7 ms·

Yup, same. Switched to ff and bing. Was surprisingly frictionless. Next week I'll be off gmail too. Up yours google. The week after, I'm getting rid of my andro

by ux-app 8y ago

Yup, same. Switched to ff and bing. Was surprisingly frictionless. Next week I'll be off gmail too. Up yours google. The week after, I'm getting rid of my android phone. I'm a high school IT teacher and have some influence over hundreds of students each year. I've already started to sprinkle in some discussion about privacy and will be sure to inform my students about the issues. Of course I won't brow beat my students, but i will encourage them to make informed decisions. In aggregate, over time this kind of behaviour by google will hurt them. No such thing as too big to fail in tech.

danielecook 8y ago
What will you replace gmail with?
- jakecopp 8y ago
  FastMail looks like a good option!
- ux-app 8y ago
  Testing proton mail. If mail delivery is solid then that will do, otherwise outlook.com will be good enough. I'm ungoogling my life and strangely enough, MS is the less bad option right now.
  - calv 8y ago
    If you have your own domain I recently found Migadu from HN like a day or two ago in another discussion. (and I love them already)
    - CaptainJustin 8y ago
      Migadu is fantastic. Support has been good as well.
  - imdsm 8y ago
    proton is good
- felixfbecker 8y ago
  outlook.com is great
  - AsyncAwait 8y ago
    MS is not the most trustworthy company either, see Windows 10. If you're going to the hassle of actually switching, at lest don't do it from one big corp to the next. Personally I use https://www.webfaction.com https://www.webfaction.com and am very happy with it. Also heard good things about FastMail, but Australia has some crazy laws coming so not sure about that. ProtonMail seems solid as well.
- pmlnr 8y ago
  I'd love to tell people the only way to replace gmail is to get either your own mail server or at least your own domain, but this is an unreasonable goal. However.... re-decentralization resonates quite well these days when it comes to the web. I wonder what it would take to be re-applies to email.
  - coldtea 8y ago
    >I'd love to tell people the only way to replace gmail is to get either your own mail server or at least your own domain, It's trivially easy to get blacklisted as spam that way...
    - ryandrake 8y ago
      This is kind of FUD. I’ve been running my own mail server for over a year now, and my E-mails don’t magically disappear into some blacklist. Do you have to be careful when configuring your server? Yes. Can you get on a blacklist erroneously? Yes. Does not going with a hosted solution mean you cannot participate in E-mail? No way. I don’t know where this myth comes from that running your own mail infra means your mail will be marked as spam. You’re not the first (or second or third) person to mention it though.
      - r1ch 8y ago
        It takes a long time to build up IP reputation if you run your own infrastructure. Even today after a year+ on the same IP, DKIM/SPF/DMARC, senderscore of 100 and transactional email only, Yahoo still randomly blacklists us for weeks at a time. Good luck getting in touch with a human to figure out why when you aren't Gmail or another big player in the industry. Aside from Yahoo though, we generally haven't experienced any blacklisting or deliverability issues. It does require time to setup properly and maintain however, you can't just set it up and forget about it.
        pmlnr 8y ago
        That's exactly part of the problem. If email went back to decentralization properly, the whole idea of ip reputation could go away, which is genuinely wrong and against email in the first place.
- vader1 8y ago
  From yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18054574 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18054574 :)
- bad_user 8y ago
  I use FastMail with my own domain. I used to use Google Apps before it. But before switching email services, do yourself a favor and ditch webmail interfaces first. Pick up a desktop/native email client and switch to IMAP / SMTP. On MacOS a solid option for us power users is MailMate (https://freron.com/ https://freron.com/) ... markdown composer, GMail shortcuts, useful bundles, fast, uncluttered, it's basically what I wanted Thunderbird to be. Development on Thunderbird is apparently ongoing too and they just released version 60. Apparently Web Extensions are in the works too. Transitioning to a native client is painful at first, but it's worth it. GMail's web interface is a piece of shit lately anyway.
  - JustSomeNobody 8y ago
    Would like to add to your excellent suggestions. When you switch away from Google, set your gmail to forward and delete your email (to your new email address). That way you won't leave any emails on gmail but you can keep it up until you've completely migrated.
  - briandear 8y ago
    > markdown composer.. What kind of emails need markdown composing?
    - bad_user 8y ago
      It's awesome for emails containing snippets of code, code with syntax highlighting being my use case. And for formatting in general, the resulting email (composed in MailMate) will be very friendly to clients that prefer to display emails as plain text, since the text version is going to be very clean. There's also a browser extension working with GMail's web interface too, but it doesn't work as well as MailMate: https://markdown-here.com/ https://markdown-here.com/
beavis2 8y ago
While still using Windows...
- askmike 8y ago
  Can't speak for ux-app but most people on HN are on macs, also a lot of people on linux.
  - beavis2 8y ago
    Right. But there's a certain amount of irony that people are ditching Chrome, while still using an OS which literally does spy on you.
    - Djvacto 8y ago
      I tried looking up stuff about windows spying on users, and most of what I'm seeing is useless (debunked articles, generally clickbait stuff). Is there anywhere I could look to read more about this if true?
      - swebs 8y ago
        https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_10#Privacy_and_data_collection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_10#Privacy_and_data_co...
        Djvacto 8y ago
        I see, thanks! I've opted out of everything you can already, and don't use Cortana, so all I'm sending is some basic telemetry data it seems.
        beavis2 8y ago
        And also whatever you type into the start menu.
      - deleted 8y ago
murukesh_s 8y ago
Can we make this the top comment or something, so that google folks can see this!. I am sure HN is a good enough influencer for folks at Google to rethink!
- reitanqild 8y ago
  Na, just let Google continue their non stop promotion campaign for alternative browsers and search engines :-)
taborj 8y ago
What phone are you replacing Android with? 'cause Apple isn't much better, Windows phone is dead, and Blackberry...
- earenndil 8y ago
  Apple is much better. You can also install a custom rom.
  - gcb0 8y ago
    apple marketing sells you the idea that they are much better... sad that even people here fall for that. 10% of their monster revenue is selling your data to advertiser backchannels.
    - earenndil 8y ago
      Source? That doesn't right at all. Even google doesn't sell your data directly, just ads; they do in-house analysis of the data.
      - gcb0 8y ago
        All those companies sell the "anonymized data" to everyone. for example "ad X shown to user Y targeted on Z at time T" And if you happen know user Y matches user earenndil in a data set you control, now you know user earenndil belongs to demographic Z.
- prolikewh0a 8y ago
  I had an iPhone 6s+ for a year and couldn't stand the UI and poor ergonomic choices. I was also unable to do basic things easily like SSH without paying outlandish amounts of money for things similar to JuiceSSH. It's locked down in userspace much more than Android and it's noticeable. Things like unzipping/unraring files, using a file explorer, always had problems with downloaded files, etc were totally impossible. I want to go to an iPhone because Google is starting to really piss me off, but the year with the iPhone keeps turning me away. I wish there were other options.
mr_overalls 8y ago
> and bing. Wouldn't we expect Bing to log/analyze/correlate user behavior as hard as they possibly can? Or are you betting that Firefox at least won't cooperate with Bing in such an endeavor because it's not a Microsoft product?
- gnahckire 8y ago
  > Or are you betting that Firefox at least won't cooperate with Bing in such an endeavor because it's not a Microsoft product? It's MSFT, they don't collaborate w/ anyone anyways. Even if they do, it's unsuccessful. /s
sjwright 8y ago
> I'm a high school IT teacher ... I've already started to sprinkle in some discussion about privacy Thank you for your service.

by ux-app 8y ago

danielecook 8y ago

What will you replace gmail with?

jakecopp 8y ago
FastMail looks like a good option!
ux-app 8y ago
Testing proton mail. If mail delivery is solid then that will do, otherwise outlook.com will be good enough. I'm ungoogling my life and strangely enough, MS is the less bad option right now.
- calv 8y ago
  If you have your own domain I recently found Migadu from HN like a day or two ago in another discussion. (and I love them already)
  - CaptainJustin 8y ago
    Migadu is fantastic. Support has been good as well.
- imdsm 8y ago
  proton is good
felixfbecker 8y ago
outlook.com is great
- AsyncAwait 8y ago
  MS is not the most trustworthy company either, see Windows 10. If you're going to the hassle of actually switching, at lest don't do it from one big corp to the next. Personally I use https://www.webfaction.com https://www.webfaction.com and am very happy with it. Also heard good things about FastMail, but Australia has some crazy laws coming so not sure about that. ProtonMail seems solid as well.
pmlnr 8y ago
I'd love to tell people the only way to replace gmail is to get either your own mail server or at least your own domain, but this is an unreasonable goal. However.... re-decentralization resonates quite well these days when it comes to the web. I wonder what it would take to be re-applies to email.
- coldtea 8y ago
  >I'd love to tell people the only way to replace gmail is to get either your own mail server or at least your own domain, It's trivially easy to get blacklisted as spam that way...
  - ryandrake 8y ago
    This is kind of FUD. I’ve been running my own mail server for over a year now, and my E-mails don’t magically disappear into some blacklist. Do you have to be careful when configuring your server? Yes. Can you get on a blacklist erroneously? Yes. Does not going with a hosted solution mean you cannot participate in E-mail? No way. I don’t know where this myth comes from that running your own mail infra means your mail will be marked as spam. You’re not the first (or second or third) person to mention it though.
    - r1ch 8y ago
      It takes a long time to build up IP reputation if you run your own infrastructure. Even today after a year+ on the same IP, DKIM/SPF/DMARC, senderscore of 100 and transactional email only, Yahoo still randomly blacklists us for weeks at a time. Good luck getting in touch with a human to figure out why when you aren't Gmail or another big player in the industry. Aside from Yahoo though, we generally haven't experienced any blacklisting or deliverability issues. It does require time to setup properly and maintain however, you can't just set it up and forget about it.
      - pmlnr 8y ago
        That's exactly part of the problem. If email went back to decentralization properly, the whole idea of ip reputation could go away, which is genuinely wrong and against email in the first place.
vader1 8y ago
From yesterday: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18054574 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18054574 :)
bad_user 8y ago
I use FastMail with my own domain. I used to use Google Apps before it. But before switching email services, do yourself a favor and ditch webmail interfaces first. Pick up a desktop/native email client and switch to IMAP / SMTP. On MacOS a solid option for us power users is MailMate (https://freron.com/ https://freron.com/) ... markdown composer, GMail shortcuts, useful bundles, fast, uncluttered, it's basically what I wanted Thunderbird to be. Development on Thunderbird is apparently ongoing too and they just released version 60. Apparently Web Extensions are in the works too. Transitioning to a native client is painful at first, but it's worth it. GMail's web interface is a piece of shit lately anyway.
- JustSomeNobody 8y ago
  Would like to add to your excellent suggestions. When you switch away from Google, set your gmail to forward and delete your email (to your new email address). That way you won't leave any emails on gmail but you can keep it up until you've completely migrated.
- briandear 8y ago
  > markdown composer.. What kind of emails need markdown composing?
  - bad_user 8y ago
    It's awesome for emails containing snippets of code, code with syntax highlighting being my use case. And for formatting in general, the resulting email (composed in MailMate) will be very friendly to clients that prefer to display emails as plain text, since the text version is going to be very clean. There's also a browser extension working with GMail's web interface too, but it doesn't work as well as MailMate: https://markdown-here.com/ https://markdown-here.com/

beavis2 8y ago

While still using Windows...

askmike 8y ago
Can't speak for ux-app but most people on HN are on macs, also a lot of people on linux.
- beavis2 8y ago
  Right. But there's a certain amount of irony that people are ditching Chrome, while still using an OS which literally does spy on you.
  - Djvacto 8y ago
    I tried looking up stuff about windows spying on users, and most of what I'm seeing is useless (debunked articles, generally clickbait stuff). Is there anywhere I could look to read more about this if true?
    - swebs 8y ago
      https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_10#Privacy_and_data_collection https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_10#Privacy_and_data_co...
      - Djvacto 8y ago
        I see, thanks! I've opted out of everything you can already, and don't use Cortana, so all I'm sending is some basic telemetry data it seems.
        beavis2 8y ago
        And also whatever you type into the start menu.
    - deleted 8y ago

murukesh_s 8y ago

Can we make this the top comment or something, so that google folks can see this!. I am sure HN is a good enough influencer for folks at Google to rethink!

reitanqild 8y ago
Na, just let Google continue their non stop promotion campaign for alternative browsers and search engines :-)

taborj 8y ago

What phone are you replacing Android with? 'cause Apple isn't much better, Windows phone is dead, and Blackberry...

earenndil 8y ago
Apple is much better. You can also install a custom rom.
- gcb0 8y ago
  apple marketing sells you the idea that they are much better... sad that even people here fall for that. 10% of their monster revenue is selling your data to advertiser backchannels.
  - earenndil 8y ago
    Source? That doesn't right at all. Even google doesn't sell your data directly, just ads; they do in-house analysis of the data.
    - gcb0 8y ago
      All those companies sell the "anonymized data" to everyone. for example "ad X shown to user Y targeted on Z at time T" And if you happen know user Y matches user earenndil in a data set you control, now you know user earenndil belongs to demographic Z.
prolikewh0a 8y ago
I had an iPhone 6s+ for a year and couldn't stand the UI and poor ergonomic choices. I was also unable to do basic things easily like SSH without paying outlandish amounts of money for things similar to JuiceSSH. It's locked down in userspace much more than Android and it's noticeable. Things like unzipping/unraring files, using a file explorer, always had problems with downloaded files, etc were totally impossible. I want to go to an iPhone because Google is starting to really piss me off, but the year with the iPhone keeps turning me away. I wish there were other options.

mr_overalls 8y ago

> and bing. Wouldn't we expect Bing to log/analyze/correlate user behavior as hard as they possibly can? Or are you betting that Firefox at least won't cooperate with Bing in such an endeavor because it's not a Microsoft product?

gnahckire 8y ago
> Or are you betting that Firefox at least won't cooperate with Bing in such an endeavor because it's not a Microsoft product? It's MSFT, they don't collaborate w/ anyone anyways. Even if they do, it's unsuccessful. /s

sjwright 8y ago

> I'm a high school IT teacher ... I've already started to sprinkle in some discussion about privacy Thank you for your service.