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Leaving Gmail for Mailbox.org

giuliomagnifico.blog

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Re: Leaving Gmail for Mailbox.org

#101

Post by litmus-pit-git »

And I will be leaving Mailbox.org for Runbox, or Purelymail, or Fastmail. I have a few more months' credit remaining on Mailbox, besides I am yet to try the trials.

(This is for the author and anyone else) If you are looking for responsive (or even barely responsive) and responsible support responses whenever you need it, weigh your options very carefully about which mail host you want to move to. You might need it once or twice a year, but that might be crucial.

Edit: And if you can help it, and have your own domain, never use a mail host's domain-based email address (no matter how catchy and short that is) because it will be a headache switching away from it if you want to change your host.

Re: Leaving Gmail for Mailbox.org

#102

Post by joshuamorton »

charles_f wrote: post #90
selkin wrote: post #30

> The problem with email is that everything is transmitted in plain text. That's not a Gmail problem, and no reason to migrate. Some use cases just don't fit email, and for those, we have other, more fitting platforms. > So, I went with mailbox.org that still offers integrated PGP encryption, and if you want, you can always use external PGP too (which I was already doing with Gmail). Ok, so now you have two problems.

> That's not a Gmail problem, and no reason to migrate. It is a problem with Gmail , because they're helping themselves into your email, as was explained by the author in the sentence immediately after the one you quoted: > Technically, Google can store every message you receive and know everything, and U.S. agencies can request access to that data

> because they're helping themselves into your email

What, specifically do you mean by this?

Re: Leaving Gmail for Mailbox.org

#103

Post by crossroadsguy »

TranquilMarmot wrote: post #49

I spent the past month "de-Googling" my life after I saw a notice in my Gmail inbox that it was 20 years old. I took a step back and realized just how invested into the Google ecosystem I was. Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Drive, Maps, Keep, Photos, YouTube, FitBit, Android. Basically my entire digital life. My goal was more diversifying than security/privacy, but security/privacy is a really nice bonus. I ended up going wi…

Switch to an iPhone.

Apple's software and services (sync, drive, photo backup etc) are so inferior, especially compared with Google's (technically speaking), you'd be anyway forced to use third party (often cross platform) solutions. No risk of going deep into Apple's ecosystem ;-)

Re: Leaving Gmail for Mailbox.org

#104

Post by immibis »

woodson wrote: post #33
ryandrake wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This solves the "dependence on Gmail" problem (which is definitely a worthy problem to solve) but not the general "dependence on a particular mail provider" problem. The next step in this walk-down-the-risk-chain is self-hosting on a VPS, where you're now just dependent on your VPS provider, and the next step could be self-hosting on your own metal, where you're now just dependent on your ISP. Happy trails!

Unfortunately, most big mail providers won’t accept email from your self-hosted mail server, even with DKIM, SPF, etc. So, diversifying is as good as it gets.

Has this been tested recently? I had no problem sending mail to my own Gmail account from my own server. Even without SPF (then I got a bunch of spam spoof bounces and realized I forgot SPF)

Re: Leaving Gmail for Mailbox.org

#105

Post by jordibc »

TranquilMarmot wrote: post #49

I spent the past month "de-Googling" my life after I saw a notice in my Gmail inbox that it was 20 years old. I took a step back and realized just how invested into the Google ecosystem I was. Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Drive, Maps, Keep, Photos, YouTube, FitBit, Android. Basically my entire digital life. My goal was more diversifying than security/privacy, but security/privacy is a really nice bonus. I ended up going wi…

I found myself in a similar situation and also started de-googling, which is much nicer and liberating than I was fearing.

I did the exact same thing with Immich (what a great software, by the way!).

And in case it helps:

Instead of always relying on google maps, I now mostly use CoMaps (https://www.comaps.app/). Way better than using directly OpenStreetMap. And for my Pixel 7, I switched to LineageOS with gapps (https://lineageos.org/) and I'm not missing anything and am very happy with it.

Also, I'm trying now Nextcloud (https://nextcloud.com/), with a setup similar to Immich, and now I do believe there is life beyond google, and it's a better life.

Re: Leaving Gmail for Mailbox.org

#106

Post by immibis »

TranquilMarmot wrote: post #61
AnonC wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you can afford it, renew the domain for 10 years into the future (which means having it paid for till 2035, for example). Every year, renew the domain for one more year so that it’s always paid for 10 years into the future. If payment fails or you’re busy with something else, you’d still have several years of no worrying (some caveats and risks may still apply depending on the TLD and registrar).

That's a good idea, I might see if I can do it. It was registered with Google Domains but got transferred over to Squarespace, idk if they offer long-term renewals.

I don't think long term renewals exist for premium domains.

You probably shouldn't use a premium domain unless you really need one. It's just a money grab by registrars and registries.

Re: Leaving Gmail for Mailbox.org

#107

Post by immibis »

partomniscient wrote: post #52
selkin wrote: post #30

> The problem with email is that everything is transmitted in plain text. That's not a Gmail problem, and no reason to migrate. Some use cases just don't fit email, and for those, we have other, more fitting platforms. > So, I went with mailbox.org that still offers integrated PGP encryption, and if you want, you can always use external PGP too (which I was already doing with Gmail). Ok, so now you have two problems.

But we haven't started using regular expressions yet...!? I was fortunate enough that my solution was to host my own mail server 20+ years ago and create a separate email address per relationship with a company, so I can tell the moment some 3rd party has been comprimised when I receive spam on a specific address. My personal spam has been minimal over time. If for example moc.elgoog@mydomain.com gets spam - I know t…

Just don't send lots and lots of email. I haven't had a problem yet. But I mostly use my server to receive.

Speaking of which, receiving is free. There are no spam checks when other providers send email to yours. So feel free to only use Gmail when you need to send an email out to a big provider. It's still a 95% win.

Re: Leaving Gmail for Mailbox.org

#108

Post by immibis »

andrewmcwatters wrote: post #92

I'd really like to just run my own Postfix, Dovecot, SpamAssassin stack, but it seems totally discouraged these days just on the basis of email sender reputation.

Just do it. You're allowed to have more than one address. You can keep using Gmail for important things while you experiment with your own server.

Re: Leaving Gmail for Mailbox.org

#109

Post by immibis »

giuliomagnifico wrote: post #5
dustinfarris wrote: post #2

how is this different from using PGP with Gmail?

As far as I know, Gmail doesn’t allow saving PGP keys or using them to write new emails, whereas mailbox.org integrates the entire PGP service and to send an email, even from iOS where PGP apps are "ugly," you just need to do it from the web interface. Anyway I wrote the details in the post. Edit: I have to mention that I generated my PGP keys locally and then imported to Mailbox.Org

Note that when you let a provider do PGP for you, you're not safe from that provider. It's one of the big problems with PGP: you can have usability or security but not both.

Re: Leaving Gmail for Mailbox.org

#110

Post by johannes1234321 »

mixedmath wrote: post #87

> This was a tough decision, having used Gmail since 2007/2008. However, I had to draw the line and stop giving Google my data for free. > > The problem with email is that everything is transmitted in plain text. Interestingly, one of my biggest problems with Gmail is that they don't allow actual plaintext. I used to routinely collaborate with developers who were vision-impaired, and the official Gmail phone app woul…

I think you use the term "plain text" differently from the author of the post. I think they refer to the fact that there is no end to end encryption. Google has access to the clear text of all messages and can index/analyze them.
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