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I migrated to an almost all-EU stack and saved 500€ per year

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Re: I migrated to an almost all-EU stack and saved 500€ per year

#71
post #35
post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They moved from platform USA/Surveillance-Capitalism to platform non-USA/Privacy. That's a big deal to some of us. Especially important it the demonstration that your privacy which Google et al, are so insistent on monetizing, does not mean they are charging you less for the same services that other companies can charge when you are paying only with your money, not your privacy as well.

I'd rather Google have my data than the EU

Is this new “I’d rather have Chinese my data than US”?

Re: I migrated to an almost all-EU stack and saved 500€ per year

#72
post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And platform B is basically a worse version of everything than platform A. I admire the motivation though

“Worse” is fully dependant on what you’re looking to get out of a product. I consider anything Google/Meta to be about as bad as it gets because I disagree with their business practices and value my privacy.

“Worse” has a defined meaning and they’re right. Proton stuff doesn’t hold a candle to the level of polish of Google.

Re: I migrated to an almost all-EU stack and saved 500€ per year

#74
I find it funny that right at the start the author claims he wants "privacy and data sovereignty" and then he comes into the EU.

Now, Proton is based in Switzerland (thank god for some sane countries in Europe that still remain), but EU is not friend to your "privacy and data sovereignty".

Countries in EU are going after you (and demanding that external platforms disclosure your anonymous identity so that they can put you in prison) because you write "wrong" stuff on the internet. Like, simply calling a - morbidly obese - politician fat. Imagine if that platform was based in the EU. [1]

So, no. EU is not the solution for your privacy. Unless you only care for businesses using your data (which is still bad, of course), but appreciate having the government (and the unelected European Commission) Big Brother watching over you and policing your words.

They are both bad, but they aren't both equally bad. Sure, the businesses can use what I write and see to put even more silly ads in front of me or even train some LLM. But, at least, they won't put me in a Gulag for re-education because I committed some thought crime.

[1] https://www.foxnews.com/media/germany-started-criminal-inves...

Re: I migrated to an almost all-EU stack and saved 500€ per year

#75
post #41

I really wanted to switch to the Proton stack and even tried it for a couple weeks but the search in Proton Mail is so bad I couldn’t use it for even simple things like finding my airline tickets. I had to switch back to Google Workspace. It doesn’t seem like Proton even really cares about the how bad their mail search is and is more focused on releasing new products.

> the search in Proton Mail is so bad Have you tried Apple Mail? I’d be interested to hear if it’s worse than that. I use it, the search is very bad.

I use the bridge and a real mail client with proton and the search is fine. You can even hook the bridge into tailscale, so it works across my devices with a real mail client also (e.g phones tablets etc).

The desktop client is rubbish, though, agreed.

Re: I migrated to an almost all-EU stack and saved 500€ per year

#76

I hear good things about Proton, but you are still sticking yourself into an ecosystem. For documents, if you are even slightly techie, hosting your own OwnCloud/NextCloud is pretty easy. It just works. Both also offer a central calendar function, if that is important. For email, buy your own domain, and host it with a local provider. All the other things he mentions (to-do lists, password manager, etc.) just pick yo…

Why are you stuck? To migrate to another provider i just have to change some MX records which I control myself anyway?

Pumping data in and out may take a while, but they expose an imap interface and it’s a right click in thunderbird or whatever to do this or a ./cli to dump an imap mailbox…

Re: I migrated to an almost all-EU stack and saved 500€ per year

#78
post #41

I really wanted to switch to the Proton stack and even tried it for a couple weeks but the search in Proton Mail is so bad I couldn’t use it for even simple things like finding my airline tickets. I had to switch back to Google Workspace. It doesn’t seem like Proton even really cares about the how bad their mail search is and is more focused on releasing new products.

I am using paid version of Proton Mail and search is working in thunderbird connected to their IMAP/SMTP bridge just alright. But web interface may suck, I did not use the web for a long time.

Re: I migrated to an almost all-EU stack and saved 500€ per year

#79
post #24
post #14

They moved from platform A to platform B.

They moved from platform USA/Surveillance-Capitalism to platform non-USA/Privacy. That's a big deal to some of us. Especially important it the demonstration that your privacy which Google et al, are so insistent on monetizing, does not mean they are charging you less for the same services that other companies can charge when you are paying only with your money, not your privacy as well.

> They moved from platform USA/Surveillance-Capitalism to platform non-USA/Privacy

I see, the EU propaganda shows effect. Of course a proponent of the non-elected regime doesn't mind the illegal "chat control" and censorship of any wrongthink facilitated by the Digital Services Act.

Re: I migrated to an almost all-EU stack and saved 500€ per year

#80

> Blogging, Newsletter & Co.: Well, as you can see, I’m writing on Substack. There are no alternatives except to host it entirely yourself, but that doesn’t make sense to me right now. This is wrong. There are loads of alternatives, which I can't remember at the moment. AlternativeTo.net lists Hyvor Blogs ( https://blogs.hyvor.com/ ), which isn't one of the ones I was familiar with and cannot vouch for, but serves as…

while a blog is like the simplest thing you can self-host apart from static sites
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