Ask HN: How to move away from Google • Hacker News Board

Re: Ask HN: How to move away from Google

#91

Post by dividedbyzero » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 10:45 PM UTC

sswaner wrote: post #29

dividedbyzero wrote: post #25

I'm still looking for an alternative e-mail provider that is more privacy-conscious than Google, still works with ordinary IMAP and is based in the EU so I get to actually benefit from EU data protection. Haven't found one that ticks all boxes yet, but going with a US company doesn't appear to change much as I'm not a US citizen and hence fair game once my data is on US servers and I guess it inevitably will end up t…

Did you consider ProtonMail?

I think they don't have IMAP, only some kind of bridge application that won't work on mobile. I'm not willing two have two different email apps in parallel, so I guess they are out.

Re: Ask HN: How to move away from Google

#92

Post by dotcoma » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 10:49 PM UTC

Tutanota for email.

Re: Ask HN: How to move away from Google

#93

Post by denkmoon » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 10:52 PM UTC

Fastmail to replace gmail/calendar/contacts and some file storage (drive). I also use Syncthing as a replacement for google drive. Android, well, you know what the only alternative is.

Re: Ask HN: How to move away from Google

#94

Post by eljimmy » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 10:55 PM UTC

I run my own mail server and host all my websites on a cheap Linode instance ($5/mo) - it can be a pain in the ass to setup, but once it's up and running, there isn't much you need to do. Been running for 15 years now.

Re: Ask HN: How to move away from Google

#95

Post by triyambakam » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 10:55 PM UTC

What suggestions does anyone have for phone providers? I've long wanted to move off of Google Fi

Re: Ask HN: How to move away from Google

#96

Post by kingcharles » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 10:57 PM UTC

4kelly wrote: post #18

throwaway67743 wrote: post #11

Self hosted email for 20 years so ignoring that: - nextcloud for photos/drive - bitwarden with vaultwarden backend for passwords - self hosted Firefox Sync for everything else - syncthing for outlying file sharing - jottacloud for high capacity storage dump (rclone is your friend) Probably forgot something

These are all great tools. But I wanted to gingerly hop on this thread to say that de google doesn’t have to mean self hosted. I found it very rewarding to put my money towards companies that are aligned with my priorities (be it privacy or other) even if there were free alternatives.

Agreed. Fastmail is a great example. They are cheap, but their product is excellent and so is their support. I never have to worry about losing my account unless I stop paying. I got burned on that when I went to jail, but they offer a pre-pay option so you can now pay a decade worth of fees in advance :)

Re: Ask HN: How to move away from Google

#97

Post by kingcharles » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 10:58 PM UTC

DougMellon wrote: post #2

I have been using Fastmail for roughly three years now and happy with it. https://www.fastmail.com/gmail-alternative/

Been using them for, I think, 16 years.

Re: Ask HN: How to move away from Google

#98

Post by rglullis » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 11:02 PM UTC

I wrote a bit about it at a blog post [0]. My idea is to substitute the "cloud" (i.e, your data and applications running on someone else's computers) for a "lake" of your own devices where you can replicate and synchronize the data, and use native free applications for each of the devices that you have.

So, for hardware

- Workstations: Linux

- Mobile: /e/OS [1]

For software:

- GDrive -> Syncthing for the documents, LibreOffice on workstations, simple document viewers on mobile

- Email: My own domain, service provided by namecheap, costs ~20€/year.

- Contacts, Calendar -> Syncthing to synchonize the files between the devices, and DecSync [2] as a calendar provider on thunderbird (workstation) and k-mail (mobile)

- App Store: F-Droid for most software, and the odd exception (Berlin ticket for public transportation) that is not F/OSS I use the /e/OS store (which proxies some of the apps from Google into their own store)

- Maps: MagicEarth (works well, uses OSM data, can do navigation decently and allows to choose download maps to keep offline). One of these days I will try again to self-host a tiling server, but I'm not sure what I would do for navigation.

- Messaging: Matrix/Element is my main client, I also have XMPP. Both are hosted by communick, the "professional managed service" that I run [3]. I also have Telegram (FOSS client) on mobile, but I've been meaning to implement the bridge on communick so that I can ditch the client. I use hangouts only on the computer if and only if the other party is not available on the preferred methods.

- Search: Brave search is working well. I preferred Brave over DDG because Brave is building their own index. If you think your queries are not giving you good results, you can turn on "Google mixing", where they make a (proxied) query to Google and show their results mixed with their own.

[0]: https://raphael.lullis.net/thinking-heads-are-not-in-the-clo...

[1]: https://e.foundation

[2]: https://github.com/39aldo39/DecSync

[3]: https://communick.com

Re: Ask HN: How to move away from Google

#99

Post by metadat » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 11:03 PM UTC

ChrisLTD wrote: post #30

metadat wrote: post #7

This has already been discussed extensively on HN in the past. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

We get these posts every 60 days like clockwork.

True, and unfortunate because it means it'll be harder to tell once a truly compelling and attractive alternative comes along.

Re: Ask HN: How to move away from Google

#100

Post by dividedbyzero » Wed, Mar 30, 2022, 11:04 PM UTC

uhtred wrote: post #33

dividedbyzero wrote: post #25

I'm still looking for an alternative e-mail provider that is more privacy-conscious than Google, still works with ordinary IMAP and is based in the EU so I get to actually benefit from EU data protection. Haven't found one that ticks all boxes yet, but going with a US company doesn't appear to change much as I'm not a US citizen and hence fair game once my data is on US servers and I guess it inevitably will end up t…

I know you said based in the EU and Fastmail are based in Australia I think, but they are great. Integrates easily with email, calendar, and contacts clients using imap/caldav/carddav. What makes you consider google to be privacy conscious? Aren't they just scanning your emails 24/7 to profile you for advertising?

> Fastmail are based in Australia

Like sibling said, doesn't Australia have a pretty bad track record with respect to data protection (especially data owned by foreigners?) If ease of use were the #1 priority I'd stick with Google, I've never had a single issue in over a decade with them.

> What makes you consider google to be privacy conscious?

I probably didn't make that clear enough, but I don't consider them that, hence why I'm looking for something more privacy-conscious than Google (ideally not just a little more but I'm willing to make some compromises if that means I can keep using iOS Mail and the like)