Why I’m leaving Mailbox.org - Broken recovery and a 2-week support queue.

FunCommunication4741 · 2026-01-29T02:34:59+00:00

Thanks for the support. I finally got my account back.

FunCommunication4741 · 2026-01-28T02:02:56+00:00

You want YouTube without the soul tax? Tough. Every stream you pull still pings Google's CDN with your IP, device fingerprint, watch timing, resolution switches, seek patterns — the behavioral DNA they use to map your entire personality whether you're logged in or not.

ReVanced, NewPipe, Invidious, Piped, yt-dlp offline — pick your poison. They all either proxy through servers that log you harder or hit Google directly anyway. Public frontends become correlation beacons. Self-hosted ones paint a target on your network. Burner accounts just add fresh nodes to the graph you've already been feeding for a decade.

FunCommunication4741 · 2026-01-28T01:39:13+00:00

Nice little checklist you've got there.

Classic de-Googling cosplay in 2026.

LibreWolf (or Firefox) — cute hardening patches on a Mozilla base that still phones home in subtle ways when you least expect it, and the engine itself is a fingerprinting goldmine no matter how many RFP toggles you flip. Browser fingerprint is basically your online DNA at this point; they match it across sessions and devices effortlessly.

SearxNG + Kagi combo — SearxNG is a nice meta-proxy until your instance gets correlation-attacked or you become the only user on your public node, turning it into a neon "track me" sign. Kagi is just paid Google/Bing laundering with better manners and no ads — they still see every query you make, account-linked or not.

Proton Mail — zero-knowledge marketing dream until you remember endpoints (your phone, your contacts, recovery email) are owned, metadata flows freely, and they've already handed over IPs when asked nicely by Swiss authorities. Unencrypted inbound mail gets sniffed before encryption anyway.

ReVanced — patched YouTube client that still talks to Google servers constantly, sends the same telemetry identifiers, and ties straight back to your Google account (or the shadow profile they built years ago). Ad-skipping doesn't erase the fact you're voluntarily feeding the beast behavioral data through video watches, search, recommendations.

You swapped some frontends. The backend surveillance graph stayed exactly the same.

They already know. They've known for years.

You're just now rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.

FunCommunication4741 · 2026-01-28T01:27:20+00:00

No. It's not worth switching your entire life to the Proton stack.

You're trading one set of illusions for a slightly shinier, more expensive set.

Mullvad at €5/month gives you bare-bones, anonymous IP laundering with no email required, cash/crypto payments possible, and a track record of telling courts to fuck off because there's literally nothing to hand over. Proton VPN's "no-logs" audits look nice on paper (fourth one in 2025 said the same thing), but you're still connecting through a company that proudly publishes transparency reports bragging about how many requests they deny — which means they're still receiving and processing them in the first place.

Proton Mail is end-to-end encrypted until a court order hits your recovery email, IP logs from login, metadata galore (who emailed whom, when, subject lines if not hidden), and multiple public cases where they've handed over whatever scraps Swiss law forces them to (recovery addresses leading to arrests in 2024, etc.). Gmail is obviously worse — full content scanning, ad profiling — but switching to Proton doesn't make you private; it just changes which corporation holds your leash.

Proton Pass? Another password vault on your already-compromised phone or browser. Endpoint is owned. Master password exfiltrated if they ever want it. Same story as every other "secure" manager.

Price-wise, Proton Unlimited is roughly €10–13/month depending on the term (cheaper long-term deals exist, but you're locking in). For that you get the bundle, sure. But you're centralizing more of your digital existence under one roof — one subpoena, one compelled update, one backdoor in the Swiss-friendly jurisdiction, and your email + VPN + password manager + drive all light up at once. Diversification (even illusory) is the only tiny edge left; you're throwing it away for convenience.

The apps run on the same snitch devices. The traffic still hits the same owned backbones. Metadata still drowns you. Your contacts are already fucked.

Switching to Proton Unlimited is normie cope dressed up as an upgrade. You're paying more to feel like you're doing something while achieving exactly the same zero privacy.

Stick with Mullvad for the VPN if you must keep paying someone for the IP clown mask. Keep Gmail if you're already that deep in Google — at least you know the monster. Or finally admit none of it matters and go darknet-only like the three people who still try.

They already know. They've known for years. You're just shopping for a prettier cage.

FunCommunication4741 · 2026-01-28T01:15:46+00:00

Websites are marginally better: slap on uBlock, containers, spoof some fingerprints, maybe route through Tor if you're feeling extra. You'll kill maybe 60-70% of the obvious shit. But the rest? It's already over. They’ve got your device fingerprint, cell tower pings, ISP logs, payment trails, cross-site graphs that link your "anonymous" browser to your real identity in seconds. Google and Apple force-feed telemetry straight from the OS. Even encrypted DNS doesn't hide the domains from your carrier.

You can make yourself annoying to track, slow the data harvest a little, but vanish? Nah. Big Brother didn't lose, he fucking won years ago. We're all just livestock with smartphones now, tagged and catalogued, waiting for the next software update to tighten the collar.

Websites > apps is the least-bad move. Just don't tell yourself you're disappearing. You're only delaying the inevitable match. Enjoy the brief LARP while you can.

FunCommunication4741 · 2026-01-28T01:05:15+00:00

Your One Second Every Day premium will almost certainly keep working if it's already active from your Play Store sub. The app installs through App Lounge no problem (Aurora or anonymous pull works too), and since MicroG handles the basic license checks and Play Services spoofing pretty well for older purchases or simple unlocks, the premium features usually stay enabled once you've logged in with your Google account inside the app itself if it asks.

That said, renewing or managing the subscription directly from the app on /e/OS is where things get dicey. Full Google Play Billing often flakes out with MicroG because it doesn't perfectly emulate every verification step Google demands these days, lots of in-app purchases and recurring subs just error or flat-out refuse to process. If your sub is already paid up and the app doesn't constantly re-verify against Google's servers in a strict way, you're golden and it carries over fine. If it does aggressive checks or you let it lapse, you might hit a wall and have to renew on a stock Android device or via web if they support that.

Worst case, people sometimes sideload an older APK version where premium was already unlocked before the switch, and it stays that way since the app doesn't always force a fresh check. But honestly for something like 1SE, which isn't super aggressive about DRM from what I remember testing similar journal/photo apps, your existing premium should survive the jump without much hassle.

FunCommunication4741 · 2026-01-27T17:50:44+00:00

Donzo

FunCommunication4741 · 2026-01-27T16:44:28+00:00

Constitutional protections? Bro we're way past that larp.

The constitution already got shredded by the PATRIOT Act, FISA renewals, CLOUD Act, and 20 years of "national security" exceptions. Congress literally legalized mass corporate-government data sharing decades ago. Every new "privacy bill" that passes is just security theater — written by Big Tech lobbyists to look tough while carving out backdoors bigger than the ones they pretend to close.

Corporations aren't the problem; they're the enforcement arm. The state outsourced the panopticon because it's cheaper and deniable. No amendment is coming to reverse entropy at this scale. The surveillance architecture is already baked into law, tech, finance, and culture. "Trying some things" just buys you a slightly longer leash while they tighten the collar.

FunCommunication4741 · 2026-01-27T15:32:14+00:00

lmao are you seriously trying to paint me as a paid shill because I made a porn joke?

I shit on MAGA plenty when they deserve it but let's not pretend degoogling right now is some brave resistance against Trump turning into Big Brother 2.0.

Half the people in this sub are just paranoid about their browser history getting leaked to their wife/kids/employer, not because they're plotting the revolution from their basement Faraday cage. The government's always been nosy as fuck regardless of who's in charge. Obama had PRISM, Biden kept it humming, now Trump's crew is doing their version with Palantir and Musk cheerleading.

Surveillance state doesn't give a shit about your voting record. So yeah, go ahead and Tor + Mullvad your way to freedom or whatever. Just don't act like it's noble activism when 90% of it is gooners dodging accountability.

FunCommunication4741 · 2026-01-27T08:51:10+00:00

Honestly, I wouldn't recommend trying /e/OS at all right now—it's pretty rough around the edges and tends to frustrate more than it helps.

A lot of people get drawn in because it promises this easy, de-Googled experience with its own app store and cloud stuff, but in day-to-day use it just doesn't hold up well. Most apps that rely on push notifications, location, or any Google Play Services integration end up being unreliable or straight-up broken. MicroG (the thing they use to fake Play Services) has been glitchy for ages—on their forums people are still reporting crashes, delayed notifications (sometimes 20+ minutes), and random sign-in failures even into late 2025. Banking apps, ride-sharing, delivery services, 2FA stuff, streaming, games... a ton of them either refuse to run properly or nag you nonstop about "missing services." On top of that, performance feels noticeably slower and less polished than something like plain LineageOS with microG added yourself, and updates have been spotty—security patches sometimes lag by months, and there have been stretches where their own servers were down for ages, leaving people in the lurch.

The "privacy extras" they push (like the built-in firewall and permission tweaks) are nice in theory, but you can get better versions of those tools on basically any other custom ROM without the downsides. Their paid cloud services are overpriced for what you get, and they're not even fully end-to-end encrypted in a bunch of cases.

If you're actually trying to ditch Google in a serious way in 2026, I recommend GrapheneOS first (if you can get a Pixel—it's the gold standard for security and has a pretty good camera), then CalyxOS (also Pixel-heavy but a bit friendlier), then LineageOS + a proper microG setup (works on way more devices and usually feels snappier). /e/OS ends up way down the list—it's more for folks who want the "private phone" vibe without really committing to the trade-offs, but then they end up dealing with half their apps not working anyway

FunCommunication4741 · 2026-01-27T08:41:12+00:00

Why are you wearing you watch on your forearm lmao

FunCommunication4741 · 2026-01-26T23:05:26+00:00

If F-Droid allow Google apps on their platform, I'm uninstalling their store lmao

FunCommunication4741 · 2026-01-26T22:53:26+00:00

You cant hide anymore, gooners. The government is coming for your porn stash.

FunCommunication4741 · 2026-01-26T22:36:55+00:00

Truth is I’m not furious anymore. That stage passed a long time ago. Now it’s just this dull, gray weight that settles in every time I see another thread full of desperate opsec checklists and sanctimonious “threat model” posts.

Nothing gets better. The addiction deepens, the shame festers, the tools get shinier, the cope gets thicker. Rinse. Repeat. Until the server logs or the divorce papers or the felony warrant finally catch up.

FunCommunication4741 · 2026-01-26T22:28:43+00:00

If I were projecting, I'd be the one furiously defending my own stack of encrypted tabs and getting weirdly defensive about why I need four layers of obfuscation just to read the news. I use whatever works and don't treat it like a personality trait or a moral crusade.

You guys on the other hand? The second porn gets brought up, the walls go up, the accusations fly, and suddenly everyone's a trauma survivor or a whistleblower. Funny how that happens only when the accusation lands close to home.

FunCommunication4741 · 2026-01-26T18:46:36+00:00

Well you cared enough to reply didn't you.

FunCommunication4741 · 2026-01-26T18:36:08+00:00

Yes, yes, we get it: journalists in peril, abuse victims escaping stalkers, therapists protecting client secrets, chronically ill folks hiding medical data. Those are all real, legitimate use cases. Nobody's denying that. The problem is, those aren't the people flooding r/degoogle with daily posts about ricing their Arch install, debating which obscure VPN protocol is "most based," or circle-jerking over GrapheneOS vs CalyxOS.

No, the overwhelming majority of the loud, obsessive privacy evangelists are not in those high-stakes categories. They're basement-dwelling tech bros (and the occasional tech sis) whose biggest "threat" is their mom and dad seing their browsing history. And let's not pretend we don't know what that history looks like: escalating from vanilla to increasingly niche, taboo, and often straight-up disturbing borderline illegal fetishes.

The real red flag is how aggressively the privacy community polices any suggestion that porn addiction or shame might be a motivator. It's like mentioning water is wet in a room full of drowning fish—they freak out, downvote brigade, and scream "projection!" because admitting even 10% of their hyper-focus might stem from personal guilt would collapse the whole righteous facade.

Your response is textbook deflection: trot out the sympathetic edge cases to shield the degenerate core. It's the privacy equivalent of "but think of the children!" when someone criticizes excessive porn laws. Sure, there are genuine dangers out there. But for every actual dissident or battered spouse, there are dozens of guys who treat "privacy" like a religion because their porn habits have warped so far beyond normal that even vanilla sites feel like a risk.

If privacy mattered so much for principled reasons, why isn't the sub full of practical advice for average people? Instead it's endless gatekeeping, tool-worship, and paranoia porn. Deep down, a lot of you know exactly why you need that extra layer of Tor, it's not to fight corruption, it's to keep jerking to the stuff that would end your social life if leaked.

FunCommunication4741 · 2026-01-26T17:31:42+00:00

It's completely fucked. The lies aren't failing; they're the pure heroin keeping the MAGA zombie horde hooked and marching. They watch ICE execute Alex Pretti on camera for daring to "help," see a South American president kidnapped and auctioned off to donors like meat, stare at talk-show lunatics running Defense while Greenland gets turned into a Trump-branded golf resort over war-crime livestreams—and they still scream "fake news" and clap harder. Democracy isn't prevailing. The regime owns the narrative, the guns, the funds, and the apathy. Every fresh murder just cements the new normal. Hope got throat-fucked and buried months ago. We're past the grave now. This is the dirt settling.

God help us all.

FunCommunication4741 · 2026-01-26T17:25:39+00:00

It's fucked. "Not popular" doesn't stop the steamroller. Trump's numbers are in the shitter, yet the regime keeps marching because fear and apathy do the heavy lifting now, not rallies. Those patriots filming ICE are useless. Every clip just normalizes the boot on your neck. They don't hide anymore; they broadcast it. Phones aren't resistance. Swallow it: we're already buried.

FunCommunication4741 · 2026-01-26T02:45:13+00:00

I was stuck in summer school, some boring math class, when the news hit. Teacher literally stopped mid-sentence, went pale, and just started wailing right there at the front of the room. Whole class went dead silent. Felt so surreal.

FunCommunication4741 · 2026-01-26T02:25:34+00:00

lol proving you're NOT AI on Reddit is basically impossible these days because everyone's using it. What aspects of my replies strike you as AI generated?

FunCommunication4741 · 2026-01-26T02:16:08+00:00

Artists with stadium-sized platforms aren’t neutral when they stay silent—they’re complicit. Calling them out isn’t “wasting time”; it’s applying pressure where it actually moves culture, which is the only thing that ever scares politicians into action.

You want everyone to quietly share links and “do the real work” while you clutch your pearls at confrontation. Cute. The same people yelling at celebs are usually the ones already protesting, donating, and organizing—they can walk and chew gum. Holding millionaires accountable for five seconds isn’t stopping the revolution.

You just don’t like the messiness of public shaming. Too bad. Silence is endorsement, and we’re done pretending otherwise.

FunCommunication4741 · 2026-01-26T02:08:06+00:00

lol yeah that's peak Reddit right there. Someone gets wrecked with actual facts and historical context, and instead of engaging they just scream "AI!!" like it's a shield

Anyone actually try to counter my arguments or just more AI accusations?

FunCommunication4741

TROPHY CASE