Welcome! This is a community for all those who are interested in protecting their privacy.
PS: Don't be a smartass and try to game the system, we'll know if you're breaking the rules when we see it!
Some of these are only vaguely related, but great communities.
Gmail's only feature that made it compelling was an inbox of 1GB when everyone else was doing 20MB. Oh, and using Ajax to make it slightly more responsive.
None of the other stuff they added matters, especially if you're using a mail client.
I also think labels are the right way to organise emails. It was pretty unique at the time, and I think it still isn't common.
And frankly, I like gmail's interface more than Thunderbird's, for example.
As someone who hosts their own email server and uses Gmail, I can tell you the biggest feature they offer that I have trouble replicating is labels.
Those in the know are probably familiar that labels are essentially special IMAP folders. The challenge I've had is making these folders work well, finding a mail client (both web based and app based) that works with it, and is easy to manage.
My last attempt to get this to work was setting up a DocumentDB database where the labels were metadata and they were then looked up by Courier IMAP. But it didn't work well.
I've been looking into this problem for over 10 years and it kills me that this simple feature is important enough to keep my personal email in Google.
Like Google is going to do that. The entire reason for gmails existence is to gather data from its users.
It's ridiculous how user data has become such a big commodity.
You mean to say that if a service or product is free, we are the product?
Ultra Private E-Mail
look inside
The most basic ass unencrypted email
Is Proton still an alternative? I subscribed to Tuta for a year but I'm not too happy with their apps. Feels like low-grade web apps disguised as mobile apps.
Used it for years now, 100% worth the money and the bundled cloud storage and vpn are both great.
I'd say yes. Have been using ProtonMail as main mail service for several years now. There are some limitations because of encryption, but for the most part it's working almost the same as GMail. I've had Tutamail too, but I too didn't like the design of their app, it was very restricted and lacked features of almost any kind.
I think their new (not so new anymore) mobile app has been a major improvement. It is much faster and usable IMHO. This on Android (degoogled).
I am quite happy with the service, and so is my family (non-techie).
Sadly, that is true for many email providers. I do use Tuta, because I use web apps only. However, a decent provider is Disroot. You do have to set up the encryption things by yourself, but IIRC, you can use any desktop/mobile/whatever client you want to.
honestly i believe the reason so many people are never gonna switch from google is because so many services allow you to use your google as an easy one click register/login. its so convenient that i have friends who'd rather have all their privacy be infringed than to give that up.
not to mention the dozens of services google provides themselves, from maps to mail to search to whatever the fuck
similar to apple, its an ecosystem. one of convenience.
It's called the Googleverse.
Many people don't know the difference between the Google search bar and the URL bar anymore.
100%. it's SO annoying to remember passwords especially when my phone doesn't auto save them 50% of the time because it doesn't feel like it.
Email doesn't need "features." It's been a solved problem for decades.
It does need a PGP integration.
I mean I know why it won't, and never in Gmail, but we do need it.
You'd be surprised how seamlessly https://flowcrypt.com/ integrates with gmail. Been using it for years, zero complaints.
It's not like Proton mail is the only alternative. And like the article points out, you don't get encryption anyway, since almost no one else you'd be communicating with is going to be on Proton. I use (and recommend) posteo.de but there are other good alternatives for email. But if you want encrypted communication you'll need to use an app designed for that, not email.
I never quite understand why people use Proton. It just automates the exchange of PGP/GPG keys, but only if the other person also uses Proton, right?
Anyhow, +1 to paying a small amount of money for email. I was with posteo.de myself for many years. I heard mailbox.org is even better/safer and has slightly more features. Both start at 1€/month.
BTW, I set up an eternal redirect email address a long time ago, so I can change the actual provider without having to tell all my contacts.
It also encrypts your emails automatically (both incoming and outgoing) and lets you set PGP keys for any address you want, and fetch/manually trust Proton Mail users' keys.
To be precise, even when an email is not from Proton user, they encrypt it with ypur public key, send it to you and delete it (they call it zero access). Which is the best you can get. Also managing PGP keys, especially on multiple devices is a pain.
Gmail has features? Fucking where?
What features does Gmail even have to sacrifice? It’s just basic email.
If any of y’all could show me how to auto forward mail to a more private and secure mail hosting service I’d much appreciate it. I’m trying to de-Google my life and Gmail is the only one that feels far too embedded to drop
Generally you can do it from settings with automatic forwarding feature.
See this article for actual instructions.
Consider that:
For the first point, Proton migration tool (from gmail) works flawlessly and doesn't disclose your new address (plus it moves all your previous emails). I didn't try similar tools for other vendors but I am sure they have similar options.
For me it took months to get the bulk of the services moved over, I added a label to all emails forwarded and I periodically reviewed them. It's a perfect occasion to change password or delete the account.
Proton literally does it as part of the signup process, you just log in and it does it for you
I send all of mine to a specific folder I can check later
When I switched from Gmail to Mailbox.org, they had a migration to transfer all my existing data over.
From there, you can either set up gmail to forward emails to your new address.
Or you can use your new service to pull email from Gmail.
Either way is easy to do.
Congrats on wanting to make the switch!
Rocking postfix and dovecot with opendkim.
I’ll never understand why Facebook didn’t just offer opt-in privacy features to placate the small percentage of the population that care and make noise about these things. They’d likely still be a major hub and would’ve lost a small slice of a much bigger pie.
Because Opt-in is their kryptonite. They know very well that 99% of their users never change the default settings. They will fight tooth and nail against privacy by default because it's against their business model.
Yeah that’s what I mean. Add privacy features but make them opt in.
I highly recommend Disroot.org. I switched as part of my deGoogling and I am very happy.
