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Let us stop using GMail: * Google collects vast amounts of personal data, specifically through receiving all of your email and analyizing it. * It builds elab

Let us stop using GMail: * Google collects vast amounts of personal data, specifically through receiving all of your email and analyizing it. * It builds elaborate user profiles and uses them to target you with ads designed to better influence you. * Its hold on information (from different sources) has made it excessively powerful economically, and thus also politically. * Google/Alphabet has long started to affect legislation, including through direct registered lobbying: ~15 Million USD in 2024 (opensecrets.org). * It has been known to pass, and likely still passes, the information it collects - including copies of your email correspondence - on to the US government (Edward Snowden leaks). and finally: * There are multiple email providers, many of them quite good - both for pay and gratis. Naturally most of the gratis ones have their own interests, but nothing like Google.

evertedsphere 1y ago
https://mako.cc/copyrighteous/google-has-most-of-my-email-because-it-has-all-of-yours https://mako.cc/copyrighteous/google-has-most-of-my-email-be...
- pastage 1y ago
  This should be seen as a encouraging to switch to something else rather than defeatist. Many of my communications do not touch Google services, professionally it has been judged as too risky, personally I keep a google account but also others. Edit: You can create groups of people that are not affected by Google/Apple/Facebook, this should be seen as a goal.
- devrandoom 1y ago
  This could be an interesting take, GDPR wise. Google handling personal emails of people that have no contract or business relationship with Google.
mediumsmart 1y ago
I was with you from day one and never started using gmail.
phantompeace 1y ago
What are the best free replacements to gmail that are realistic to switch to? I.E well established and not poised to close down any time soon
- justin_oaks 1y ago
  You may have to temper your expectations. Free usually means "sells/uses your data to offset costs". If you're OK with that, there's no need to switch off of GMail. If you're not OK with that, you'll have to pay. Also, hosting email under your own domain gives you the freedom to move from one email provider to another even if they do shut down. I put my money where my mouth is. I wanted to degoogle and so pay $50/year for Fastmail. One feature I like is automatically snoozing certain emails. Most of my non-personal email is automatically snoozed until 6pm every day. This way I don't get multiple notifications throughout the day for emails that aren't time sensitive.
  - deleted 1y ago
    [deleted]
remram 1y ago
What's a good replacement? Needs to work on web and mobile (or desktop and mobile), have search, have labels, have automated filters.
- bob1029 1y ago
  I've been using AWS WorkMail since it was released. I prefer this arrangement because I can administer the related domain & DNS concerns in the same place. $4/m seems nominal for a 50GB mailbox with no weird adtech shit built in.
  - remram 1y ago
    Leaving Google for Amazon makes no sense to me, Amazon fits GP's list just as well.
    - bob1029 1y ago
      This elevation of products into their parent organizations makes no sense to me. Gmail != Google WorkMail != Amazon Gmail is targeted at consumers and is engineered to suck up your data to pay for itself. WorkMail is targeted at businesses and is engineered to not piss off IT administrators and middle management.
      - remram 1y ago
        That's fair, still if I put in the effort to migrate, I would rather not do it to another company whose business is selling eyeballs. Amazon's business (maybe not WorkMail? who knows) is to sell you a maximum of stuff on their marketplace, building a detailed profile of you to recommend you more stuff. I could also pay for a Google Workspace and stay with Gmail.
- KawaiiCyborg 1y ago
  I've been using Fastmail.com since December, 2014 now and I'm still very happy with them. I use them with a few of my own domains and I've never had any issue sending or receiving any email. Recently, they even got a 1Password integration that allows you to directly create a masked email for a service from my 1Password UI. Search works perfectly, labels feel good to use and the filters are very flexible. If the UI doesn't allow you what to do, you could even directly write your own Sieve scripts.

evertedsphere 1y ago

https://mako.cc/copyrighteous/google-has-most-of-my-email-because-it-has-all-of-yours https://mako.cc/copyrighteous/google-has-most-of-my-email-be...

pastage 1y ago
This should be seen as a encouraging to switch to something else rather than defeatist. Many of my communications do not touch Google services, professionally it has been judged as too risky, personally I keep a google account but also others. Edit: You can create groups of people that are not affected by Google/Apple/Facebook, this should be seen as a goal.
devrandoom 1y ago
This could be an interesting take, GDPR wise. Google handling personal emails of people that have no contract or business relationship with Google.

mediumsmart 1y ago

I was with you from day one and never started using gmail.

phantompeace 1y ago

What are the best free replacements to gmail that are realistic to switch to? I.E well established and not poised to close down any time soon

justin_oaks 1y ago
You may have to temper your expectations. Free usually means "sells/uses your data to offset costs". If you're OK with that, there's no need to switch off of GMail. If you're not OK with that, you'll have to pay. Also, hosting email under your own domain gives you the freedom to move from one email provider to another even if they do shut down. I put my money where my mouth is. I wanted to degoogle and so pay $50/year for Fastmail. One feature I like is automatically snoozing certain emails. Most of my non-personal email is automatically snoozed until 6pm every day. This way I don't get multiple notifications throughout the day for emails that aren't time sensitive.
- deleted 1y ago
  [deleted]

remram 1y ago

What's a good replacement? Needs to work on web and mobile (or desktop and mobile), have search, have labels, have automated filters.

bob1029 1y ago
I've been using AWS WorkMail since it was released. I prefer this arrangement because I can administer the related domain & DNS concerns in the same place. $4/m seems nominal for a 50GB mailbox with no weird adtech shit built in.
- remram 1y ago
  Leaving Google for Amazon makes no sense to me, Amazon fits GP's list just as well.
  - bob1029 1y ago
    This elevation of products into their parent organizations makes no sense to me. Gmail != Google WorkMail != Amazon Gmail is targeted at consumers and is engineered to suck up your data to pay for itself. WorkMail is targeted at businesses and is engineered to not piss off IT administrators and middle management.
    - remram 1y ago
      That's fair, still if I put in the effort to migrate, I would rather not do it to another company whose business is selling eyeballs. Amazon's business (maybe not WorkMail? who knows) is to sell you a maximum of stuff on their marketplace, building a detailed profile of you to recommend you more stuff. I could also pay for a Google Workspace and stay with Gmail.
KawaiiCyborg 1y ago
I've been using Fastmail.com since December, 2014 now and I'm still very happy with them. I use them with a few of my own domains and I've never had any issue sending or receiving any email. Recently, they even got a 1Password integration that allows you to directly create a masked email for a service from my 1Password UI. Search works perfectly, labels feel good to use and the filters are very flexible. If the UI doesn't allow you what to do, you could even directly write your own Sieve scripts.