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I agree with the sentiment that you get that you pay for, and in this case, it's worth it. Can you share what alternatives you used to move off of Google?

jstayton 10y ago
Gmail => FastMail Calendar/Contacts => Apple iCloud Drive => SpiderOakONE Chrome => Firefox Search => DuckDuckGo Maps => Apple Maps Photos => Store locally (iPhoto & Lightroom) Docs => Apple iCloud Apple may seem like the odd one out, but I trust them quite a bit seeing how they've fought for privacy over the last few years. I also use all Apple devices, so the convenience is also unparalleled.
- dhruvkar 10y ago
  Nice, thanks. A handy list. Fastmail seems to be a popular alternative to gmail as per the comments here and as per you. It is NOT listed on privacytools.io Should this be a concern? Is it any better than Gmail with respect to privacy? Edit: moved comment to more relevant parent.
  - icebraining 10y ago
    The answer is probably: it depends. Fastmail, unlike Gmail, doesn't use your email contents for ad targeting. OTOH, unlike commonly claimed, Google doesn't actually sell your info, they just reuse it internally. Neither service encrypts data at rest, so if they're hacked you're screwed. Google is subject to NSA/FISA/etc. Fastmail claims it isn't since they're an Australian company, but their servers are all in the US.
    - lorenzhs 10y ago
      > Neither service encrypts data at rest, so if they're hacked you're screwed. That's a bit misleading, FastMail encrypts their hard drives (and I'm sure Google does, too). It's just that they don't have a special key for your data. That means you can't just break into their (colocated) data centre and steal their disks, but if you hack a machine with the drive mounted then you get all the data on the machine.
  - jstayton 10y ago
    Yeah, good question. There are certainly more privacy-conscious services, but FastMail is good enough for what I'm looking for. The big thing being that they don't analyze my email for advertising purposes. This list is about a year old, but it provides some more privacy-conscious alternatives: https://www.prxbx.com/email/ https://www.prxbx.com/email/.

jstayton 10y ago

Gmail => FastMail Calendar/Contacts => Apple iCloud Drive => SpiderOakONE Chrome => Firefox Search => DuckDuckGo Maps => Apple Maps Photos => Store locally (iPhoto & Lightroom) Docs => Apple iCloud Apple may seem like the odd one out, but I trust them quite a bit seeing how they've fought for privacy over the last few years. I also use all Apple devices, so the convenience is also unparalleled.

dhruvkar 10y ago
Nice, thanks. A handy list. Fastmail seems to be a popular alternative to gmail as per the comments here and as per you. It is NOT listed on privacytools.io Should this be a concern? Is it any better than Gmail with respect to privacy? Edit: moved comment to more relevant parent.
- icebraining 10y ago
  The answer is probably: it depends. Fastmail, unlike Gmail, doesn't use your email contents for ad targeting. OTOH, unlike commonly claimed, Google doesn't actually sell your info, they just reuse it internally. Neither service encrypts data at rest, so if they're hacked you're screwed. Google is subject to NSA/FISA/etc. Fastmail claims it isn't since they're an Australian company, but their servers are all in the US.
  - lorenzhs 10y ago
    > Neither service encrypts data at rest, so if they're hacked you're screwed. That's a bit misleading, FastMail encrypts their hard drives (and I'm sure Google does, too). It's just that they don't have a special key for your data. That means you can't just break into their (colocated) data centre and steal their disks, but if you hack a machine with the drive mounted then you get all the data on the machine.
- jstayton 10y ago
  Yeah, good question. There are certainly more privacy-conscious services, but FastMail is good enough for what I'm looking for. The big thing being that they don't analyze my email for advertising purposes. This list is about a year old, but it provides some more privacy-conscious alternatives: https://www.prxbx.com/email/ https://www.prxbx.com/email/.