How I Fully Quit Google (And You Can, Too) • Hacker News Board

Re: How I Fully Quit Google (And You Can, Too)

#41

Post by krageon » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 10:24 AM UTC

peatmoss wrote: post #20

samsa wrote: post #15

I recently did the same thing. FastMail for email, Apple Maps for Google Maps (not as good as Google, but better than when it launched), DuckDuckGo for search, Firefox or Brave as my browser. I was not prepared for how long and sometimes convoluted it was to change my email address on every site/service. Some bafflingly did not allow me to change my email address. I use Microsoft OneDrive for photo storage but am loo…

> I was not prepared for how long and sometimes convoluted it was to change my email address on every site/service. I’ve made this recommendation before, but buy your own domain. It’s cheap, and will allow you to change your email hosting provider should Fastmail pivot their business from email to surveillance. It’s pretty easy to set up. Others have offered, and I’ll repeat it: if you need a hand getting started, I’…

The trouble isn't getting the domain and setting up the email server behind it, the issue is maintaining the email server. I am sufficiently distractible (and I'm sure I'm not alone) that it's very important that my peripheral software/devices do not bother me. With an email server (or any other kind of server really, but email is especially bad), you need to pay attention to it constantly to make sure it is up, you are not on any blacklists (which you will get on by default for the simple fact that you are a new host), etc.

You can of course set up all sorts of monitoring, but then you have to check that that is working. These concerns never really go away. You cannot truly let your email slip from your mind, because if it stops working ever you will miss emails (unless you use a relay, which is either external or also needs monitoring, etc) and that means that potentially things get closed that should not be closed, you miss things from the doctor/dentist, etc.

Re: How I Fully Quit Google (And You Can, Too)

#42

Post by mark_l_watson » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 11:56 AM UTC

some_account wrote: post #13

soziawa wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> that don't impact my privacy > Google Photos doesn't make sense to me

What about Google Drive, containing every document ever created on his computers. Google has for many reasons succeeded in getting techies on their side, to the point that techies are standing by them, giving up privacy and integrity completely to a giant ad company with close ties to military and government. You could not make a worse choice for your privacy if you tried.

I do store some plain files to Google Drive and Dropbox, but mostly I created backup ZIPs, GPG them, and store for backups. My working files are on my laptop.

One thing I store as plain files on Google Drive is years of Communications of ACM PDFs, and other purchased material - it is all searchable.

Mostly though, I agree with you.

Re: How I Fully Quit Google (And You Can, Too)

#43

Post by tincholio » Thu, Jul 12, 2018, 10:31 PM UTC

krageon wrote: post #41

peatmoss wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I was not prepared for how long and sometimes convoluted it was to change my email address on every site/service. I’ve made this recommendation before, but buy your own domain. It’s cheap, and will allow you to change your email hosting provider should Fastmail pivot their business from email to surveillance. It’s pretty easy to set up. Others have offered, and I’ll repeat it: if you need a hand getting started, I’…

The trouble isn't getting the domain and setting up the email server behind it, the issue is maintaining the email server. I am sufficiently distractible (and I'm sure I'm not alone) that it's very important that my peripheral software/devices do not bother me. With an email server (or any other kind of server really, but email is especially bad), you need to pay attention to it constantly to make sure it is up, you…

But that would be the point of using an email host with your own domain, right? Be it Protonmail, Fastmail, or any other, you only need to provide the domain, and they provide the actual hosting.

Re: How I Fully Quit Google (And You Can, Too)

#44

Post by jackskell » Fri, Jul 13, 2018, 6:19 PM UTC

krageon wrote: post #41

peatmoss wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I was not prepared for how long and sometimes convoluted it was to change my email address on every site/service. I’ve made this recommendation before, but buy your own domain. It’s cheap, and will allow you to change your email hosting provider should Fastmail pivot their business from email to surveillance. It’s pretty easy to set up. Others have offered, and I’ll repeat it: if you need a hand getting started, I’…

The trouble isn't getting the domain and setting up the email server behind it, the issue is maintaining the email server. I am sufficiently distractible (and I'm sure I'm not alone) that it's very important that my peripheral software/devices do not bother me. With an email server (or any other kind of server really, but email is especially bad), you need to pay attention to it constantly to make sure it is up, you…

I just bought my .net domain name from namecheap and setup protonmail. It's been a year but I'm still surprised that people think it's cool to have an email like jack@jack.net. It's like I'm a big deal or something.

I like protonmail enough to buy their first tier email hosting, which gives this ability.

And, if I find a better email hosting service, or roll my own, my email doesn't change, of course.