I’ve never downsized plan but I’ve used protonmail for I’d guess at least 5 years, it was fine then and it’s only become better as far as I’m concerned. Simplelogin (which they acquired recently) was a game changer to me, and it just became part of the plan I use, something I want to buy and not just for spite to google (anymore).
Someone else linked this YT channel; I’d go back and like their post again if I could remember which -
& I get by fine with “startpage” proxying searches.
I also really like an rss reader (freshrss) with an invidious plugin for youtube, all together, I never have to login to google anymore.
If you use Android, install F-droid and use a firewall app, such as rethinkDNS, the best most complete and feature-rich firewall + dns redirect program yet developed for android. No other program can get close in feature parity.
You will probably want to disable the google store programs, but because that is impossible without root access, you can do the next best thing, and block every domain with a dns filter. Pi-hole for local network and NextDNS for cellular and non-local networks to block all the network activity you want.
Even if a device has zero options to change dns, you can share a mobile network connection from your phone and the tethered wifi connection will use the NextDNS account and block whatever you have set.
You can make a Pi-hole somewhere on the network and still have access to it on LTE. I even know a very cheap solution that can handle small loads.
NG can do this locally, just add the appropriate blacklist and it will filter without the help of external DNS filtering. Useful if we want to have filtering on mobile and do not want to use public DNS for filtering.
The type and size of the list depends on the user, he can even build something very large, the same as he uses in pi-hole, although on a weak device it may be quite heavy on RAM.
I have recently had to kick Google Search to the kerb and use Bing as the search results Google now gives are pure useless when searching to problem solve tech issues related to programming, integration, finding bugs and issues in OSS.
Even searching keywords using specific debug log output no longer points you to useful places to help solve problems, instead some useless ecommerce website selling something. It tends to prioritise Medium.com blog post/articles for tech tutorials which are often just stolen snippets from official documentation made by someone from a low income country to make a dollar.
When it comes to searching for products/services it now just serves results from companies/websites in your country and if you live in a small country like I do then the results are very limited. I preferred when it gave world wide results as it opened your eyes to so many more options.
So overall Google search has become a terrible product to use.
Thank you for the suggestion. I think RethinkDNS provides a bit more information on why a connection was blocked, so I know whether it is my dns filter or if it is firewall settings in the program. I am interested in the local hosts file part though, but I already have this all setup, so I am not eager tp switch.
I pay for a premium Proton plan. More than I would like to but with exception to not having a native linux app for Proton drive it fits the bill rather well. I use three different addresses for one box. 500GB of storage for the important or hard to re-retrieve files (third back-up in the 1,2,3 principal), standard calendar and faster VPN speeds. Where places give issue to Proton Mail users I just have a gmail burner that really only gets checked once in a full moon or password resets for those accounts. For non-sensitive items like buying t-shirts on jockey dot com I don’t need to worry about unsubscribing to a million email distributions and I keep my Proton mailbox clean.
Have not used Proton Pass yet, I am not sure if there are teething issues. I’ve been using Bitwarden for several years now with no issue.
EDIT:
P.S. The only real places I have had trouble with sending/receiving proton mail for is for small places like my local vet and the regional place I order pretzels from. Prob less sophisticated and the people they hire just block domains as a cover all.
Hello everyone! So I decided to give ProtonMail a go. I’m about a week into using the free version and so far I’ve been liking it initally. Gmail seems to hate it though as emails I’ve sent to family landed in their spam box :P.
The considerations on the DNS side of things I’ve still have to look into, but since I already have a paid VPN service with PIA…I’ll be using that for a while.
As for F-droid, I’ll likely look into it and decide whether it’s worth using on my phone and Android Tablet.
Search engine wise, I’ve been using Brave search that’s set by default within the Brave browser. It’s been giving me most of the results I do need. I haven’t been reaching out for Google that much unless I put a search in as a question.
I was about to suggest andOTP if you were on android as I have used it successfully in the past. But I just looked at it, and it seems like its no longer maintained unfortunately.
Many password managers have built in TOTP / HOTP support.
Email is not worth self hosting. Its a pain and there is no such thing as secure since its a plain text protocol. Yes its sent with tls thats secure not private. Yes tou could encrypt the contents of said emails with age and pgp. Thats still just secure not private
So i pay for proton. I have a free tuta nota and I heavily alias and segement my email
Again. I do not use email except where I absolutely have to
What do I self host
Bitwarden (Best Password manager ive used and great for TOTP) (i use vault warden rs)
Nextcloud w/CODE (where Is store my docs and my office solution)
Pihole as a front end for my own dns
Gitlab (github and google code replacement)
Jellyfin (for media)
The arrs for media acquisition >:)
The list goes on but naturally it doesnt apply to the phone
So lets talk phones. The only acceptable OS is grapheneOS in my mind but there are others and I encourage trying them if they fit your needs
From that use fdroid. Find open source replacements. If you cant find one. Ask yourself do you need this functionality. Also degoogling without combing all elements of getting off google entirely is just a half asked job poorly done. Further more why stop there. Phase out social media and the use of anything that isnt e2ee. You will probably then be fairly private but not perfectly
Theres a lot to take in when doing this. What I suggest is plan out the ideas. Separate it into a few phases to transit towards and build on the small goals and accomplishments as you go. DO NOT burn yourself out. Its gets very difficult to upstart the effort again. @Novasty knows just how burnt out I am though I got most everything I needed done. Adding creature comforts here and there is now a multi weekend effort for me because I do not want to fuck with what is working . Only to have it break after the weekend because I forgot to test something
P.S i built all of the architecture in a week with help from a couple people. The effort itself was sleepless nights but in a way im kind of happy I did so. Just have to reengage and enjoy it again
. Only to have it break after the weekend because I forgot to test something
TIL