#fastmail

[jexetic]

Zoho Mail: too complicated

I was thinking about switching from Fastmail ($5/month) to Zoho Mail ($15/year). Obvious the price is great. However, at least for now, I’ve decided switching to Zoho is way too complicated.

The Fastmail interface is nice. I also recently discovered a Mac desktop app for it. It sync all my contacts to iOS perfectly, and the app there is good too. Overall, I’m extremely happy with it. I never have any issues with email, contacts, or calendar. I never really have to think about them. Fastmail just works. And $5 a month isn’t really that expensive.

Zoho mail would probably work. But the amount of settings worry me that transferring everything over won’t go completely smoothly. Part of this is just moving platforms in general. But Zoho just seems like it has way too much going on. Fastmail does a few things, and I think it does them really well. The app, in my opinion, doesn’t look as good as Fastmail.

I don’t know. I’m sure if I wanted to spend a few hours getting really familiar with Zoho mail, I could transfer my domains over and get everything setup to a point that I know it is stable. But I don’t feel like it is worth the time and thought.

[undyinglantern]

so what’s a good alternative to gmail?

[ailurinae]

Free Protonmail has a lot of limits though, really only good for minor things, you can't do many rules to sort into folders etc. Plus the UX isn't super great (though much better than in the past). For me free Protonmail would never be usable for my main email.

If you can afford to pay I highly recommend Fastmail or other paid email. Paid protonmail could work, but even then other ones have better UX.

Are there any email services you recommend? I'd love to ditch my gmail and maybe my outlook too.

Protonmail! I recommend protonmail!

There is some prior history where you'll see people complaining that protonmail shared customer data but the data they shared is data that is 100% necessary to be unencrypted as a result of email protocol and cannot be hidden even in extremely secure email (that protocol is why email is inherently insecure and if you want a secure messaging tool just use signal). As a result of the subpoena that forced them to share that data, they changed their retention policy in favor of keeping less data to better protect users.

WEIRD side issue: I've created a few online shopping accounts that did not allow me to create an account with a protonmail address; it's worthwhile to keep a throwaway gmail for exactly those kinds of things and those kinds of things only.

[the-daughter-of-lilith]

Things to consider in regards to your privacy, remaining connected, and informed:

- Invest in a burner and Faraday bag if possible

- Use a separate identity on platforms (fakepersongenerator.com)

- Utilize throw away emails for sign ups (FastMail)

- Consider reformatting your device for a privacy focused OS like Graphene

- Utilize privacy focused apps like Signal and ProtonMail

- Keep up to date with news through sites like SoylentNews or GroundNews

- Use Brave or Firefox w/ privacy extensions

- Review privacy settings and permissions (Apply the Zero-Trust principal)

- Use a VPN that's not US based (ProtonVPN, Mullvad, etc.)

- Remove location metadata from your photo settings

- Consider all images can be geolocated

- Use a Virtual Credit Card (VCC) for purchases

- Use personal data removal services like Spokeo or Intelius

- Do not enable biometrics

- Airplane mode is your friend

- Join privacy based communities like r/privacy

[kennak]

GCP (Google Cloud Platform) で働くことになると言われたとき、私は乗り気ではありませんでした。 私生活では Google 製品には近づかないようにしています。 Fastmail の場合は Gmail、DuckDuckGo の検索、iOS の場合は Android、Firefox の場合は Chrome をオフにしました。 それはプライバシーとは何の関係もありません。実際、Google が私の個人データをどのように使用するかをかなりよく理解しており、イデオロギー レベルでそれに反対していないと感じています。 機能面で私に十分な利益が得られるのであれば、個人データの使用について十分な情報に基づいた決定を下すことに問題はありません。 私は個人的な生活ではほとんど Google サー���スから離れています。Google がどのように意思決定を行っているのか理解できないからです。 私は Reader や Google の墓場のようなものを殺すことについて話しているのではありません。 企業は何かを試みますが、うまくいかないことがよくあります。それが人生です。 それは、基礎技術がどのように認識されているかさえ分からないということです。 Google 社員に大きく依存している Golang は うまく いっているでしょうか? 彼らはそれに満足しているのでしょうか、それとも危険にさらされているのでしょうか？ Flutter は終焉に近づいているのでしょうか、それとも繁栄しているのでしょうか? 彼らは Gmail を気に入っているのでしょうか、それとも今月 Gmail を担当する幹部からの人気がなくなってしまったのでしょうか? Google 内で何かがうまくいっているのか、それともうまくいっていないのかを把握できないため、Google のスタックを自分の生活に取り入れることに不安を感じています。

GKE (Google Kubernetes Engine) レビュー

[luckyluke-owo]

Degoogle with me 💕

General resources:

Personal Recs

Gmail:

Protonmail and Tutanota are IMO the best gmail alternatives. I have however heard very good things about Fastmail.

Google Search:

Startpage: Google results without all the BS

Ecosia: Sustainability focus, Results from Google and/or bing.

Qwant: Privacy focused, Bing results + their own Index

Brave Search: Completely independent index, my personal favorite.

Browser:

Librewolf: Privacy focused Firefox fork

Waterfox: Same as librewolf, but with a very nice mobile app as well

Zen Browser: Similar to the Mac exclusive Arc browser, Privacy focused with a lot of very nice features. Very aesthetically pleasing. Available on windows, Mac AND Linux! One of my personal favorites.

Floorp: Japanese browser based on Firefox, very similar to Vivaldi browser, another one of my personal favourites.

Mullvad Browser: Privacy focused, open source, free, developed with Tor! Best used in combination with Mullvad VPN

Photos:

Ente: Privacy focused cloud photo storage, encrypts everything before backing up, doesn't take forever to load like proton drive does. Very affordable. Has some fun features similar to Google Photos, but running locally on the device.

Drive:

Nexcloud: Best alternative but self hosting. Worth getting into self hosting for, IMO. Comes with Collabora too as a Docs replacement, which is fantastic.

Filen.io: Haven't tested myself, allegedly next best thing to self hosting. Encrypted and client side.

Syncthing: Not a cloud service, but it may do what you need, syncthing is a continuous file synchronization program, meaning it syncs files in two devices in real time, not storing these files in any server, it just matches them across the devices.

Youtube:

Arguably the hardest part of de-googling.

Grayjay is, in my opinion, the best solution for this case.

Maps:

Another really hard one, I'm personally still testing alternatives. As I find navigation to be quite more sensitive, I don't feel comfortable recommending any I haven't personally tried and trust myself. As of right now, HERE we go has been working decent enough for me as someone who Doesn't Drive.

Everything I personally recommended that's not a phone app also works on Linux, so if you wanna ditch Microsoft too while you're at it, these should help you in the process.

I'm fairly certain I've forgotten some categories of interest, feel free to ask for anything else, though looking it up on the subreddit will most likely bring up just about every alternative.

And that's about it from me! Hope this helped at least a little bit, good luck on ditching Google!

[syservicenter]

Моя електронна Пошта

FASTMAIL

[l3hm]

A Beginner's Guide to Fastmail: Secure and Private Email for Businesses

What is Fastmail and How Does it Work? For over 25 years, Fastmail has been offering a premium inbox experience that prioritizes your time and privacy. But what exactly is Fastmail, and how does it work? Fastmail: A History of Innovation Fastmail’s journey began in 1999 as a small, independent email provider. Over the years, it has evolved into an employee-owned company that values its customers’…

[havnblog]

Det er på tide at NRK, og offentlige instanser, går foran og omfavner åpne sosiale medier

I dag kan jeg gå in på nrk.no uansett om jeg bruker Chrome, Safari eller Firefox.

Og jeg kan sende et nyhetstips til 03030@nrk.no uansett om e-postadressa mi er noe@gmail.com, noe@hotmail.com eller noe@mittnavn.no – og uansett om jeg bruker Outlook, Apple Mail, eller Fastmail.

Jeg kan også melde meg på nyhetsbrevet til regjeringa uavhengig av hvilke e-post-leverandør jeg bruker. Og når de sender ut e-poster, så vet de at alle følgerne vil motta dette. Dette er fordi det åpne nettet, og e-post, er bygget på åpne standarder og protokoller.

Internett-domener er også ganske sterke saker: Et kjent tips for å unngå phishing, er å se nøye på domenet – enten i nettleseren eller i e-post-adresser. For det skal ganske mye til at utenforstående får tilgang på noe som slutter på nrk.no eller regjeringa.no.

Men de fleste sosiale medier er ikke åpne på samme måte.

Likevel så synes jeg absolutt det er relevant for både tradisjonelle medier og offentlige instanser og personer å også være på disse.

La oss bruke NRK som eksempel – og først deres Facebook-side, som et eksempel på manglende åpenhet og kontroll:

Fra et brukerperspektiv, er det ikke bra at jeg må ha en Facebook-konto (med alle personvern-implikasjonene dette medfører). Jeg kan ikke følge sida med en SnapChat- eller TikTok-konto – eller en konto som ikke sporer meg. Vil jeg følge NRK der, må de lage (og opprettholde) separate sider der.

Så det er ikke optimalt fra NRKs perspektiv heller! I tillegg er det slik at det er Meta som er ansvarlige for verifiseringen (i motsetning til med domenet). Og selv om NRK har 474 tusen “følgere” på Facebook, så er det algoritmene som bestemmer i hvilken grad det NRK poster når ut. Og det er Meta som har kontroll på disse følgerne – NRK kan ikke ta dem med seg et annet sted.

Alternativet

Men det kan være sånn at jeg, uansett hvilket type sosialt medium jeg foretrekker, kan følge @forsida@nrk.no, eller @underholdning@nrk.no, og så få hva enn de velger å legge ut der.

At NRK da kun trengte å opprettholde én flate ut mot sosiale medier – en flate de selv har kontroll på og eierskap til.

At brukere kunne vite at det var de offisielle kontoene, ikke fordi et stort selskap langt borte har bestemt det, men fordi at NRK (og andre) kan bevise det gjennom domener.

At det er NRK selv som har kontroll, så det ikke blir som da Musk plutselig valgte å fjerne verifiseringa av New York Times.

Og at NRK kan velge å flytte følgerne sine til en annen tjeneste, hvis de skulle ønske.

Protokollen

For, på samme måte som e-post, og nettet generelt, er åpent på grunn av protokoller og standarder, finnes dette også for sosiale medier og nærliggende tjenester. Og den mest åpne av disse, som også støttes av W3C (nettets kontrollorgan) er noe som heter ActivityPub.

Det er selvsagt ikke like mange brukere på medier som støtter dette. (De største aktørene har, av åpenbare grunner, kraftige insentiver for å låse ned innholdet sitt og brukerene sine.) Men nettopp derfor er det viktig at allmennkringkasteren og offentlige instanser, som ikke har de samme profitt-drevne kravene, går foran.

Og det er ikke som om dette er noe bare noen ytterst få driver med: Meta selv bygger faktisk ut støtte for dette i Threads (med sine 200 millioner brukere), mens Mastodon1 er en annen aktør, som alltid har hatt full støtte. Instagram-alternativet PixelFed er an annen tjeneste. WordPress, som over 60 % av alle nettsider kjører på, har også bygget inn støtte, og det samme gjelder blogge- og nyhetsbrev-tjenesten Ghost og nettmagasin-tjenesten Flipboard.

I sterk motsetning til Meta, så er Mastodon er non-profit basert i Tyskland – og hele kildekoden er åpen og tilgjengelig for alle. Så NRK kan altså for eksempel kjøre @nrk.no (og så legge til alle slags brukere og undersider de vil) gjennom Mastodon og ActivityPub – og da vil de ha full kontroll selv, mens brukere kan følge dem med kontoer fra både Mastodon, Threads*, Pixelfed, Micro.blog, valgfri RSS-leser, og mer.

Kollektivet av alle disse tjenesten, som kan snakke med hverandre via ActivityPub, har fått det hyggelige navnet Allheimen.

Sommerfuglen i rommet

Et alternativ, som tross alt er mye mer åpent enn X og Instagram, er Bluesky. Men det er et par grunner til at jeg ikke anbefaler dette i denne saken:

De har valgt å ikke støtte W3C-standarden ActivityPub, og har i stedet gått for å lage sin egen.

Og denne er laget på en måte som vil gjøre det svært mye vanskeligere for aktører som NRK å drifte selv.

Det vil dessuten være mulig å sette opp en bro fra ting som @forsida@nrk.no, så Bluesky-brukere også kan følge dem.

Og selv om Bluesky har mye edlere hensikter enn de største der ute, så er det likevel risikokapital og Silicon Valley som står bak – som jeg selv tenker ikke trenger mer innflytelse.

Svaret er ikke å lukke ned, men å åpne opp

NRK har snakka om viktigheten av å ikke være for avhengige av tredjeparter, og om å styrke egne plattformer – og dette støtter jeg. Men måten NRK “løste” dette med egne podkaster, var helt feil. For i stedet for å omfavne den åpne standarden bak podkaster2 så valgte de å tvinge folk inn i egen app. Dersom de ikke ønsket å bidra til Apple og Spotifys bunnlinje med sitt eget innhold (fair!), så kunne de gjort sånn jeg måtte gå inn på NRK-brukeren min på nettet for å få podkast-strømmene. Da kunne jeg fortsatt hørt på dem i podkast-spilleren jeg foretrekker, men NRK beholdt kontrollen.

I saken nevnt over, sa også rådgiver for sosiale medier i NRK følgende:

Publikums medievaner endrer seg over tid og en allmennkringkaster må endre seg i takt med sitt publikum.

Men jeg vil i tillegg si at en allmennkringkaster også påvirker sitt publikum. Og derfor er det problematisk å basere tilstedeværelsen i sosiale medier på platformer som bidrar til at brukerne låses ned og spores. Og da har jeg ikke en gang nevnt de andre tvilsomme aspektene ved firmaer som Meta, X og ByteDance. NRK kan kombinere det å ha sterke egne flater og det å være til stedet der folk er (som i sosiale medier) – så lenge de velger riktig teknologi.

Offentlige instanser

I tillegg til allmennkringkasteren, så er mye av det jeg har nevnt også aktuelt for offentlige instanser (og personer). Og her vil jeg bruke Politiloggen som eksempel: For det var bra de sluttet å basere seg på en X-konto! Men de valgte altså å lage en egen nettside og egen app (som sikkert ikke var helt gratis). Denne løsninga skalerer dårlig – for det ville være irriterende å måtte laste ned en egen app for hver eneste instans man vil følge.

Hvor mye bedre hadde det ikke vært om politiet satte opp en løsning med for eksempel Mastodon? Politiet ville fått masse kode og infrastruktur gratis (på grunn av åpen kildekode), og likevel hatt full kontroll. Og da ville brukere kunne følge @loggen@politiet.no eller @oslo.loggen@politiet.no, fra den tjenesten de ønsker, og få oppdateringer. Og i motsetning til X, vil man også kunne se strømmen uten å logge inn, og det er ingen reklame eller sporing å spore.

Jeg kunne også abonnert på @skred@varsom.no, og så videre, uten å måtte ha en ny app eller sjekke en ny nettside.

Vi har gjort oss alt for avhengige av noen svært få selskaper – som blir mer og mer problematiske. Heldigvis lages det gode alternativer! Men monopoler og lock-in er fryktelig vanskelig å bryte. Og derfor trenger vi at allmennkringkasteren, og andre offentlige instanser, går foran.

Som ligner på gamle Twitter. ↩︎

RSS. ↩︎

[ailurinae]

DDG still isn't as good as Google search used to be, but Google has gotten so much worse, DDG is generally close enough to be a good replacement.

One of the toughest things is a good email provider alternative to gmail. Some people use Protonmail free tier, but I find it rather awkward for everyday use. Granted the Gmail interface has become downright bad, so there is that. I use Fastmail, but you have to pay for it... If you can afford it though, I do highly recommend a *paid* email provider and a custom domain to go with it (both are fairly cheap all things considered).

Then you can get your mail at whatever-you-want@your-domain.com, and even be able to switch which email provider you use without switching your email address. There are quite a few good paid email providers out there. And if you have a domain for email, then you could at any time put a personal home page if you want, there are all kinds of great ways to do that, across a range of skill levels and costs (including free ways)

you can switch to firefox you can install ublock origin you can learn html you can delete tiktok you can read wikipedia just for the fun of it you MUST kill your google brand loyalty where it stands before it can harm you more. the internet is such a beautiful place if only you learn to see and use it right

[moko1590m]

2024年12月24日 07時00分 「クラウドに比べてコストを大きく抑えられる」とFastmailがオンプレミスで独自のハードウェアを使用する理由を語る

「クラウドに比べてコストを大きく抑えられる」とFastmailがオンプレミスで独自のハードウェアを使用する理由を語る - GIGAZINE

[hackernewsrobot]

We use our own hardware at Fastmail

https://www.fastmail.com/blog/why-we-use-our-own-hardware/

[marvinthemillennialmouse]

One trick I use--because my email provider allows this--is to add something to the email address I use for an account somewhere.

Example: Website - WhosGotTheEgg.whatever Account email: Marvin+GotTheEgg@(provider).(domain)

The email will still go to your main address, but it will still show that "+whatever" so you can see which address it was sent to.

This is called "Plus Addressing" or "Sub-addressing" and a lot of the major providers have this feature enabled: Gmail, Yahoo, Microsoft, Apple, Fastmail

You can check to see if your provider allows it by sending yourself a test email. A lot of "powerusers" do this for a variety of reasons.

It makes it harder for someone to guess what your account's email address happens to be--even if they know the address base.

You can can check that 'have I been pwned' site for several email addresses to see which of your accounts have been breached with more precision.

You can filter your inbox by that +"whatever" so you can shunt stuff off into a folder or label it or whatever to help organize your messages.

You can actually look through your spam (if you get any) and see which companies have sold your email address, in case you want to take action with respect to having your data removed.

You can more quickly and easily catch scam emails in their tracks. Example: You get an email saying someone is trying to change your password over on Facebook. Your Facebook account email is: Marvin+Facebook@(provider).(domain) But the email address it's coming from isn't the one you use for Facebook but rather something like: Marvin+Twitter@(provider).(domain) or just Marvin@(provider).(domain) Because the scammer isn't using the ACTUAL address you linked to Facebook, you can know immediately that it's a phishing attempt. Report and delete.

Most websites should allow you to use a Plus Address email, but some may not. Your mileage may vary.

And sure, it can be a bit of a pain in the ass, checking numerous different email addresses, and you do run the risk of forgetting what you added to your email address for that specific website, but this little tactic has been a godsend for me.

Sometimes, it's just a matter of adding a few extra steps that can make all the difference, because the people that get your data from these breaches now have those few extra steps they have to pass to actually scam you.

No system is perfect, but you can sure make it more difficult for bad actors to get you.

Change your Tumblr password now.

Humongous data breach just happened, with loads upon loads of sites being affected. Tumblr's among those. Also on the list is Wattpad for you fanfic people out there- among many, many other places.

There's a searchable list at the bottom of the article. Highly recommend scrolling or searching through, seeing what places you may be on that have been affected, and securing all your accounts. This thing's kind of big.

If you know people on any of the sites affected, let them know about this too, and spread the article around.

[joshuawithers]

Seeing the Rode Wireless Micro release today (another spectacular release from Rode) reminded me how Australian companies and people are driving the infrastructure level of the creator economy.

Rode Microphones, Blackmagic Design (cameras, accessories, switchers and DaVinci), Procreate, Canva, Linktree, and Fastmail are the big ones I can think about plus Pocketcasts, Whooshkaa, and Omny Studio in the podcast world. Also, Emojipedia!

[fromdevcom]

Today’s connected lifestyle and the harsh reality that the government monitors pretty much everything that you download, share, or view, has made it evident that privacy has gone out the window. The bigger surprise is how unaffected people seem to appear when it comes to the safety of their personal data, mostly out of arrogance that it could never happen to them. While the most computer or smartphone users think that only non-encrypted communication is susceptible to data hacks, it is also believed that many encrypted technologies are vulnerable. Web experts say that hackers can now crack the code for anything from email to skype accounts, or worse, net banking accounts. Most computer users take data security very casually. However, it has been always emphasized by good security books and information security experts. What this basically means is that none of our activities on the internet are secure on the internet, no matter what it is. It’s practically almost impossible to prevent at least some of your personal data from getting accessed, but there’s plenty you can do to make sure that your communications are less vulnerable. So, here are some tips to help you secure your personal data: 1. Email Yes, email is the most obvious place to start because internet users send an average of 20 emails per day. The best way to make sure that your emails and email account are secure is to reconfigure your entire email setup. And seeing that free is usually a synonym for worthless, you’re going to have to shell out for a specialized email service.  Fastmail, for example, is a paid email client that is based outside the United States, offering highly secure email services. Paid email services are not a really big deal, but will soon gain dominance as individuals & businesses realize that free email clients simply aren’t doing enough to protect users’ data. The worst part is that even the information that goes along with a secured email, metadata, can reveal more personal data than the actual contents of the email.  This metadata cannot be encrypted since it is what the internet routing system uses to get mail to its destination. 2. Encryption Earlier, encryption meant safety and was considered to be the pinnacle of online security. But all that has changed over the past few years, with applications like GPG for Mail. GPG is an open plug-in for the Apple Mail program, allowing users to encrypt & decrypt, or even electronically sign and verify any email with OpenPGP standards.  This renders secured data vulnerable to even basic computer users that are looking to acquire personal data. There have also been various improvements in data encryption to help maintain security over personal data. The Apple OS X operating system, for example, features a unique program called “FileVault” that encrypts a computer’s hard drive.  Microsoft has developed a similar program for its Windows platform. This software scrambles your data in ways that make it almost impossible to hackers to decipher, but it doesn’t prevent government authorities from getting encryption key, as it is allowable under the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act. 3. Web Browsing You might be shocked at the amount of personal data that gets sent from a computer while just innocently browsing the internet. But considering the amount of surfing the average user does in a day, it is almost shameful to see that very few users take browser security seriously. Web browsing data logs are so easily accessible, that they’re as good as public records in a government library. Mainstream browsers like Google Chrome, Internet Explorer & Opera should be avoided, but that doesn’t mean you’re going to have to download a paid browser. As far as the security goes, the Tor Browser is one of the most secure web browsers that you can download for free. Users can adjust their browser settings so that they give off the least amount of personal data. 4. Cloud Services This one is a

no-brainer; millions of people’s personal data stored on an online cloud is obviously no safe house. And if the 2013 Snowden incident has taught us anything is that users should avoid using all cloud services, including iCloud, Dropbox, and even Evernote. As a rule of thumb, you’re better off avoiding any cloud service that originates from the UK, France, and especially the United States, as they’re the ones who are big on transparency. In the unavoidable situation where you have to store your data on a cloud, make sure it is fully encrypted. 5. File Storage and Archiving Another increasingly popular trend is people setting up and operating their own personal cloud services, using applications like Transporter, PogoPlug, and so on. The services provide users with Dropbox-type facilities, built on connected drives that are owned & controlled by the user. Those that routinely transport sensitive data on a USB drive should encrypt their data with TrueCrypt. 6. Social Networking The problem with social networking is that connects you with people who might be looking to access your personal data. If you can’t bring yourself to delete your Facebook or Twitter account, just remember that even simple information like your DOB can be misused in the wrong hands. Because even with the so-called privacy settings, you can’t control everything that is shared on your social networking feed. 7. Location Data Location data is probably the biggest leak when it comes to personal data. Avoid using location data services like the plague, including services like Google Maps, FourSquare, and any other location-based apps. Also, remember to configure the privacy settings of such apps as soon as you download them, ensuring that you’re not sharing more information than you intend to. 8. Wireless Services Even non-internet wireless services such as Infrared & Bluetooth can be doorways to your personal data. So, it’s best to keep these off, when not in use. Another gaping hole in your personal data security blanket is Wi-Fi, especially the public kind. As an added measure, try only browsing secure HTTPS connections, instead of the typically unencrypted HTTP connections. 9. Personal Security Personal security refers to the various PIN, pass and security codes that we use to access our devices and personal data. All these offer a degree of protection against unauthorized access, but even they can be decrypted. The best option is to use a passphrase instead of a password, as it’ll be too long for a hacker to decipher. Optionally, you can use password management apps, including 1Password and LastPass as they require multi-layered authentications to access. 10. Search Engines Another vulnerability is search engines; they might give you access to a world of information, but they also give the world access to yours! All mainstream search engines monitor & log things like search history, cookies, etc. These engines they create personalized results based on the information collected. The solution is to switch to a search engine that doesn’t track your searches. I am sure these 10 tips will help you secure your personal data. Please let us know if you have any other tips or suggestion and we will try to include that in next article. Article Updates Minor issue fixes and broken link fixes: March 2017 Mauricio Prinzlau works for Cloudwards.net the authority on cloud service reviews and applications for your personal and business life.