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
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)_/¯
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.
So the whole “we encrypt your life” thing is pretty nice. But in reality look at what you’re actually doing… You have super secure encrypted email to do what? Send unencrypted emails to your friends…
It makes no sense to me… Like, you need an encrypted calendar? Why? What are you getting with encryption that you can’t get with using a VPN to connect to your local network and access a self-hosted calendar. In what was is that less secure?
Drive? Sure. VPN? Sure. Password manager? Sure. Documents? Sure. I see the value in having H/A for services like this, but all of that can be self-hosted on an rPi in your basement with a rProxy and a domain.
One reason is to prevent targeted advertisement.
It doesn’t, though. Not even a little bit. Using encrypted services doesn’t stop tracking cookies. That too has to be handled client side. So you would use a browser that lets you use host files via extensions (firefox, etc) and other tracking blocking extensions, or you can setup network wide protection via Adguard Home, etc.
It does. You need both. Even if you have cookies disabled, Gmail can read all of your emails and use that information.
You need both.
For the third time now–not if the service/device you’re using contains both the password and the 2FA… How is this not getting through?
If someone gets into my Bitwarden install, and gets access to both my passwords and my 2FA seeds, in what way does 2FA protect me? I kept all the family jewels in one place. That’s the exact situation two factor authentication is designed to prevent by forcing you to have an additional and separate device/key/passcode/password.
Say it a fourth time if you want to continue feigning ignorance. You’re assuming that the only way your credentials could be compromised is if your password manager it compromised. 2FA would not protect that specific use case if you store both authentication methods in your password manager. However, it does still protect your services from other types of compromises, which is better than no 2FA at all.
This community is just as bad as the one on Reddit. Bunch of candies that run around with a VPN thinking they’re security experts meanwhile they’re the type of person who lets their son get shot because the password to their gun safe is
0000and they’re just flabbergasted that the gun safe didn’t work…
The whole universe
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 honestly don’t see the big deal with people hating on proton. It’s still open source it’s still encrypted and doesn’t mine your data that seams to check most of the boxes for me. The only problem I had with it was the default main client which shows upgrades to go unlimited all the time but I just use Thunderbird now.
The hate for proton is because the CEO Andy Yen retweeted Trump announcing his pick for assistant attorney general for antitrust cases. His retweet included commentary fawning over Republicans as “standing for the little guys.” When criticized the company doubled down and supported him but then said they wouldn’t be making any more comments because it was a distraction.
If that isn’t enough, someone noticed that CEO Andy’s Reddit username is ”andy1011000.” The numbers at the end are binary for “88” - a well known pro-Nazi dog whistle. He says this is only a coincidence and is meant to refer to being born in 1988.
So in summary he is publicly praising fascists and has a username which coincidentally has a pro-Nazi reference.
I get the controversy about the CEO being controversial but the services that proton make are still very good for the most part. And since they’re open source and encrypted you don’t need to trust proton anyway (aside from the VPN).
According to Wikipedia pages 14, 18, 1488, 8814 are also common Nazi’s symbols. I personally feel the birthday explanation more likely as I see a lot of people doing that (without the nerdy base 2).
But yeah, I’m not sure of anything now, if you told me a few years ago that dozens of billionaires would go full on highlander on 2025 I wouldn’t have believed you…
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.
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
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
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.
Proton’s probably the best mail.
Calendar: paper
Documents: cryptpad
As others have said no all-in-one solution, but Privacy Guides has good recommendations for each use case
Custom domain + migadu.com
ENTE for photo storage: https://ente.io/
Crypt.ee is also an option.
Have a look at: https://www.privacyguides.org/en/tools/
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.
