PSA: someone set up a fake Proton-GE website

It seems nothing is safe from bogus websites and scams, with someone setting up a fake website for Proton-GE / GE-Proton. A warning note about it was added to the GE GitHub page readme last month, which I've only just been made aware of.

The website in question protonge.com, which I am intentionally not making a clickable link, makes it seem like it's all official but the only official place is the GitHub. Cheekily, it even uses a screenshot of mine taken from an older article about ProtonUp-Qt which is a completely different (but related) project.

According to the website, Proton-GE has builds "tailored for various game genres", well that's a new one. Claiming they have "a customized Proton build to enhance your experience in each specific gaming category". That's just not how it works.

No matter what industry you're in, or what tools you're making, even open source projects — there's always someone who will want to ride on its popularity to do something nefarious.

This reminds me of a recent spate of emails going around claiming to be from the Kdenlive video editor team, where the official developers had to post up warnings across social media. These emails tried to get people to download things for partnerships, which of course is usually some form of malware.