Yes im aware that my search engine choice is not the best option.
Depends on how much privacy you need and how much tinkering to get things to work that you’re willing to put up with.
In general, using a variety of services will be more private than going with a single entity like Proton.
Bitwarden is self-hostable, which makes it potentially more private than Protonpass… assuming you actually set up the self-hosting.
Signal isn’t a good long-term plan, as it’s entirely hosted in the US. I don’t think there are currently any known compromises to the encryption model, but iirc the company can see all your communications metadata (which means the government could potentially as well). I don’t mind it for talking with friends, but I would recommend against it for extreme privacy needs (e.g. the government starts getting overzealous with who it counts as enemies of the state, and you or your friends become targets).
Isn’t google auth an OTP service? Proton Pass also supports that btw! Haven’t heard about Ente before and what purpose it replaces a gallery with, but again you can upload and view photos to Proton Drive as well. Although I have not yet tried it myself because I like to keep them local.
Kagi is one of the search engines I actually trust, but it is paid. I can give you trial if you want to try it out. Oh and it being US based might also be drawback.
Pretty solid list I’d say!
Thank you, Auth is on there because I had to import a bunch of accounts at once. I use Ente Photos since it’s a pretty nice UI, I never use their cloud storage though.
As others have said, remove all proton stuff that you can. You are just replacing one centralized service with another. Google started out good too and look where we are now. Never put too many eggs in one basket.
My answer to this is to use a custom domain with an email aliasing service.
I’ve gone through about half of the 400 accounts in my password manager and moved them over. I’ll migrate the rest over the next week or so.
So, I’m switching from Gmail to Proton for now, but if Proton starts to get worse or Tuta catches up on functionality or there’s a better provider that emerges or I decide to try to self-host, it’s one easy change at the alias provider to redirect all of my mail to a new email provider.
You should try migadu. Thats the most no-bs provider with custom Domains I could find
Just recently discovered Migadu and it’s all I ever wanted!
What does Migadu do? I’m not understanding what “consolidation” means in this context. ELI5?
Typically MailProvider would let you have
<yourusername>@mailprovider.tldand sometimes a limited amount of aliases, right? With some you can bring your own domain and have<yourusername>@<yourdomain>most of the time also with a limited amount of aliases.Migadu let’s you pay a flat fee, bring as many domains as you like and use unlimited aliases. Their pricing scales with actual traffic, not arbitrary limitations on your address namespace.
Oh so you’re thinking about it from the lens of a standard mail provider, correct? I was more so asking what the difference or advantage was compared to an alias service like Addy, Simple login etc.
Thanks. Since I’m just starting my privacy journey, I’m sticking with the mainstream options for now, but using an aliasing service will make it easy easy for me to switch in the future. I’ll check it Migadu and I appreciate the suggestion.
They have almost twice as many google apps though. Why didn’t you mention those?
There are arrows between the icons. The google ones are what they are switching away from.
Didn’t see anyone else say this: DDG is certainly a great choice for search engine, though I’d recommend brave search:
- If you use bangs, it has them.
- Actually operates an independent index so the search queries aren’t reliant on Microsoft Bing.
Due to several of the companies issues (and it being chromium) I don’t recommend the browser but I do really like the search engine.
Why not Startpage?
Uses google as a backend and was also bought by an ad company.
I still use it, since google sometimes cuts deals with sites like reddit such that reddit is only scrapable by google. But it’s a last resort, after duckduckgo.
Incoming Proton hate. This place has taken to that campaign exceptionally well.
Have you heard of Privacy Guides? They have a whole community of people there and provide privacy focused software and service recommendations, with lots of details explaining their reasoning.
For Google keep replacement, check out Simple Notes Sync. I’ve been using it for a few months now 🙂
A big difference (for some) is that the mailbox is not fully encrypted. However I only see that as a requirement if there is an actual potential threat against you (like as a journalist).
Also, Mailbox has app passwords, so you can control which applications can access it and a simple revocation will end it. Connecting directly is not possible for security reasons.
They also offer 25 free aliases, 50 additional ones if you use your own domain. And they do make it rather easy to set up the necessary records to send via your domain. Plus throwaway addresses (which will only exist for 90 days each and can only receive emails).
Mailbox offers a secure version for your email that’s automatically encrupted, but also supports PGP for your reg email too (what I do). Proton is only encrupted when mailing other Proton users anyway, right? I say this as a former Proton Mail user.
I’m not sure about the Proton thing, but yeah, Mailbox sets up PGP for you at server-level, which means they are still unencrypted on the server but will always be sent encrypted.
The initial mode is that they will try to negotiate whether PGP is supported by the other side, with you having the option to always use it for the price of the opposite side having to encrypt them.
You can even enforce it on a case by case basis by adding “secure.” To the mailbox.org domain, however I don’t know if that is also possible when using your own domain.
DDG is fine. It’s hard to have a “completely private” search engine as currently only Big Tech has a comprehensive enough index of the internet to effectively provide a search engine.
Obsidian isn’t FOSS though. I’d recommend Notesnook as an alternative. I haven’t tried any of the following but I also know of Logseq (which aims to do what Obsidian does but FOSS), Joplin, and Standard Notes, which you might want to look into.
Brave actually operates an independent index.
- ChatGPT -> llama.cpp
- Dropbox -> Syncthing + ZFS
- PayPal -> Atto
- Google Home -> Home Assistant
- Google Docs/Sheets -> Collabora Office
Some of these require self-hosting, so you might need Headscale or WireGuard to connect to them
Netbird is also good for connecting to them
Browser based wallet? Good god, no thx
Maps is the hardest thing to replace. I like comaps but it’s hard to find any businesses on it. They should probably start scrapping google maps because there no way to get ahead at this point.
I use Mapy (EU)
Murena Workspace and kDrive instead of Gmail/Gdrive
AlterSend (P2P) instead of DropBox
vgy.me (UK) instead of Google Photos
Search - Mojeek, Startpage, MetaGer
AI - Andisearch
Vivaldi Browser, it’s Calendar, Mail and Mail Client, Feed, Notes
Zen Browser
Mandatory Portmaster on Desktop (Windows/Linux) and InViziblePro (Mobile)
Mapy uses OSM data outside the Czech Republic, and the extra features there compared to FOSS apps are only marginally useful. However, I am in the Czech Republic so I use the year-old 9.55.2 (9550200) Android app (last version before Premium enshittification).
Have you tried Magic Earth Navigation. I tend to switch between Magic Earth and CoMaps but tend to use MAgic Earth more
Its not on fdroid?
It’s unfortunately not truly FOSS, it’s still closed source. But literally every map app with traffic data is so, I just use it to avoid Google… Use Aurora store to get it.
I don’t trust proton.
Get a 5$/ month Nextcloud instance on Hertzner or selfhost it. You’ll get 1 tb drive, calendar, notes, office suite, sync with phone, and much much more.
Or Tutamail
Just to give more unique feedback (although everything you have is good) if your willing to self host, immich add immich to google photo replacements since it’ll back up photos across devices (I haven’t personally looked at ente photos) and depending on how important hiding your traffic from your ISP is, consider replacing a VPN with TrackerControl which helps to stop apps from phoning home.
Arent you using too much proton
Ecosystems which are easy to use are great for users and the reason why Google has a monopoly. If proton is a decent privacy centered alternative then more power to them.
This is really great, especially as a jumping off point. You might consider a ranked approach, like good, better, best. Most marginally privacy conscious services are going to be better than their Google analog, but some are better.
