Leaving Gmail for Mailbox.org • Hacker News Board

Re: Leaving Gmail for Mailbox.org

#331

Post by TranquilMarmot » Sat, Aug 23, 2025, 5:08 PM UTC

palata wrote: post #118

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…

> supports Graphene but there are too many trade-offs there What are the tradeoffs? I have been following GrapheneOS for a while, and it doesn't seem like there are many tradeoffs. > OpenStreetMap is still really hard to use and gives bad directions. OpenStreetMap is a database, and most commercial services that are not Google use it. E.g. Uber or Lyft. You just need to find an app that you like. CoMaps is nice, OSMA…

> What are the tradeoffs?

As others point out, my main worry is about banking and NFC. I use NFC payments on my phone a lot, especially for the bus. Getting an Android Smartwatch just for that kind of defeats de-Googling haha.

I will probably try out Graphene at some point but that seems like a multi-day project to get it set up, find the tradeoffs, determine if they're worth it, and then potentially switch back to Android.

I also worry about the future of Graphene with AOSP going more closed/private: https://www.androidauthority.com/google-android-development-...

> OSMAnd has a lot of feature but the UX is harder

OSMAnd was the one I tried and it bordered on unusable. I'll try out CoMaps, somebody else suggested Mapy.

Re: Leaving Gmail for Mailbox.org

#332

Post by ProllyInfamous » Sat, Aug 23, 2025, 5:15 PM UTC

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 have yet to find a suitable replacement for Google Maps - OpenStreetMap is still really hard to use and gives bad directions.

I block all Google products (at the router level), and do miss their Maps/Earth products.

The best non-Google mapping I've found http://www.bing.com/maps (no affiliation, just ¢¢)

It has so much integrated information, without being annoying (e.g. store listings); also is the only free product I know with built-in tilt-shift perspectives (from each major of eight cardinal directions).

Re: Leaving Gmail for Mailbox.org

#333

Post by butz » Sat, Aug 23, 2025, 5:23 PM UTC

ProllyInfamous wrote: post #332

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 have yet to find a suitable replacement for Google Maps - OpenStreetMap is still really hard to use and gives bad directions. I block all Google products (at the router level), and do miss their Maps/Earth products. The best non-Google mapping I've found http://www.bing.com/maps (no affiliation, just ¢¢) It has so much integrated information, without being annoying (e.g. store listings); also is the only free prod…

In my neck of the woods OpenStreetMap is way more accurate than Google Maps. Map is less noisy visually, and if there are any errors in the map, I can fix them myself and see results immediately.

Re: Leaving Gmail for Mailbox.org

#334

Post by TranquilMarmot » Sat, Aug 23, 2025, 5:26 PM UTC

litmus-pit-git wrote: post #238

jordibc wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 (…

Does Immich read real file names of photos from iOS Photos metadata? I don't even know whether Apple preserves it and exposes to other apps? I used Ente and I learned all the files I had "added/uploaded" to iCloud photos had lost their real names (that I had painstakingly given them over the years/decades) when ente exported to those photos back on my laptop via their desktop app and were these long random uuid strin…

I used immich-go to upload photos from Google Photos and it worked great, I'm not sure how well that works with iCloud but it's at least a supported option (...although with a TODO next to it)

https://github.com/simulot/immich-go?tab=readme-ov-file#from...

> Are there PAYG hosted instanes of Immich?

I was really surprised to learn that there aren't right now. It sounds like FUTO, the org behind Immich, is working on something like this but they haven't put out any real details so it's probably far off.

Re: Leaving Gmail for Mailbox.org

#335

Post by TranquilMarmot » Sat, Aug 23, 2025, 5:27 PM UTC

habi wrote: post #73

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…

> OpenStreetMap is still really hard to use and gives bad directions. https://www.magicearth.com/ works well for car navigation with OSM data, and https://cycle.travel/ is the best way to navigate on a bike, also with OSM data. In which country do you live, if I might ask?

Owned by Haliburton

https://ir.halliburton.com/news-releases/news-release-detail...

Re: Leaving Gmail for Mailbox.org

#336

Post by TranquilMarmot » Sat, Aug 23, 2025, 5:32 PM UTC

prof-dr-ir wrote: post #119

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 am very interested in moving my photos and data to a self-hosted solution but am a little anxious about backups. Do you simply trust hetzner to not lose the data on your 1TB storage box? (I am aware that I am currently trusting google and dropbox to do just that.)

> Do you simply trust hetzner to not lose the data on your 1TB storage box?

I don't! I haven't set it up yet, but my plan is to set up a daily cron job to use rsync to copy the photos down to a physical hard drive I have in my desktop computer. This desktop isn't on 24/7 so I would need to remember to turn it on to sync.

It would take something real catastrophic for actual data loss; Hetzner would have to somehow lose my storage box data & all its backups (or I lose access to my Hetzner account), my local cron job would have to fail or the hard drive would die, and I would have to lose my phone which has the last few years of photos on it.

Re: Leaving Gmail for Mailbox.org

#337

Post by tgma » Sat, Aug 23, 2025, 5:43 PM UTC

Vaslo wrote: post #321

tgma wrote: post #186

I don't understand the logic. I mean if you hate Google, or you specifically want to avoid Google having your data sure, but whichever email provider you choose will have at some point access to your plaintext email and they may choose to store it. There's no such thing as real end-to-end encrypted email unless the sender actively does so or you run the server yourself (and be online to do the TLS handshake when some…

If my wife and I both use Proton, or I correspond with a bank or company that doesn’t use a Google product, how would that possibly get into Google’s hands? You way oversimplified the possibilities here.

Of course there has been also PGP since the dawn of time. They all fall under unless the sender actively does so that I explicitly mentioned.

I can send you PGP encrypted email you could have used Gmail or Proton or whatever. It is about what the sender does not what service you choose. (If you and your wife are both using Proton, that probably does not have anything to do with SMTP; it would be like calling iMessage "SMS".)

Re: Leaving Gmail for Mailbox.org

#338

Post by TranquilMarmot » Sat, Aug 23, 2025, 5:44 PM UTC

pkulak wrote: post #265

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…

You should set up a local machine for Immich. I’ve got it running locally, with the photos on spinning rust and thumbs and db on NVME. It’s mind blowing how fast it is. Scroll to three years ago, lift the mouse button, and every thumb loads in a quarter second. Data intensive stuff is when you notice that the server is in the next room. It’ll pay for itself in a couple years. Treat yourself. :)

I thought about this, but I don't really trust maintaining spinning rust myself for something as "precious" as 15+ years of photos. I do have a desktop computer but it's running Windows 11 and I don't have it on 24/7. Live in a small apartment and definitely do NOT have the space anywhere for a dedicated server.

I like the idea of having everything hosted somewhere that's guaranteed to be up-and-running 24/7 using Debian with automatic full backups turned on. If I go on vacation somewhere and something goes wrong, I can easily SSH into it. If it was on my desktop and I was away and there was a power outage or something, I'd be out of luck.

It *is* a little slow but it's honestly fast enough. I was going to do periodic backups of the storage box to a local hard drive just in case, though.

Re: Leaving Gmail for Mailbox.org

#339

Post by guerrilla » Sat, Aug 23, 2025, 5:45 PM UTC

giuliomagnifico wrote: post #81

guerrilla wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I use IMAP with Proton. Thunderbird is my main mail client. You just need to install the bridge.

Yes but only if you install the bridge as I wrote in my blog post, and on iOS iPadOS? You can’t use Apple Mail app.

You can just install it on your LAN or VPN.

Re: Leaving Gmail for Mailbox.org

#340

Post by TranquilMarmot » Sat, Aug 23, 2025, 5:55 PM UTC

yahoozoo wrote: post #121

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…

What’s the point though? So you don’t come across as a Google shill?

As I said, I was uncomfortable having my entire digital life "owned" by Google.

If you're unfamiliar with the concept of "monoculture" in agriculture:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monoculture

> Monocultures increase ease and efficiency in planting, managing, and harvesting crops short-term, often with the help of machinery. However, monocultures are more susceptible to diseases or pest outbreaks long-term due to localized reductions in biodiversity and nutrient depletion

This was how I felt - it was easy and efficient to "just use Google" but long term it felt a bit like "nutrient depletion". A lot of the services I moved onto are better than Google in a lot of ways and have different ideas about how things should work. Sticking with Google, you will only get the Google way of doing things and services you may rely on can be killed off on a whim by some C-suite executive (https://killedbygoogle.com/)

There are also a lot of political reasons behind why I'm doing this but I don't want to get into that too much here on HN. Tech oligarchy is ruling the United States and I don't want to be complicit in that. I was also tired of being a serf of "technofeudalism" (https://www.penguinrandomhouse.com/books/751443/technofeudal...) and am seeking ways to avoid that.