For the price of a cheap VPS and a couple of hours setup you could run YUNOhost, which comes with email set up out of the box. It integrates perfectly with Thunderbird on desktop and android and you can install other cool stuff on it as well.
Installation is a bit more involved than signing up with a commercial email provider but I thought I’d mention it. I had no previous experience of server admin and was able to get it set up and my server is still going strong after nearly three years.
VPNs hide your IP from your ISP and anyone they share that information with. Here in the UK ISPs keep a record of every internet connection you make and pass it on to the government and perhaps others. Using a VPN here means that instead of them knowing every single website you visit they just know you are using a VPN (or Tor, or a proxy etc if that’s what you’re using). All they can tell from that data is what time you’re active online and how much data you upload/download, not which websites you’re visiting.
The websites that you connect to at the other end can still determine who you are by means other than your IP address, like information that your machine presents to them which is unique. VPNs don’t protect against this.
A VPN is like a private courier. What the recipient does with the delivered message (and what you’ve put in it) is out of the courier’s hands.
Just the fact that NordVPN claims to protect your privacy means that the average person hears about privacy a lot
I sometimes wonder if NordVPN has done more for the privacy cause than anything else, purely for the sheer amount of advertising.
I guess we disagree a bit then. Don’t get me wrong - I’m not condemning Lemmy. I think it’s extremely valuable in democratising social media. And it functions brilliantly for communication and sharing knowledge. I’m just saying that a side-effect of its functionality is that it’s also addictive. For example I believe that there users who log in, help each other troubleshoot problems growing their tomatoes and then log out, but at the same time there are users who are passively consuming content from the feed way past their bedtime. There are even memes here about it.
I mean that although it doesn’t include the most egregious functions of corporate social media platforms it is still built around features like upvoting/liking, and infinite scroll, which were originally designed to ‘gamify’ social media in order to make it more addictive.
People blame algorithms a lot but I think even the core design means that social media is too addictive. Lemmy is addictive even with no algorithm or dodgy corporate ethics for example.
There’s been a lot of turd-polishing and pleasejustalittlebitbroism when it comes to social media in my opinion.
That looks cool - thanks for the link :)
That sounds cool 👍 If you do decide to make it FOSS I’d be happy to try it out and give feedback.
Organic Maps is definitely easier to use, especially for new users but OsmAnd is more powerful. I have both and they’re awesome.
If it’s done and dusted because they already have your data then why are they constantly trying to get more?
I use Jami and love it. If you want to use it on a de-googled phone you may not get live notifications though, which is annoying if you want to use it for calls. The simplest solution is to allow it to run in the background but it also allows you to use selfhosted push notifications which is cool. I just let it run an accept the hit to to my phone’s battery. Jami is fairly easy to use and looks friendly too, which is helpful for getting non-technical friends to join you on it.
I struggled with Nextcloud Talk too.
Highly recommend Jami 👍
I think AI has mostly been about luring investors into pumping up share prices rather than offering something of genuine value to consumers.
Some people are gonna lose a lot of other people’s money over it.
I use Jami and Session. Interested to check out SimpleX Chat though.