Ex-dog dad in Edmonton, Alberta. Tech enthusiast and entrepreneur. Trying to slow down and enjoy life. Brewing beer, building planes, and Battlestar Galactica are my jam.
I’ll second this. Here’s my setup:
My contacts and calendar are accessed via CalDav, with all calendars showing/editable on Fastmail.
Nice, slick, and Google-free.
100% agree. It’s easy to catch something and spread it unknowingly when you’re lying to everyone around you. Being open (even in communication alone) dispels the stigma, and maintains everyone’s decision making autonomy.
“If only they had a conversation…”
Direct link to the database mentioned in the article
I’ve been using Fastmail for a while now, and I like it. Clean interface, good apps, and lots of support for CALDAV (including tasks!). Frankly a much better interface than many other providers. I was also tired of using Thunderbird with my hosting provider’s email.
I spent quite a while looking for a good email provider as well. Proton didn’t work for similar reasons, and I didn’t like having to use the bridge on Linux. I settled on Fastmail as it’s cheap, and does what I need (email, calendar, tasks).
I wasn’t excited that they have servers in the US (they’re an Australian company), but I had to make a compromise to degoogle. “Perfection is the enemy of progress” is a common phrase for me.
I’m interested to see what other opinions come up though.
I feel compelled to advertise credit this artist. They have a ton of great works, and deserve the sales recognition. Support your local artists, and make sure people know who they are.
False Knees
You cab find the other socials on their page.
I’m running Mint on my Desktop/Gaming rig, as well as on my laptop and a microslop surface. I have some old hardware I’m considering trying vanilla Debian with, to try it out.
I like to stick with distros based on Debian/Ubuntu as I’m familiar with the utilities. Default settings and locations of things change, but I don’t mind finding those if the base architecture is familiar. I spun up a VPS with Ubuntu on it, and I was very comfortable getting it set up due to this.
I’ve also looked into a way to sync my OSs, but that’s a whole other animal, from what I can tell. I just have a markup file shared with Syncthing that gives a little To do list when I’m setting up a new machine.
That being said, I have an old laptop and a Ventoy USB loaded with distro images that I like to boot up now and then. Puppy, Kali, and Pop are some of the really interesting ones.
I’ve seen that, and thought a fair bit about it. Thing is, there has to be balance. I could have kept running from one service to the next, seeking one that perfectly aligned with my values, but that’s a lot of expense, both in time and finances. I wanted to pick one that met the majority of my needs, and let me sleep at night. I’m not one to make a knee-jerk decision based purely on emotion.
I decided to go with a high quality provider, and reviewed their responses to this individual’s donations. I like how they dealt with the matter, and remained impartial, despite the fact that VPNs are very political, in general.
Is it the right decision? Not sure. Does it fit my threat model? It fits like a thrift store jacket that just happens to be the right size.