To replace everything. Mail, calendar, drive, vpn, password manager, documents etc. What are the pros and cons relative to proton? What are the mobile apps like? What assurances do you have they won’t go full proton in the future? And other questions
The whole universe
What assurances do you have they won’t go full proton in the future?
Absolutely none. That applies to all services that exist now or in the future. The only way around that is self-hosting but that path has its own issues including a very steep learning curve if you want to be secure as well as private. Maybe this could be a longer term project to work towards?
For services:
- Mail - Mailbox.org seems the best option right now
- Calendar - don’t know.
- Drive - either Cryptomator used with literally any service or a dedicated service like Filen
- VPN - Mullvad
- Password Manager - Bitwarden
- Documents - I just use LibreOffice offline or CryptPad occasionally if I’m collabing with someone.
In truth none of these are perfect. Privacy has got a lot harder recently as Proton and StartMail/StartPage have politically shit the bed and the UK seems determined to kill encryption which means I have to avoid really good services like IceDrive just because they’re in the UK.
What happened with StartPage?
I can personally recommend fruux for calendars and contacts, but their free accounts are rather limited.
I can’t find anything specific on their data security - do you have a link to that?
Can you provide any link for what Startpage has done wrong? I’m familiar with the Proton situation but hadn’t heard anything about Startpage. I’ve actively been looking for non-US based search engines.
Regarding Password Managers, you can put a little extra effort into setup with KeePass + SyncThing to avoid using 3rd parties at all.
Highly recommend not relying on a cloud provider for this kind of thing. You’re just asking for one of two things to happen:
- Their servers get compromised
- They decide to shut down
I know you can self-host with vaultwarden, but if you’re not a self-hoster then it’s a little bit simpler to setup SyncThing and use the kdbx format.
Thats a good point, I might set that up myself!
At the moment I do a once-a-week encrypted export from BitWarden and Aegis (authenticator) and put those exports onto an encrypted USB pen drive to avoid the issues you mention but I think your way is probably better.
Things I have changed to or plan to
Tutamail for e-mail and calendar
Plan to change Filen for cloud services
F-secure’s Freedome for VPN
For the rest I’m looking for good solutions as well and also opinions on Filen or if there’s other alternatives that might be better
ENTE for photo storage: https://ente.io/
Crypt.ee is also an option.
Have a look at: https://www.privacyguides.org/en/tools/
Crypt.ee looks like a solid option to replace proton drive and docs(only for solo use) if you don’t mind their UI/UX. It also gives me confidence in them when I read their FAQ and listen to the podcasts episodes the CEO has been intertwined in.
Podcast episodes
https://neat.tube/videos/watch/cf2d43d7-56ab-42d6-82af-a0375ab7f8ca or on odysee https://odysee.com/@techlore:3/developing-privacy-tools-with-john-ozbay:3
https://neat.tube/videos/watch/2d5e2d92-f440-498b-ad1c-c2fa3d3c720b or on odysee https://odysee.com/@techlore:3/how-secure-is-big-tech-other-digital:0
https://neat.tube/videos/watch/4a279d2f-dbf3-4cb9-b5e0-377950dd702f or on odysee https://odysee.com/@techlore:3/privacy-dilemmas-education%2C-toxicity%2C:c
I currently self-host NextCloud and run TailScale to access my home network and use as an exit node for a secure connection when I’m out and about ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
It does not offer all the options from proton but I bought my own domain from OVH provider (France). Can configure email addresses in their admin user interface. I have one main account that I do not disclose. So when I need to create an account somewhere, I just go to OVH web interface and create a new alias for my main email.
The day OVH goes dark, I’ll just have to move my domain somewhere else.
Check out Addy.io. This would make your email alias creation much easier and manageable from your phone. They even have an api and direct integration into various password managers.
Self host email and nextcloud. Keepass for pw manager. I use davx5 and fossify calendar for mobile calendar. Nextcloud mobile just manages your files and doesn’t have the other Nextcloud apps.
Idc about Proton either way though. Imo if proton was fine for you before then it’s fine for you now. I just prefer to have control over my own services.
I remember when the Chick-fil-A CEO got a lot of flack. While I disagree with him, I still eat at CFA. Until I feel like the quality of the service is or will be compromised, I do not plan on migrating off of Proton.
Incoming mail: my own server and my own domain (Postfix). Sufficient to receive confirmation mails and notifications.
Outgoing mail: no good/reliable solution yet. I have to send personal e-mail very very rarely.
Calendar: Tasks.org app, used offline (not synced).
Drive: 1TB external HDDs. GPG encrypted backups of important stuff are uploaded regularly to one of the VPSes I have.
VPN: Tor
Password manager: KeepassXC (with backups at 3 places).
Documents: Stored on computer, important ones are backed up. Confidential ones are stored on an encrypted LUKS volume which I only mount when I need something.
In general things I need on the go (e.g Calendar) is on my phone, the rest is at home at my computer. If I need to move data between devices I simply use USB drives. I don’t need no cloud sync of anything.
mailbox.org but i dont put all my eggs in one basket. I only mailbox for mail.
Proton’s probably the best mail.
Calendar: paper
Documents: cryptpad
disroot
Tuta will show you ads in your mailbox, don’t fall for it.
I’ve had Tuta for years and can’t recall ads… what do you mean?
And I am a newer tuta user ( a year or so) and haven’t seen an ad yet either.
I’ve never seen an ad in my mailbox. Even if they did, they have to make money somehow. At least they’re not selling my data.
they have to make money somehow.
I was a paying costumer.
Tuta is a great german alternative with e-mail and calendar. For Drive there is many options but I don’t feel recommanding one now For VPN there is Mullvad, IVPN and NymVPN(beta) For Password Manager there is BitWarden or any popular KeePass clients but sync is mainly on you. For Documents there is CryptPad
I wholeheartedly agree with Tuta over Proton Mail!
And to add to password manager, KeePass + SyncThing is excellent if you need to access your vault on multiple devices without any 3rd parties involved.
Tuta for mail & calendar, CryptPad for cloud docs and spreadsheets, Mullvad for VPN, plus a few other random things like Disroot which offers email and and some other services. There’s some overlap and duplication but I don’t want to keep all my shit in one place any more. The Tuta app is blocky but acceptable. Everything else I only view in browsers.
