10 ms·

I don't like the idea of moving from google's ecosystem to proton. While they're better, ecosystems tend to get locked down or change for the worse.I'm not plan

I don't like the idea of moving from google's ecosystem to proton. While they're better, ecosystems tend to get locked down or change for the worse.I'm not planning to repeat the google cycle. I got my own domain for email, bitwarden for passwords, firefox forks for browsing, and many other stuff to get off google. Also I realised that stuff like contacts, notes, calendar don't really need to be on the cloud, but I'm planning to self host some services like that, mostly for the nerd in me.

godelski 9mo ago
> I got my own domain for email Doesn't this make migrating easier? Since you are just changing where it directs to? Edit: s/mining/migrating
- viraptor 9mo ago
  Mining?
  - godelski 9mo ago
    lol thanks for the catch. Meant migrating
omnimus 9mo ago
Well WebDav/CalDav/CardDav works quite OK. Baïkal is trivial to selfhost (cal+card) then you just pick some webdav implementation like KaraDav/PicoDav/FlyDav and you are good. Email is really the one that requires lot of caring about so not easy to self host.
- throw-12-16 9mo ago
  You can self host email in an afternoon, its not nearly as bad as people make it out to be.
  - cromka 9mo ago
    It's not about configuration but rather your IP reputation and the struggle to not have your mail go straight to addressee's spam folder.
    - throw-12-16 9mo ago
      Thats just a matter of buying a decent IP and setting up DMARC and DKIM. I see this reasoning as the #1 reason not to self host, but it really isn't a big issue once you do the initial setup.
      - kassner 9mo ago
        > Thats just a matter of buying a decent IP Please expand on this. Public cloud IPs would be on spam lists, and providers like Hetzner and OVH aren’t any better. Where does one go to buy a decent IP?
        throw-12-16 9mo ago
        Use an IP reputation tool like https://mxtoolbox.com/blacklists.aspx https://mxtoolbox.com/blacklists.aspx What you will find is that many dedicated IP's from larger vendors are fine. I personally use Hetzner and don't have any issues with reputation at all.
        kassner 9mo ago
        I had troubles with Apple blocking a bunch of range IPs from OVH, because they don’t handle abuse claims. It didn’t show up in blocklists at the time, but was in practice unusable. IME anything that can be purchased by an average developer is in some list nowadays and deliverability is always crap (with luck it lands on spam folder).
- cromka 9mo ago
  IMHO the problem starts when you need to share your calendar with the outside, then you need to expose that service to the Internet and, to me, it's a whole different level of complexity making sure it remains safe.
  - 28304283409234 9mo ago
    If read only is good enough, a simple export of the .ics to a bucket can suffice.
- kavouras 9mo ago
  Yes I'm aware, what I'm saying is, in the time between setting up my home server again, I've realised it's not even that useful. I used to think that having my todo and calendar locally on my phone was unusable.
whazor 9mo ago
We should all have e-mail backups regardless of which service we are on. Even Google shuts down accounts randomly. Owning your domain and having e-mail backups makes it easy to switch e-mail services.
- miki123211 9mo ago
  Owning your domain just changes your point of failure from Google to your registrar. It is not, in fact, any safer. It's not like registrars haven't randomly shut down people's domains due to accidental (or malicious) abuse reports.
  - cess11 9mo ago
    It's easier to keep track of your own IP addresses than whatever you'd hosts or DNS hack to over at Google.
  - fiskfiskfisk 9mo ago
    But as long as you're using a registrar in your own country and a TLD managed by a legal entity in your own country, you do have a path of legal recourse against both parties. It might not be successful, but you do have far better options than relying on a third party in a country far away. It's always a varying grade, not either/or.
  - boudin 9mo ago
    The risk of loosing a domain, especially if used only for email, is lower than losing a google account. Using a gmail.com means that google owns both your emails and your email address and can do whatever they want with it. Even if it's just your google account being locked for some random reason, good luck getting out of the situation and/or getting in touch with a human there. If you can't access your gmail.com address anymore then you become locked out of so many other things.
    - LightBug1 9mo ago
      Yes, I've started to think about this more seriously now in the UK. I have moderate political opinions, but I now ask myself will they be acceptable now or in the near future by the UK government or where my data is hosted (i.e. the US). Will I suddenly have an email account blocked or closed down for supporting a non-violent cause I believe in? Horrible times when this has started to become a part of my thought process.
allan_s 9mo ago
I also agree on "for personal things we don't need SaaS" and I would say do we even needs self hosted in the sense of a central server. By that I mean, could we have like for firefox , heavy clients but with client to client sync. The goal is to not need to have a always online machine while still solving the "i prefer if my emails are copied both on my laptop and my phones" . Especially as nearly all my devices are often if not always on the same LAN
- Imustaskforhelp 9mo ago
  Perhaps you might like syncthing?
  - allan_s 9mo ago
    Yes what would be better is a "libsyntching" that i can plug to a software so that it does not require additional brain power, i.e install Note app on device A and B, pair them once, fire and forget.
- lightandlight 9mo ago
  This year I moved off LastPass, and started using [Syncthing](https://syncthing.net/ https://syncthing.net/) to sync my [KeepassXC](https://keepassxc.org/ https://keepassxc.org/). It works pretty well, but doesn't have any automatic conflict resolution (I've been working on [something](https://github.com/LightAndLight/syncthing-merge https://github.com/LightAndLight/syncthing-merge) for this). Next up I'm moving my TODOs off Todoist to something local-first, and plugging that into my Syncthing setup.
- crapple8430 9mo ago
  Firefox sync clearly requires a central server. For any kind of peer to peer syncing to work you must have the machines on at the same time and accessible. And then there is the issue of NATs, including CGNATs. To work reliably these almost always have to have some kind of relays anyway (Tailscale's DERP, Syncthing also has relays). For the experience an average consumer expects, you at a minimum need a central short-lived cache.
debois 9mo ago
I agree that Google (and in the above comment MS) failed to fulfill their lofty promises (“don’t be evil” etc.) But the blame is on us: we should have known better than to entrust our data to free services run by a company whose entire revenue comes from ads. Proton is funded by our subscription payments. I think there’s reasonable hope that their incentives will remained aligned with those of their paying users.
- theshrike79 9mo ago
  Google has very good PR, people still can't grasp that they're an ad company that dabbles in hardware and services.
Akronymus 9mo ago
With proton, at least, you can just use your own domain and if they ever get bad, you just point the MX record to some other service, or self host, and pretty much have it taken care of.
bcye 9mo ago
It's a non profit so I think the risk of change for the worse is little.

godelski 9mo ago

> I got my own domain for email Doesn't this make migrating easier? Since you are just changing where it directs to? Edit: s/mining/migrating

viraptor 9mo ago
Mining?
- godelski 9mo ago
  lol thanks for the catch. Meant migrating

omnimus 9mo ago

Well WebDav/CalDav/CardDav works quite OK. Baïkal is trivial to selfhost (cal+card) then you just pick some webdav implementation like KaraDav/PicoDav/FlyDav and you are good. Email is really the one that requires lot of caring about so not easy to self host.

throw-12-16 9mo ago
You can self host email in an afternoon, its not nearly as bad as people make it out to be.
- cromka 9mo ago
  It's not about configuration but rather your IP reputation and the struggle to not have your mail go straight to addressee's spam folder.
  - throw-12-16 9mo ago
    Thats just a matter of buying a decent IP and setting up DMARC and DKIM. I see this reasoning as the #1 reason not to self host, but it really isn't a big issue once you do the initial setup.
    - kassner 9mo ago
      > Thats just a matter of buying a decent IP Please expand on this. Public cloud IPs would be on spam lists, and providers like Hetzner and OVH aren’t any better. Where does one go to buy a decent IP?
      - throw-12-16 9mo ago
        Use an IP reputation tool like https://mxtoolbox.com/blacklists.aspx https://mxtoolbox.com/blacklists.aspx What you will find is that many dedicated IP's from larger vendors are fine. I personally use Hetzner and don't have any issues with reputation at all.
        kassner 9mo ago
        I had troubles with Apple blocking a bunch of range IPs from OVH, because they don’t handle abuse claims. It didn’t show up in blocklists at the time, but was in practice unusable. IME anything that can be purchased by an average developer is in some list nowadays and deliverability is always crap (with luck it lands on spam folder).
cromka 9mo ago
IMHO the problem starts when you need to share your calendar with the outside, then you need to expose that service to the Internet and, to me, it's a whole different level of complexity making sure it remains safe.
- 28304283409234 9mo ago
  If read only is good enough, a simple export of the .ics to a bucket can suffice.
kavouras 9mo ago
Yes I'm aware, what I'm saying is, in the time between setting up my home server again, I've realised it's not even that useful. I used to think that having my todo and calendar locally on my phone was unusable.

whazor 9mo ago

We should all have e-mail backups regardless of which service we are on. Even Google shuts down accounts randomly. Owning your domain and having e-mail backups makes it easy to switch e-mail services.

miki123211 9mo ago
Owning your domain just changes your point of failure from Google to your registrar. It is not, in fact, any safer. It's not like registrars haven't randomly shut down people's domains due to accidental (or malicious) abuse reports.
- cess11 9mo ago
  It's easier to keep track of your own IP addresses than whatever you'd hosts or DNS hack to over at Google.
- fiskfiskfisk 9mo ago
  But as long as you're using a registrar in your own country and a TLD managed by a legal entity in your own country, you do have a path of legal recourse against both parties. It might not be successful, but you do have far better options than relying on a third party in a country far away. It's always a varying grade, not either/or.
- boudin 9mo ago
  The risk of loosing a domain, especially if used only for email, is lower than losing a google account. Using a gmail.com means that google owns both your emails and your email address and can do whatever they want with it. Even if it's just your google account being locked for some random reason, good luck getting out of the situation and/or getting in touch with a human there. If you can't access your gmail.com address anymore then you become locked out of so many other things.
  - LightBug1 9mo ago
    Yes, I've started to think about this more seriously now in the UK. I have moderate political opinions, but I now ask myself will they be acceptable now or in the near future by the UK government or where my data is hosted (i.e. the US). Will I suddenly have an email account blocked or closed down for supporting a non-violent cause I believe in? Horrible times when this has started to become a part of my thought process.

allan_s 9mo ago

I also agree on "for personal things we don't need SaaS" and I would say do we even needs self hosted in the sense of a central server. By that I mean, could we have like for firefox , heavy clients but with client to client sync. The goal is to not need to have a always online machine while still solving the "i prefer if my emails are copied both on my laptop and my phones" . Especially as nearly all my devices are often if not always on the same LAN

Imustaskforhelp 9mo ago
Perhaps you might like syncthing?
- allan_s 9mo ago
  Yes what would be better is a "libsyntching" that i can plug to a software so that it does not require additional brain power, i.e install Note app on device A and B, pair them once, fire and forget.
lightandlight 9mo ago
This year I moved off LastPass, and started using [Syncthing](https://syncthing.net/ https://syncthing.net/) to sync my [KeepassXC](https://keepassxc.org/ https://keepassxc.org/). It works pretty well, but doesn't have any automatic conflict resolution (I've been working on [something](https://github.com/LightAndLight/syncthing-merge https://github.com/LightAndLight/syncthing-merge) for this). Next up I'm moving my TODOs off Todoist to something local-first, and plugging that into my Syncthing setup.
crapple8430 9mo ago
Firefox sync clearly requires a central server. For any kind of peer to peer syncing to work you must have the machines on at the same time and accessible. And then there is the issue of NATs, including CGNATs. To work reliably these almost always have to have some kind of relays anyway (Tailscale's DERP, Syncthing also has relays). For the experience an average consumer expects, you at a minimum need a central short-lived cache.

debois 9mo ago

I agree that Google (and in the above comment MS) failed to fulfill their lofty promises (“don’t be evil” etc.) But the blame is on us: we should have known better than to entrust our data to free services run by a company whose entire revenue comes from ads. Proton is funded by our subscription payments. I think there’s reasonable hope that their incentives will remained aligned with those of their paying users.

theshrike79 9mo ago
Google has very good PR, people still can't grasp that they're an ad company that dabbles in hardware and services.

Akronymus 9mo ago

With proton, at least, you can just use your own domain and if they ever get bad, you just point the MX record to some other service, or self host, and pretty much have it taken care of.

bcye 9mo ago

It's a non profit so I think the risk of change for the worse is little.