RasterInterrupt

I run a small business and over the last couple of months, I’ve been working hard on reducing my dependencies on U.S. providers and #techbros.

Latest step: Email and docs are no longer on #GoogleWorkspace. I’ve moved everything to #mailboxorg and #Nextcloud.

Kept the Google account alive for a month after the migration just to see if anything was still sending or receiving mail there. A lot of scripts, jobs and APIs had to be pointed to the new mail server. But everything looks good now.

Completely disabled Gmail yesterday. Account deletion coming up in a month or so.

Feels great 🙂

#DigitalSovereignty #OpenSource #Europe #DigitaleSouveränität #SelfHosted

Feb 27 at 5:24pmWeb
Show threadJarrod UrbanFeb 27
@rasterinterrupt Is it possible for someone to reregister your old email address with Google?
Show threadRasterInterruptFeb 27

@jarrodu I’m not sure what you mean. Do you mean moving a Gmail mail address like [email protected] to another provider? I think that’s not possible, since the domain is owned by Google. Other mail providers like mailbox.org can be configured to fetch all mails from Google and then delete them from there, but Google can still read them.

In our case, we have our own domain (actually multiple domains), let’s say mydomain.org. The mail server was hosted by Google, which is basically the business version of Gmail. We had about 40 email addresses there, like [email protected], for example. After the migration, the same addresses are now handled by mailbox.org. So from the outside, nothing has changed, except that big tech is not reading our mails anymore 😉. On top of that, we have our own self‑hosted Courier mail server, which the frontend mail server (now mailbox.org) forwards to. Years ago, I hosted everything on‑premise, but I can tell you, hosting an internet‑facing mail server is no fun. There are so many things that can go wrong, and having faulty mail is really bad for business.

Show threadlogicslayerFeb 27
@rasterinterrupt Hey, I'm curious. Since you're de-googling, What do you use for a mobile device? iOS, Android, or another option?
Show threadRasterInterruptFeb 27

@logicslayer I am using an Android phone. I wish there were a truly free option that works as well as Android. But I keep my Google apps to a minimum. The Nextcloud client for syncing files, and Aqua Mail as my mail client. I’m still using Google Photos, though. But that’s one of the next things I’ll get rid of.

Apple is not an option for me. As a software developer, I worked a lot in the Apple ecosystem, and they are the worst. They suck you into their proprietary world, take your data, and charge you big bucks on top of it. In my opinion, they are the worst tech company of all. They just market themselves better. But that’s just my opinion. 🤷‍♂️

What do you use? Do you have any experience outside of iOS or Android?

Show threadlogicslayerFeb 27

@rasterinterrupt Thanks for the reply. I have been thinking about ditching Android. I am kind of hoping Linux will become a better option on mobile.

I just downloaded all ~150GB from my Google Photos. I already have immich self hosted. I will be looking at a cloud backup solution soon.

I think you're spot on with Apple.

Show threadRasterInterruptFeb 27
@logicslayer Cool, I have Immich installed already, but I haven't had time to play with it yet.

And regarding phones, I would really like to try an alternative. Maybe a Fairphone + custom OS? But it's weird, as much as I like to tinker with computers and software, the phone is just a tool for me, and I don't want it to be a project. It should just work.

But if you ever try out any alternatives, let me know!
Show threadErnest de LeónFeb 27
@rasterinterrupt most things are pretty easy to self-host but email is difficult with spam filtering.
Show threadRasterInterruptFeb 27
@ernestdeleon Exactly. Even if you do everything right, you could still have bad luck and have your IP address end up on a blacklist, and there’s almost nothing you can do about it. I learned to outsource email the hard way.
Show threaddexternemrodFeb 28

@rasterinterrupt
Hi,

great to read about this move!
You might want to keep this google e-mail to protect it from being re-issued and possibly giving someone else access to this address. Could be used for stuff like password-resets. This is not the case at the moment, but google might try to change this.

Show threadRasterInterruptFeb 28
@dexternemrod @jarrodu We had our own domain on Google Workspace, which we migrated to mailbox.org. These were not standard @gmail.com addresses.
Show threaddexternemrodFeb 28

@rasterinterrupt

@jarrodu

This of course, changes everything.