference well-meaning types like Henry often operate from, is one of what they are told and and emotion-based thinking, rather than from the perspective of privacy, security and subversion. Unless you've peeked behind the curtain and/or happened to realize you were on the receiving end of state-level counter-intelligence operations (which everyone is), how they work, and why, how could you realize much less imagine or believe the depth and scope everyone on the planet is subjected to? As for recording, NLL APPS 'ACR Phone' app works on many phones with root access. I've tested it on a One+ device with lineageOS/ Android 12 and it works. Been using open source Android devices for over 10 years now. I use a smart phone for calls and occasional mobile internet, and camera and that's it PERIOD. If I need more I use browser or app on another wi-fi only device. While Open-source, Android can get you out of most of the Google, and manufacturer surveillance, it likely does little or nothing to prevent phone-carrier, back-door and state-level surveillance. If you can get by with a wi-fi only device and a hot-spot access when mobile could help to cut down on surveillance. Btw, what external devices are you having trouble with?

[@the_real_boulder]

Thank GOD I didn't move my entire nonprofit's email to Skiff yet. Almost did it a few weeks ago. Thanks for covering this story and helping people stay aware. Guess I'm staying with Mailfence, the only thing I don't like about it is the UI but besides that it's great.

[@thisislilraskal]

Oh man... I just signed up about a month ago, and while filling out the sign up process I was having thoughts about them still being in their early days and this could fold at anytime. I'm just glad I hadn't invested too much into them so it's no biggie, but a damn shame.

[@PathakFX]

I was there with skiff from Day 1 of launch, used it for all Banking and passport stuff…. Now so hard to change

[@Raikasta]

I have to point out: Skiff is not open source! It has source-available clients (CC-BY-NC) and proprietary backends.

[@techlore]

Technically, the only skiff product that even attempted to be open source was mail.

[@echo5394]

This is a real shame as many companies refuse to send mail to Proton.

[@MyDarkKnightRisesWhenISeeU]

Damn, didn't face that problem yet :O Do you have examples for such companies, that refuse to send emails to proton?

[@echo5394]

@@MyDarkKnightRisesWhenISeeU My local government lol, but many other examples on Reddit about financial institutions. Sometimes you'll be able change an account's email to Proton, but not create a new account with it.

[@MyDarkKnightRisesWhenISeeU]

@@echo5394 Wow that's crazy! Thanks for the answer mate :)

[@buddhafx5973]

​@@echo5394what _location_ , country, state, or region ?

[@user-tg7pi6lu6v]

Wow, secure email and a spam filter that works at both ends. I'm sold on Proton.

[@eja7444]

I did not know that about this news. Thank you for telling me along with lessons for the future. 😇

[@DanteMishima]

Is that list of yours available as a pdf?

[@mrcvry]

Rent your own domain. Switching the service is done in minutes.

[@Jose04537]

This is why I never jump to any service that has not been around for at least 10 years (90% of business fail after that threshold). Otherwise, it's always like this, they sell off or shut down. At least if it's open source, you can jump to a fork.

[@lyianx]

The fuck.. I *JUST* started using Skiff!!

[@fredsvlogandreviews5867]

Also after watching this whole thing and looking at your site I wonder what you think of disroot. I saw some one else having them listed as an alternative to skiff. I do not know a huge about them but do see they started in 2015 so not a new company.

[@TangoFoxtrotWhiskey]

I was on their email list. It always looked interesting. Sad to see it die.

[@DarkSpyro707]

welp, this is effed, i was using skiff to get everything off using google docs because i absolutely do not like what google is doing to people's stuff in drive so i got everything i cared about off from there and moved to skiff and continued my projects there. now that skiff is dead idk where else to go. i rather nail myself to a cactus than to crawl back to google docs and drive or resort to Microsoft office and pay a sub. luckily i wasnt using skiff's email service. hopefully there's another google docs like site out there.

[@lyianx]

This i exactly why i started using Skiff. I dont trust Google.

[@Bless3757]

i haven't used it myself but i know many use Cryptpad

[@jordank249]

I honestly just use a combination of Tresorit and LibreOffice. (Proton Drive's Mac app isn't even close to dependable, so Tresorit is the better option for now.)

[@PvtAnonymous]

OnlyOffice might be the answer. I even host my own instance.

[@mtt24_]

A win for proton

[@stripedgoat8470]

I was thinking about switching to Skiff from Proton. I liked the slick design of Skiff. Thank God I didn’t :D

[@naturistfred]

Is the Skiff drive affected as well or just the email service part?

[@notknownguy]

All of it! Gone. Migrate to other services asap

[@techlore]

All of it is shutting down.

[@dopaminsky]

@@techlorehow much time i have to migrate before shut down?

[@lussor1]

I never trusted Skiff ngl. The company was very new and wanted to wait a few yera to see how it evolves and look now!

[@pajarobobo]

So glad I didn't get too embedded. Began testing Skiff out a couple months ago and was also waiting to see if they would stand the test of time. I'd be embarrassed if I were a Skiff developer right now. They've demonstrated a lack of trustworthiness in a sense.

[@williamaungleyraud]

Very sad, now I need to migrate my skiff email to proton 😟

[@rjbse]

Welp I'm sad, just started using Skiff for a little bit and it had a lot of potential

[@NicolasSilvaVasault]

i fkn hate notion, and now they're joining them lol, this sucks, their free plan was super amazing, i guess i'll have to pay for proton suit, just hoping nothing wrong happens 🤦‍♂️

[@niceasta]

good thing I created a Skiff account, but didn't start using because the Android apps were full of bugs - the only service I'm using and that would be a pain to move from if they closed whould be Filen, but they say they're financially good, so I hope this keeps like it

[@luderx]

Well, thank god i always use my own domain for email

[@domescy]

Is there another private email provider with custom domains in free tier?

[@midn8dreams]

I don't think so, but there are things like MX Route, DIY setup. Affordable af and pretty good spam filter (pro), NO included privacy feature as ik. (con)

[@stagfoo]

I just migrated from proton to skiff email today. mk well onto another one -_-

[@interstellar_1]

The website looks normal for me. weird.

[@dudeh9702]

Anyone unable to log into Tuta using Tor Browser Bundle anymore? Getting an unsupported browser error.

[@OcteractSG]

Cloudflared email shuts down; the only bad thing I see about it, aside from the inconvenienced users, is consolidation in the email space.

[@OcteractSG]

I should also mention that if you carefully read the privacy policies, terms of use, and other similar documents from private e-mail providers, you will quickly realize that Posteo is the best one, and it’s not even close. You’ll need Addy or SimpleLogin for your own domains, but aliasing was already a necessary service anyway.

[@comosaycomosah]

Ugh yeaaaa pretttttty disappointing tbh

[@gustavo7000]

Nice haircut ❤

[@cleava959]

Which email provider is the best for privacy at this point ?

[@midn8dreams]

Actually none, BUT if you are able to still trust someone, than Proton and Tuta There are also cheaper ones, with a "good/ok-ish" privacy, but those also depends on your needs etc.

[@sahalization]

I just want to create an account right in the day they announced that

[@wdwdHenry9022]

alternatives to skiff?

[@ethanjA]

noooooooo I used skiff :(

[@Paul-Hulford]

Skiffs export does not work well. The mBOX files do not include usable dates and times for importing onto. New service.

[@TheToothPaste1]

Super annoyed by this but I learned a lot at least, I won't go to a new shiny thing for my next email service. At least it's still manageable if you're using a custom domain name.

[@techlore]

Great point on the custom domains! Also for people who use aliasing services

[@alithegreat9096]

it's all over

[@Zexyo]

That's a shame, I really enjoyed using skiff.

Remembering cTemplar

[@techlore]

Also really sad :/

[@vishalkumar040393]

Disappointed 💔

[@mimiaumeow]

why notion of all things?

[@niceasta]

popularity?

[@phoneywheeze9959]

it said in the video they got acquired, so I doubt they had a pick of companies to choose from to get acquired

[@LucasFerreira-gx9yh]

they work in the same building

[@DanteMishima]

Notion is in conflict with those goals

[@negativerfan]

:(

[@grim.reaper]

Wtf 🤯

[@amphetaminedaydream]

Proton better never pull some shit like this

[@foxdk]

Skiff was bound to fail. They were burning through venture capital like there was no tomorrow. Nothing was financially stable. They wanted a big brand and then figure out how to make money. Proton is the exact opposite. They made sure to get good economics on their email, before venturing out in Drive and VPN.

[@tiredofeverythingnew]

This chad looks like a Sainsbury's delivery driver

[@weird-guy]

No wonder gmail,outlook are still king, it’s just bait and switch to get that acquisition money 😂

[@Ri9e]

If skiff can shut down after being around for 5years, 10 years means nothing.

[@magspies]

they weren’t around for 5 years, barely 2.

[@Apheleion]

This is bullshit I just joined skiff like 4 weeks ago now I have to move everything again wtf

[@callmeNeno]

Just get your own domain email

[@DrandilonOriculus]

Proton is king

[@lyianx]

Proton doesnt do COLAB!

[@adotelbrens]

they're blocked in my country because vpn -_-

[@buddhafx5973]

​@@adotelbrenswhich country?

[@adotelbrens]

@@buddhafx5973 it's egypt

[@CDAActivism]

1st

[@pabloscloud]

Wrong. You're third.

[@notknownguy]

££££

[@buddhafx5973]

You're crowned

[@xooq_]

I hate protonmail

[@MattSongcuan]

May i know why?? Was there as deception like skiff? Im still undecided which platform to trust now...

[@gravityfallscanada]

This is bull. Proton mail is a$$ they ask for another NON-proton mail e-mail account to sign out...

[@0xC4aE1e5]

You can put a fake in there

[@gravityfallscanada]

@@0xC4aE1e5 No you can't they blocked Temp mail and many other services...

[@gravityfallscanada]

@@0xC4aE1e5 No, many services have been blocked.

[@grim.reaper]

I think I am gonna use Gmail 😞

[@MrKornnugget]

You mis-typed Proton.

[@user-hk5ji7bb3p]

Stop recommending Proton. Who are you trying to lie to, us or yourself?

[@MattSongcuan]

Im intrigue about this statement, may i know why protonmail is bad?. Im still deciding where to migrate