IT guy with a focus on data engineering. Burgeoning privacy and digital sovereignty enthusiast. Less time for gaming these days but I still hop on my PC when I have time.
Definitely not a sentient crow imitating a human on the internet.
CAW
Thank you! I did just find in the FolderSync docs that 2-way sync isn’t supported for encrypted files, which is a bit of a bummer. I think Nextcloud on Android had a similar limitation where it would only actually sync at most every 15 minutes. I did find the Cryptomator app on Android does have an “immediate upload” folder, but it’s only for images captured with the camera and screenshots… which I guess for now fulfills most of my needs, so I may stick with that after all.
Thanks for the suggestion! I have a few questions, if you don’t mind: what did you like more about rclone than Cryptomator? Is it suitable for sync, or is it more for backups? I’m ideally looking for near-ish to real-time sync for contacts, notes, files, and pictures. Are there any frontends for Linux you’d recommend, or do you script out the functionality you’re looking to implement?
Did you try Syncthing at all? I ran into the same issues with Nextcloud on Android and I’m trying to decide on Syncthing or FolderSync and I wanted to see what people thought. I’m currently using Cryptomator but it doesn’t do everything I’d like yet.
Yeah I just spent a few days trying to get Nextcloud on Android working and it was a disaster. I ultimately decided to use Cryptomator to handle the sync since I’m already using it on my PCs, but I’m looking at maybe Syncthing or FolderSync (not sure which is better) because Cryptomator lacks some functionality like keeping local copies and making files available to other apps like galleries, music apps, etc.
I haven’t had any issues with tracking (that I’m aware of, anyway) and their privacy policy is pretty straightforward (email storage is opt-in, they don’t share data with third parties except law enforcement and what they need to process payments). I suppose one could argue that you have to take them at their word, but that’s true of anything.
It’s hosted out of the Netherlands, which I believe has pretty strong privacy protections, though the developer is from the UK which fares marginally worse in that regard (again, grain of salt with my opinions here).
I’ll confess I’m also not a technical expert in email systems, but you can use your own PGP keys for what that’s worth, and if you’re super concerned you can always download their server runtime and self-host it as well.
I probably wouldn’t use it for my bank, mostly because it’s another moving piece that could break, but that’s why I combine it with Tuta - I can have a “real” address for my bank, another one for my doctor, and a few others for anything that might reject an Addy address (and that I can’t live without), and then Addy for everything else.
I actually just went through this because I previously used iCloud’s Hide my Email service, but I’m de-Appling so I had to find something new. I’ve used Hide my Email, Firefox Relay, and Addy.io.
Hide my Email is hard to replace because it’s shared with the entire @icloud.com address pool, so it’s hard for companies to reject and it’s hard to link all of your aliases together.
I ultimately settled on a combination of having a Tuta paid plan, which gives you a few email addresses, and Addy.io. I chose Addy because it’s run out of Europe (the UK specifically) and has some great power user features while still offering easy-to-use apps for all of the platforms I use. I’ve only had Steam reject an Addy address so far.
At the time, I also thought Firefox Relay only allowed you to use your custom domain, but they do allow you to use the more generic @mozilla.com domain as well for better anonimity. Firefox Relay does have a limit to how long you can reply to emails you’ve received, though (I believe it’s 90 days), it’s run out of the US, and I think Mozilla has done some questionable things recently with respect to privacy.
I didn’t check out SimpleLogin since it’s owned by Proton, and I didn’t check out DuckDuckGo’s offering because I believe it’s also a US company.
I know this post is a bit older at this point, but do you have any custom fonts installed? I could reliably reproduce my browser fingerprint as you described, even between Librewolf and Firefox with different configurations (including JavaScript disabled in Librewolf). A visit on one browser would increment the counter, and vice-versa.
I had forgotten that, quite some time ago, I’d installed a font not packaged with my OS - I deleted it, made sure to clear out my site data, changed IPs, and finally got a shiny new fingerprint.
Cross-referencing with EFF’s coveryourtracks site, I also noticed that one metric that almost never changes for me is my audiocontext fingerprint, although I can thwart that by disabling JavaScript, but maybe that’s contributing as well?
Thanks for the writeup! I think bidirectional sync is what I’m used to but very few solutions seem to support it outside of the big tech ones, like you mentioned. Perhaps I need to re-evaluate whether I truly need it; I guess it’s not often I switch between editing a document on my phone to my laptop and need those changes synced instantly, and I did find a way to get Cryptomator to immediately upload any pictures or screenshots I take. I would still like my Obsidian notes files to upload instantly too, though, I think.