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Leaving Gmail for Mailbox.org

giuliomagnifico.blog

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Re: Leaving Gmail for Mailbox.org

#381

Post by TranquilMarmot »

lostlogin wrote: post #347
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 are you doing for search? I was a paying Kagi customer, after fleeing Google, but I can’t stomach even a trivial sum of money going to Yandex/Russia. I miss Kagi.

> I can’t stomach even a trivial sum of money going to Yandex/Russia

This is the first I'm hearing of this, I love Kagi. Looks like Yandex represents about 2% of their costs. I assume the hangup here is that by Kagi giving money to Yandex, the Russian government gets some of that money, and that money is being used to fuel war machines?

By that logic any company that ends up giving money to a country that is participating in active wars is not okay. If you draw the line at Yandex, do you also draw it at Apple/Google/Microsoft or any other US-based company that pays taxes to the US government which has a long and *active* history of killing innocent people? Or products coming from China who is actively exterminating ethnic groups?

At some point it becomes easier to just stop using technology altogether because once you look deep enough at anything you will find ethical issues. Do you know where the precious metals in your phone, laptop, or TV came from? Where is the energy you use to power these devices coming from? What happens to those devices when they reach end of life and you don't use them anymore? By using technology in any capacity you are affecting poorer countries that bear the brunt of mining, e-waste, and climate change.

I guess what I'm trying to get at is - it's important to be cognizant of these things and reduce harm that you're doing wherever possible, but you can never be fully 100% ethical and still be a consumer of goods and services unless you do so at great inconvenience to yourself.

Re: Leaving Gmail for Mailbox.org

#382

Post by palata »

jacooper wrote: post #379
palata wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

All navigation apps that are built on osm have awful routing, particularly with public transport, they are almost useless. That's without taking the missing data into account (shops, opening times, basically zero reviews, etc..)

Uber and Lyft are built on OSM.

Re: Leaving Gmail for Mailbox.org

#383

Post by jesterson »

ternaryoperator wrote: post #358
jesterson wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How dod you that? I am paying them thousands per year and support is neither good nor fast. And my requests are usually well written as we deal with emails a lot and understand how it works (if you pardon my slight bragging)

I'm surprised to read this. We just email support@[the expected domain name]. Perhaps our queries are simple enough they can be handled easily.

Probably so. My volume is around 750k email per day roughly.

Recently they started tinkering with spam filter, which worked fairly well before. Now it doesnt work - good mails go to spam, spam garbage goes inbox. Support tried - I'll give them that - but almost all their advises were either not working or working just partially.

My guess is they integrating "AI" with spam filter, hence the quality decline.

I use just use help-> Open ticket and getting one response per day (this is to address timely responses). Granted I am in UTC+7, but from company as big as FastMail you would expect support around the clock.

Re: Leaving Gmail for Mailbox.org

#384

Post by jesterson »

raffraffraff wrote: post #372
jesterson wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

that’s “globally recognised”? Run from them as fast as possible if you would any of your services to work

Well obviously yes, namecheap have been around a very long time and after GoDaddy (the default in the early 2000s for most people) Namecheap became a kind of default. One would think that a company with an online presence going back over two decades, and one a relatively low number of domain registrars, is "globally recognised". Whether they're "good" or even "passable" is another matter entirely, but without switchi…

I find it surprising NameCheap is taken as default on some markets. From where I am from. NameCheap emerged is fairly recent service provider. While their services are shall we say "passable", the support is where it is absolutely atrocious. It seems like they hire eastern european staff just to explain you that you are the problem. Even GoDaddy is not famous for doing it.

Talking about decent emails providers can get discussion heated quite shortly. Historically I arrange most important chunck of mail as self hosted, but of course it's not the way many people would take.

Re: Leaving Gmail for Mailbox.org

#385

Post by opensourebuild »

Freak_NL wrote: post #329
neilv wrote: post #328

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you, that's interesting and a concern. Do you have pointers to information about the governance and legitimacy of CoMaps? (I see a mention that it's non-profit, but no statement about what kind of non-profit, not even on the donate page where that info is customary and relevant for US tax reasons. Also, I see no mention of who's who, nor how they operate.) The closest I find is this: https://www.comaps.app/supp…

Nope, all I know is what I picked up in the OpenStreetMap community, like that thread on the forums, and this open letter: https://www.comaps.app/news/2025-04-16/1/

The claim about open-source is coming from the shareholder of Organic Maps, Alex, but there is no basis to it, as the code for that repository is licensed under the Apache 2.0 license.

It appears Alex is angry about the fork and doing anything possible to spread negativity.

Re: Leaving Gmail for Mailbox.org

#386

Post by ihatehn »

neilv wrote: post #328
Freak_NL wrote: post #294

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Regarding Organic Maps: I would recommend keeping tabs on what is happening there since this year. They seem to be having significant governance issues. https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/organic-maps-open-lett... Short story: forget Organic Maps, use successor CoMaps or competitor OsmAnd. https://www.comaps.app/about-us/

Thank you, that's interesting and a concern. Do you have pointers to information about the governance and legitimacy of CoMaps? (I see a mention that it's non-profit, but no statement about what kind of non-profit, not even on the donate page where that info is customary and relevant for US tax reasons. Also, I see no mention of who's who, nor how they operate.) The closest I find is this: https://www.comaps.app/supp…

Very astute! Legally the code is owned by each contributor and licensed via the DCO. Financially the project is underneath the umbrella of the Platform 6 co-op (see OpenCollective)

This is temporary though and a permanent nonprofit home is a top priority.

Re: Leaving Gmail for Mailbox.org

#387

Post by hwj »

litmus-pit-git wrote: post #101

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 o…

I did exactly that (left mailbox.org for Purelymail). Advantages of Purelymail:

- cheaper

- unlimited number of subaccounts (e.g. for family members)

- unlimited number of domain names

- support is handled by CEO himself

Re: Leaving Gmail for Mailbox.org

#388

Post by Propelloni »

Propelloni wrote: post #281
prof-dr-ir wrote: post #119

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

Set up your Hetzner boxes in a European location so that they are in the same network zone. Activate automatic snapshots and Hetzner does 7 snapshots (a full image of your box) a day. The snapshot is never saved at the same location as the server running your box, but at one of the other locations in the same network zone.

I just noticed, with the move to VPS into the "Cloud" section, there apparently are no automatic snapshots anymore. Sad. You can still make manual snapshots or activate automatic backups, which are more expensive. Backups are saved in a different location than your server, too.

Re: Leaving Gmail for Mailbox.org

#389

Post by ihatehn »

BeetleB wrote: post #162
palata wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

Someone showed me OSMAnd recently while we were hiking. I installed it as soon as I got home. Great for hiking. Then last week I used it for navigation (on a phone with no SIM card). Absolutely. Terrible. Worst navigation app I've seen. Told me to make a turn at an intersection that did not allow turns. Then at another intersection, it told me to "Turn left", but the display clearly showed it going straight. I'm gues…

On top of the OsmAnd user experience being a little rough (it can do a lot, but not gracefully) it relies on accurate OSM data underneath. So the best thing to do is at least make a Note on OSM, or edit it yourself, and mark that intersection as having a no-turns-allowed restriction.

Even Google is relying on user submissions to keep its stuff accurate these days, they just have money to pay editors and reviewers.

Re: Leaving Gmail for Mailbox.org

#390

Post by ihatehn »

jacooper wrote: post #379
palata wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

All navigation apps that are built on osm have awful routing, particularly with public transport, they are almost useless. That's without taking the missing data into account (shops, opening times, basically zero reviews, etc..)

It's all user submitted. It takes someone caring enough to fix it, to make it work. Check out StreetComplete, Every Door, Vespucci, and/or CoMaps to help add/fix data
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