Yes im aware that my search engine choice is not the best option.
As others have said, remove all proton stuff that you can. You are just replacing one centralized service with another. Google started out good too and look where we are now. Never put too many eggs in one basket.
My answer to this is to use a custom domain with an email aliasing service.
I’ve gone through about half of the 400 accounts in my password manager and moved them over. I’ll migrate the rest over the next week or so.
So, I’m switching from Gmail to Proton for now, but if Proton starts to get worse or Tuta catches up on functionality or there’s a better provider that emerges or I decide to try to self-host, it’s one easy change at the alias provider to redirect all of my mail to a new email provider.
You should try migadu. Thats the most no-bs provider with custom Domains I could find
Thanks. Since I’m just starting my privacy journey, I’m sticking with the mainstream options for now, but using an aliasing service will make it easy easy for me to switch in the future. I’ll check it Migadu and I appreciate the suggestion.
They have almost twice as many google apps though. Why didn’t you mention those?
There are arrows between the icons. The google ones are what they are switching away from.
As others have pointed out, having so many Proton might be an issue. However, that line of thought only works if you’re really concerned about having a single point of failure. Most people value convenience much more than that.
The way I see it, this setup is somewhat noob-friendly, but relying heavily on Proton makes it a lot more convenient for many people. Using a greater variety of providers would make sense, but you can’t expect everyone to be ready for a hassle like that. People seem to expect you to be a hard-core privacy warrior who is willing to make significant sacrifices for philosophical reasons.
Most people aren’t like that. Just switching to DDG is hard enough for them, but at least it’s a step in the right direction.
If you take only 1/10th of this diagram, you get the simplified newbie version. Take all of it, and it’s for a person who is clearly interested in security and privacy. Modify a few things here and there, and you get a version for a serious security enthusiast. Different versions for different audiences.
Using Proton Mail, Calendar and Docs is a lot, lot better than using the Google suite. We shouldnt put people off changing, as you said the convenience is important and often forgotton as the major reason people stick with Google.
Just use tutamail - better track record and hosted in Germany
That would have been my recommendation as well. It also diversifies the setup a bit.
However, I can also appreciate Proton as a convenient gateway drug that leads people away from Google.
What track record? They are both the same.
Proton is just more user-friendly.
tuta hasnt sponsored a single far right influencer to my knowledge
I prefer Comaps over OSMand.
OSMAnd has a lot more features that I personally use
different purpose in my opinion
How so? Isn’t it a fork after a dispute about direction?
You’re thinking of Organic Maps
First off: you’ve come a long way. Great setup, keep it up!
As others have said, I’d reduce your reliance on Proton. I’d particularly ditch their password manager in favour of something like KeepassXC and combine it with Syncthing (which you’re already using) in order to keep your passwords out of the cloud, but synced between your devices. Always think in terms of blast radius: if an attacker gets access to your Proton account (either because you fuck up or they do), they will have access to anything that’s in there. Having your e-mail + pw manager there increases blast radius dramatically and allows not only for access to, but full takeover of your accounts in case of a breach.
People will agree and disagree on individual choices, as we can see by the other comments, but I think that is an excellent start.
A message for others, improving your privacy can be a gradual process, you don’t need change everything at once, since that would be overwhelming. Start with one or two, and if that works for you, move on to other items.
For passwords, you can use the same KeepassXC database on multiple devices. It’s encrypted, and you can have the passphrase file locally on multiple devices, and the cloud provider cannot access it even by brute forcing. The database itself would not be reliant on the cloud service, you can easily switch between any provider (I currently use dropbox)
Obsidian is closed source or not fully open source iirc. Try Notesnook if you need sync.
Apparently Emacs is on F-Droid so you could use org-mode as well, although IDK how well it works
My preference was Joplin synced through self hosted Nextcloud
Yeah or standard notes if they like the proton products
Arent you using too much proton
Gmail - > tuta mail
Also you use way too much proton. Don’t put all your eggs in one basket
Anyone have thoughts on mailbox.org? I have been thinking of switching. Anyone with experience with the service?
Switched a few months ago from Gmail. Own domain. Works great so far. A bit of setup required ofc. Thunderbird on phone & just the standard calendar app because the apps I tried I didn’t like. Calander & Contact sync through DAVx⁵, costs a few bucks, but it works just fine.
I use it. Nothing but positive experiences so far.
Have been using it solely for mail with my own domain for a few years. Absolutely nothing to complain about. Always worked flawlessly.
- ChatGPT -> llama.cpp
- Dropbox -> Syncthing + ZFS
- PayPal -> Atto
- Google Home -> Home Assistant
- Google Docs/Sheets -> Collabora Office
Some of these require self-hosting, so you might need Headscale or WireGuard to connect to them
Browser based wallet? Good god, no thx
Netbird is also good for connecting to them
Depends on how much privacy you need and how much tinkering to get things to work that you’re willing to put up with.
In general, using a variety of services will be more private than going with a single entity like Proton.
Bitwarden is self-hostable, which makes it potentially more private than Protonpass… assuming you actually set up the self-hosting.
Signal isn’t a good long-term plan, as it’s entirely hosted in the US. I don’t think there are currently any known compromises to the encryption model, but iirc the company can see all your communications metadata (which means the government could potentially as well). I don’t mind it for talking with friends, but I would recommend against it for extreme privacy needs (e.g. the government starts getting overzealous with who it counts as enemies of the state, and you or your friends become targets).
Incoming Proton hate. This place has taken to that campaign exceptionally well.
Maps - > CoMaps Photos - > Immich (if you can self host) Passwords - > Bitwarden (May change in the future)
I agree with others on trying to not have one service for everything, which proton is trying to become. An alternative to Proton Mail and Calendar would be Tuta, though I haven’t used them.
Bitwarden (May change in the future)
The Bitwarden desktop client was on an EOL Electron version that doesn’t get security updates and marked as insecure in Nixpkgs and it took them 3 weeks to resolve it (finally got fixed an hour ago) and it’s still not fixed in any released version. It seems strange to me for a security-sensitive program to have problems like this.
Duckduckgo -> selfhosted searxng… startpage has also not yet been involved in any controversy for a non selfhosted option.
Copy paste of why duck duck go is a problem:
https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/duckduckgo-browser-allows-microsoft-trackers-due-to-search-agreement/
Now I little after this came out they do claim they removed them (odd how that suddenly changes after it was no longer secret) But then much more recent as listed on wikipedia, verifying they still have some long term deals with microsoft in **2025**… microsoft is not going to make a deal with a perceived competitor for nothing in return.
By August 2025, Bing planned to cut off access to its search APIs in a push to sell more AI-related APIs, though **DuckDuckGo believed that larger companies like it with long-term deals would not be affected** 62 Bing had dramatically raised rates for its search API in 2022 after ChatGPT debuted. 62
There is also more general proof that while duck may technically use other sources also. It really is mostly bing:
During a Bing API outage in 2024, DuckDuckGo stopped showing results, indicating that Bing provided a substantial portion of DuckDuckGo’s results.69 70
I literally do not understand how they managed to take such foothold in real privacy communities. I used to love brave till the i was repeatedly pointed to the scandals that many people are aware of and informing others about… but considering ddg i rarely see anyone pointing this out. It actually smells like a huge successful marketing adventure to sell bing to privacy enthusiasts, but for that i obvio do not have proof. I often imagine this meme with bing instead of google and a cute duck go as mr incognito
