Hacker News Reader

Comment by samsa | Hacker News Reader

I recently did the same thing. FastMail for email, Apple Maps for Google Maps (not as good as Google, but better than when it launched), DuckDuckGo for search, Firefox or Brave as my browser. I was not prepared for how long and sometimes convoluted it was to change my email address on every site/service. Some bafflingly did not allow me to change my email address. I use Microsoft OneDrive for photo storage but am looking for an alternative. It did feel momentous to delete my Google account, which was firstname.lastname@gmail.com. But it also felt liberating.

View on HN

> I was not prepared for how long and sometimes convoluted it was to change my email address on every site/service.

I’ve made this recommendation before, but buy your own domain. It’s cheap, and will allow you to change your email hosting provider should Fastmail pivot their business from email to surveillance.

It’s pretty easy to set up. Others have offered, and I’ll repeat it: if you need a hand getting started, I’ll help.

EDIT: Fastmail’s instructions https://www.fastmail.com/help/receive/domains.html

I used to do this - it's nice but it does come with some downsides. Like paying for the domain and hosting in perpetuity, and having to (at least nominally) manage whatever system you use for email.

Still, the only 100% secure way to do it.

The trouble isn't getting the domain and setting up the email server behind it, the issue is maintaining the email server. I am sufficiently distractible (and I'm sure I'm not alone) that it's very important that my peripheral software/devices do not bother me. With an email server (or any other kind of server really, but email is especially bad), you need to pay attention to it constantly to make sure it is up, you are not on any blacklists (which you will get on by default for the simple fact that you are a new host), etc.

You can of course set up all sorts of monitoring, but then you have to check that that is working. These concerns never really go away. You cannot truly let your email slip from your mind, because if it stops working ever you will miss emails (unless you use a relay, which is either external or also needs monitoring, etc) and that means that potentially things get closed that should not be closed, you miss things from the doctor/dentist, etc.

But that would be the point of using an email host with your own domain, right? Be it Protonmail, Fastmail, or any other, you only need to provide the domain, and they provide the actual hosting.

I just bought my .net domain name from namecheap and setup protonmail. It's been a year but I'm still surprised that people think it's cool to have an email like jack@jack.net. It's like I'm a big deal or something.

I like protonmail enough to buy their first tier email hosting, which gives this ability.

And, if I find a better email hosting service, or roll my own, my email doesn't change, of course.

For photo storage, I personally use nextcloud for hot access and backup an encrypted copy of all my photos to Wasabi AWS S3 equivalent and Online.net's cold storage under the intensive class. I find it worth it to pay for backing up to those services since I take photos of almost everything and I would hate losing them.

I'm curious as to why you did that.

I get people wanting to use less Google services, but why quit all together?

To not be surveilled and behaviorally analyzed so much.

I’d say using less services only inconveniences you, where as at least quitting completely inconveniences Google as well because they have zero way to track you around.

> I use Microsoft OneDrive for photo storage but am looking for an alternative.

We keep a few hundred GB of family photos and videos in Apple Photos/iCloud. You could also consider Flickr now that they're owned by SmugMug

If you need RAW file archival, then most photo sites will not work and you will have to use OneDrive, Box, etc. Most free photo sites will convert or require conversion to popular compressed formats. That may be okay with many/most, however, some people will want to retain original files.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com