I much prefer Kagi over DuckDuckGo
My only major change would be to remove Mullvad.
One of the founders has made major donations to far-right groups in Sweden. People have argues that it’s his money to donate, but if paying for Mullvad puts money into the pockets of a major donor to the far-right, I’d rather support an alternative provider.
I have had a very similar user experience with IVPN, and I have heard people suggest AirVPN as a similar alternative.
So recently I’ve tried finding an alternative but when researching deeper into them I just found worse shit than mullvad. Like AirVPN having their servers seized.
For what it’s worth, I think mullvad is still the best option and worse case scenario you’re donating less than $5 to nazis which is like 2 hamburgers.
As someone else started it’s worth noting that Mullvad themselves did not donate to anything. I understand people’s argument that money to Mullvad goes to the founder and thus goes to the people they donate to and that was people’s argument for Proton as well. So do what you will as it’s everyone’s personal preference.
That’s why lists like these, while useful for those who are just looking into privacy, deGoogle, etc. to first learn of projects and services, are almost always lacking nuance without text or all the major alternatives where then people can choose based on their beliefs. 🙂
Note: I understand this is one person’s list and not a general list but just stating my thoughts on the matter as a whole.
Why not Proton as well? The CEO is not any better.
Do you consider a post supporting a Trump policy to be as bad as being the largest donor to a far-right party?
Tbf, when it comes to email services at least, your only real alternative for Proton is Mailbox.org if you use IMAP/SMTP. When it comes to Mullvad, there’s plenty of VPNs as an alternative. Plus, apparently Mullvad has lost talent in light of the controversy so their VPN might degrade in quality anyway, so there’s also that
What about Tuta?
Tuta does not support the use of third-party email clients or the protocols IMAP/POP3/SMTP as we cannot guarantee end-to-end encryption of your data.
Ah, right
They haven’t donated to political parties, have they? That would have been big news I’m pretty sure I would have seen.
Not aware of donations, but Proton’s CEO was glazing Trump around the start of his second term.
Yes, claiming that the GOP was “for the little guy” And would do antitrust on big tech.
Some people are gullible as fuck, man. Anyway I would trust Mullvad over proton as far as privacy and security goes - it’s just too bad I don’t want my money going there.
Oh, they upgraded the standard to 5 devices. I think it was just 2 in the past, which made it far more expensive than Mullvad.
Edit: One large thing missing compared to Mullvad is the proxy-based browser extension for Firefox. It let’s you select different exit server either for everything in browser, per domain, or randomize server selection per domain.
Immich is a better alternative to Google Photo
I recently made the jump. It’s crazy how much effort goes into optimising Nextcloud it still remains the most demanding thing on your server and your sanity.
tried it, but i couldnt figure out how to add my existing photos in the way i had organised them: /year/event/photo.jpeg and nextcloud made it pretty easy
Both Google Photo and Immich, treat all images individually. And assume that any grouping is done a Tag/ album level. Regardless of file name or hierarchy.
If you what to show your “event” in the UI, you would need to run a onetime script and amend album with the name of parent folder.
iDEAL is Wero now 🤗
What’s your stance on Mullvad’s founder donating significantly to a far right political party in Sweden? Feels contradictory to why I use a VPN in the first place.
Yeah for this reason alone Mullvad should no longer be considered viable. IVPN seems promising, I plan to switch to them once my subscription runs out. I don’t like how much they talk about being “politically neutral” but it’s better than donating to nazi freaks I guess.
It is noteworthy that Mullvad did not donate any money to any political party.
Same could be said of Tesla, but the profitability of the company provided funds for Elon to donate to who he wanted.
I don’t think business and founder separation is really possible.
To be a bit nitpicky, Tesla has a load of shit reputation besides having a con artist and fascist CEO. Worker’s rights abuse, accidents, false claims (lies-lies-lies).
Though it is true that Elon is *so* shit that buying Tesla would be no-go and shameful on my book even if the above wouldn’t be true. So you have a point. Personally, I categorize it as Mullvad’s founder being misled rather than genuinely corrupt and evil. But it’s subjective, and I see and respect if people think differently.
ive never heard of that before. if true, thats not good, but i still trust Mullvad’s service as they were raided a couple of times and had nothing to show the police. bc of instances like that i still believe them to be very good for privacy. if more news comes of from their CEO doing sketchy stuff i might look for another VPN though…
It is a good list. Everyone will have their own personal preferences, but I think overall the list is good.
im completely within the proton eco system, the only reason for my 2fa not being proton is because i made this choice before proton had a 2fa app and i didnt want to bother importing everything
Having never heard of it and only used the Aurora Store (recently without any issues), what does App Lounge have going for it?
Its the default of /e/os and only meant to be used with it. Its based on the Aurora library that allows access to google play apps and combines it with their own mirror of the main F-droid repo
I haven’t heard of it either. Looks like it maybe has additional features built on top of Aurora Store. At first glance, App Lounge seems very unintuitive to install. I think I’ll stick with Aurora Store for now.
idk, its just aurora + f-droid imo. its just the default for /e/os phones
This is default store on /e/os
I can’t even find a repo to install it…
Very good for you! I can’t change a lot of things cause, school, family, or i don’t understand the tech behind it, but it’s good to see other people protecting there own privacy!
yeah switching away from whatsapp is impossible. i only got my parents to switch lol
I have been waging a war of attrition getting people to switch onto Signal. After 5 years I’ve managed to get my spouse, my sister, my mother, 6 of my friends, 6 of my coworkers, and one sports team I play on to begin using it. Only real holdouts are my in-laws, two of my friends I talk to regularly, and another sports team or two. Some I’ve wooed off of basic texting, others off of WhatsApp. It’s been a long hard road, but at this point, I would estimate about 85% of my communications happen over Signal now. Keep fighting the good fight
I am self hosting matrix server, set up element in my family devices and for once we escaped the network, from time to time I do create a whatsup account while travelling, but I give up on it right after.
The ignorant will never switch if even the informed don’t make the move.
Delete it. Inform those you regularly contact that they can contact you via Signal, email, whatever, but that you don’t have WhatsApp any more.
The only way to break the network effect of WhatsApp is to leave the network.
Great job!! How are you liking /e/?
i like it :3 the default launcher “bliss” is awful, but ive used lawnchair for a while and it was nice. now i switched to ion just to try it. but yeah, pretty much everything works as exected
Anybody know of a good alternative to Google wallet? I’ve looked around on F-Droid but haven’t seen anything.
Is it tab to pay you want or store tickets and membership cards in it.
I’m specifically looking for credit card storage. When I asked I forgot that Google wallet also does tickets and membership cards.
Catima? Of maybe Walt in the future?
Catima seems really solid. I’ll probably be using it for a while.
And it’s a shame Walt isn’t ready yet, and probably won’t work for me since I live in the U.S.
I think it has been implemented in microG. Even this sounds weird to me. I wouldn’t expect any bank to allow open source NFC card implementations, while blocking unofficial ROMs.
Have one for meetup?
🔥🔥 Well done! It is a fun journey right :) I’m still enjoying discovering better alternatives
its an awesome journey :3 for some of these its a real shame they’re an “alternative” and not just the primary choice
