this post was submitted on 03 Feb 2025
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From a practical standpoint, the country that hosts many digital services is undergoing rapid political change. For awareness of non-US alternatives, check out:

https://switching.software/

https://european-alternatives.eu/alternatives-to

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 2 days ago

Bookshop.org just recently added ebooks, and I believe they have a UK store, for anyone trying to buy ebooks in a more ethical way. It allows you to select a local bookstore of your choosing and support them when you purchase books. They take a small fee to cover their warehousing and shipping I think, but pass along a lot of the profit (80%) to the local bookstore. They’re a certified b corp and their bylaws say they can’t sell to a major retailer (eg amazon).

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 days ago (2 children)

Posteo is another alternative for Mail that a lot of people overlook.(And far more "real privacy" than fucking Proton)

Bitwarden sadly still is a US company and while it hosts in EU as well, some might not think this is enough. In that case Vaultwarden can be selfhosted easily.

It is not that much work to actually get rid of most possibly unreliable US services,but it's far more work to get other people to switch as not all services are interoperable yet....

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago (2 children)

Question: why would you store passwords with an external service?

I have a local database synched with SyncThing between phones and computers and an external copy on a server.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago (2 children)

And your local database is encrypted?

Vaultwarden is selfhosted and audited.

Besides: Not everyone wants to selfhost and not everyone should self host.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

Especially a password vault... Imagine your server going down while you are away from home and suddenly you're locked out of everything.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Sometimes I need a password when I don't have my devices with me, and logging into the Bitwarden web vault is super convenient. Also, everything is encrypted on the client, and the client is FOSS, so there's very little risk.

You can also host your own Bitwarden server, or use an independent alternative (Vaultwarden).

Bitwarden provides a lot of convenience without much compromise.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago (1 children)

Thank you for your explanation!

I exclusively log in on my phones or computers, so the devices which have the copies of the database. (With a backup to an external server under my control.)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 days ago

And then your house burns down,you get robbed or the cops come and take your devices away.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Good points. I do believe Bitwarden is open-source though, so it can probably be forked off into a version that doesn't host data in the US.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea 2 points 2 days ago

You can always self-host it as well.

[–] [email protected] 21 points 4 days ago (6 children)

So proton is out these days right? Does anyone have thoughts on fastmail?

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 days ago (2 children)
[–] sugar_in_your_tea 1 points 2 days ago

I like they they only do email and calendar. It's best to not keep too many eggs in the same basket, and the pricing for Proton seems to discourage that.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago

The only downside is that Tuta doesn't provide an .onion service as Proton does (although they leak clearnet links left and right)... even though they apparently plan to.

[–] [email protected] 17 points 3 days ago

Fastmail is really, really nice.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Proton is still a great product.. easy to switch away from Google, especially if you don't have the time to self host or manage the complexity of 5 different services. I am aware of recent discussion, and have decided for myself that overreacting is not necessary, though that's up to you :)

[–] [email protected] 13 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Nowadays I half suspect any tech CEO to have some questionable mindset (to say the least). So it seems more important to me, what the company actually does. I hope everyone complaining about Proton now also does not use Google, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, X, Apple products, and the list goes on. Their CEOs are definitely a lot worse.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago

Not just that, but frankly for a company like Proton it's prudent to "cry along with the wolves, lest you get killed" ...

As long as Proton's products still stand on their own in the light of the Trump regime I don't think it is useful at all to torch the company because of remarks of its ceo now that Trump is in office...

Ofcourse one can frown and be miffed but there are far worse companies out there that everyone uses, and people shrug off direct comments of anyone on the board of directors.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Long time customer and super happy with Fastmail. Its a bit pricy but the service is great.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 days ago

Yeah it could be argued that Fastmail is less private than alternatives, but they make a damn good service. Plus email shouldn’t be used for secure communication anyways.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago

I joined Fastmail almost a month ago and am really enjoying it, I especially like the integrated masked emails.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago)

I went over to purelymail, but it's in .us

It's not fancy encrypted like proton, but it's very affordable and straight forward to set up for your own domains.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 3 days ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

The irony of this community being hosted on feddit.uk

[–] [email protected] 5 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Wait why's it ironic? The UK is in Europe

[–] [email protected] 7 points 3 days ago

The person doesn't understand the difference between Europe and European Union.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago

They don't do all of what Proton does, but for email Hushmail is run out of Vancouver. The free account is quite limited in terms of space though, but it's free.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 3 days ago* (last edited 3 days ago) (2 children)

PeerTube seems fine for a YT alternative (only because it's pretty much either it or Odysee, that's what happens when you have an effective monopoly on user-generated content like YT does, and PeerTube IMO needs to take off sooner rather than later given how ridiculous YT's censorship has gotten lately), and then of course Lemmy (this platform) is looking really good so far as a Reddit alternative and I've only been on it for a day now, ditto for Pixelfed as an Instagram alternative.

And then of course there's Mastodon for a Twitter/Facebook alternative.

Also, Matrix seems fine for a Discord alternative, but moderation is all over the map.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 3 days ago

https://makertube.net/ is the PeerTube instance that I've been using, and it's been great.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 3 days ago

Adding to this, pipepipe (for YouTube) on f droid is amazing. Not sure where it's based but they do great work.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Looking for android app alternatives

[–] [email protected] 4 points 3 days ago (4 children)

Does anyone have a good recommendation for an S3 provider? I'm looking at Hetzner and OVH.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 days ago

Hetzner's S3 is immature, they just started beta last year, and are rough at the edges

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago

Hetzner is rock solid in my experience (and I run multiple server with them both for private and business use). I really can't complain.

I have my S3 backups at Ionos these days, they are also fairly large, only marginally more expensive and so far it's working well. Their cloud/VPS service (the proper one,not the consumer one) is also decent and offers a few (rarely needed) options that Hetzner doesn't have.

[–] taladar 3 points 3 days ago

Hetzner support is usually quite good, something I can't say of the (albeit much more limited) experiences with OVH.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 days ago

I think OVH would be a good choice.

[–] [email protected] -4 points 3 days ago (1 children)

What services specifically

[–] [email protected] 14 points 3 days ago (1 children)

If you click the fucking link its mostly Google and social media alternatives.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 3 days ago (1 children)

And not to be a Debbie Downer, but most of these alternatives are trash each in their own ways. But it's good to have options.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Sure, didn't even look at the actual alternatives but the guy I replied to was too lazy to even click the link to see which ones were getting replaced so I get to make fun of him :)

[–] [email protected] 11 points 3 days ago (1 children)

Sometimes I think bullying is necessary; tourists who litter should be bullied, and that one dude in the comments who doesn't click links.

[–] sugar_in_your_tea 1 points 2 days ago

That's not bullying. Now, if we follow them around and reply to all their comments pointing them out as someone who doesn't follow links, maybe we'll get somewhere.