Ready to move away from Big Tech?

Capitaine Steph 🇨🇦

@jon make self-hosting emails great again

Linux Is Best

@[email protected]

I have also generated a list of service providers that are outside the United States jurisdiction. (UPDATED - February 2, 2025)

Naturally, making this list is not easy. These are two types of companies I avoided in making my list.

1) Those who actually fall under US-jurisdiction because they are based or owned by a company in the USA.

More than often, I will stumble over a company that appears to be outside the USA, but later find they are owned by another corporation based inside the USA, and so they do fall under US-jurisdiction.

2) Those who voluntarily give up their sovereignty to the United States. The 2nd type, who voluntarily gives up their sovereignty in the way of US jurisdiction, have whole sections of their terms concerning US Laws and US based customers. If a fascist government says jump, these people will ask, how high?!

I encourage people to scrutinize my list. The old saying, "trust, but verify", is something I believe in.

🤫 VPN =

* iVPN, located in Gibraltar, Europe (UK territory)
https://www.ivpn.net/

* Mullvad VPN, located in Sweden, Europe
https://mullvad.net/

* Goose VPN, located in the Netherlands, Europe
https://goosevpn.com/

* Xeovo VPN, located in Finland, Europe
https://xeovo.com/

Managed DNS =

* AdGuard DNS, located in Cyprus, Europe
https://adguard-dns.io/

* ClouDNS, located in Bulgaria, Europe
https://www.cloudns.net/

* deSEC, located in Germany, Europe
https://desec.io/

Public DNS =

* CIRA Canadian Shield, located in Canada, North America
https://www.cira.ca/en/canadian-shield/configure/

* Mullvad DNS, located in Sweden, Europe
https://mullvad.net/en/help/dns-over-https-and-dns-over-tls

Privacy focused e-mail =

* Tuta, located in Germany, Europe
https://tuta.com/

* Soverin, located in the Netherlands, Europe
https://soverin.com/

* Startmail, located in the Netherlands, Europe
https://www.startmail.com/

* Mailfence, located in Belgium, Europe
https://mailfence.com/

Domain Registration / Web Hosting =

* Scalewy, located in France, Europe
https://www.scaleway.com/

* OVH, located in France, Europe
https://www.ovhcloud.com/

* Jottam located in Norway, Europe
https://jottacloud.com/

* Aruba, located in Italy, Europe
https://aruba.it/

* Hosting Dot NL, located in the Netherlands, Europe
https://hosting.nl/

* Bahnhof, located in Sweden, Europe
https://bahnhof.cloud/

* Glesys, located in Sweden, Europe
https://glesys.com/

CDN =

* Key CDN, located in Switzerland, Europe
https://www.keycdn.com/

Jon S. von Tetzchner

@s1r83r

I wish self hosting was easy to do, but sadly it is not. Not so much a technical issue, but I fear you may get blocked by Big Tech.

WildEnte

@jon any recommendations for messengers? I guess Signal (non-profit, free & open source) would be recommended?

I admit that I stick to WhatsApp because most people I exchange messages with use it, and on the desktop I can just add it to Vivaldi as a web panel - this isn't possible with Signal as they don't have a web client.

Jon S. von Tetzchner

@WildEnte , sorry, no recommendation there. I prefer mail myself.

themadhatter

@jon

Browser : Chromium/Firefox.
Mail client : Thunderbird
Mail service : self-hosted (Mailcow).
Office software : Collabora (selfhosted).
Video conference : OpenTalk (selfhosted)
Desktop OS : Linux.
Social : Mastodon and the Fediverse in general.
Messenger : Matrix/Element (selfhosted)
Projektmanagement : OpenProject (selfhosted)
Cloud : Nextcloud (selfhosted)
VPN : WireGuard (selfhosted)
Etc. Etc.
Everything selfhosted in data centers running on 100% decentralized produced renewables

Jon S. von Tetzchner

@themadhatter

Very impressive. Obviously I would have liked you to use Vivaldi, but I am impressed.

Doctacosa

@jon I've been meaning to make a blog post listing what I use. I have a habit of never going for the big #1 option, so it could be interesting to list it all and maybe compare with others. I should get on that!

Jeff C

@jon who can you suggest as a search engine, besides google, bing, and duckduck? I too build a FOSS browser and I'm in the process of adding search engine choices.

Jon S. von Tetzchner

@JeffC1956

There are a number of good choices out there. Startpage, Ecosia and Qwant come to mind. Mojeek and Kagi as well.

Ayespy

@jon @WildEnte I'm with you in that regard. Text on phone is fairly handy, but it can be hard to find and access old messages. It's almost like it has no memory. On phone, in-the minute, text is fine. On desktop, mail is infinitely preferable. In fact, if a client keeps texting me, I tell them to stop doing that, and email me instead.

Obiwan2208

@jon
1. Vivaldi
2. Protonmail and Vivaldi. AquaMail in Android.
3. Protonmail and Vivaldi
4. MS Office (evaluating switch)
5. N/A
6. Desktop: W10 PRO / Laptop: Linux Mint
7. #VivaldiSocial , BlueSky and Reddit.

In addition,
My video platform is #Vimeo, although I keep in touch with YT videos via #FreeTube (no login required, Invidious servers).

My mobile has #GrapheneOS w/out GApps.
My 2nd mobile (testing purposes) has #LineageOS w/out GApps.

For Calendar I use #OneCalendar which handle CalDAV directly, #betterprivacy 'cause doesn't use phone calendar. And Contacts are synced via #DAVx5.
App updates are done via #Obtainium and #Aurora.

I erased my Google account on 7th January
I erased my Twitter accounts
I erased my Whatsapp account
I erased my Facebook account

As far you see my hand doesn't tremble with #BigTech, Cap'n

leeuw

@jon agreed about linux. although the ongoing talk about "systemd" and "wayland". and other things make me sick to the stomach. although i tried linux mint a short time ago. found out spirallinux cinnamon is still better.

Timbers Army Gorge Corps

@jon search engine?

Jon S. von Tetzchner

@GorgeCorps

There are some good choices there: DuckDuckGo, Startpage, Ecosia and Qwant come to mind. Kagi and Mojeek as well.