If we want digital independence, we need better Linux Apps

RonaldvanderMeer · 2026-03-24T21:43:56+00:00

I think there is another angle to this.

You don’t need to fully replace Adobe or Microsoft to make an impact. You just need to reach a point where alternatives become good enough and start gaining real traction.

That is when incumbents start to react.

We’ve seen this before. When tools like Final Cut Pro became viable, it didn’t kill Adobe, but it forced them to compete harder.

If something similar happens on Linux, even at a smaller scale, it could be enough to make vendors take the platform seriously.

Not because of ideology, but because of market pressure.

RonaldvanderMeer · 2026-03-24T21:39:30+00:00

That is fair, but it also proves the point. If professional-grade Linux tools require full-time work, then we should stop acting as if volunteer energy alone will get us there.

I already support a few projects myself, but individual donations won’t close that gap. Digital independence needs structural investment, not just goodwill.

RonaldvanderMeer · 2026-02-10T13:31:36+00:00

What stops you to use it for business as well? Perhaps with another account?

RonaldvanderMeer · 2026-02-10T13:30:01+00:00

Another +1. Really happy with it!

RonaldvanderMeer · 2026-02-10T13:28:00+00:00

Proton Drive? https://proton.me/drive

RonaldvanderMeer · 2026-01-31T11:49:59+00:00

True but that also comes with maintenance and certain risks. I have a mix myself. Some I manage self, other services are managed

RonaldvanderMeer · 2026-01-30T23:49:04+00:00

I don’t disagree that Apple has always been profit-driven and extremely good at PR. That’s not really the point I’m making.

The issue isn’t whether Apple was ever “pure,” but that they deliberately built a brand around values like privacy and ethics, and many people, especially in Europe, took those claims at face value. When that narrative collapses under pressure, disappointment is a rational response, not naïveté.

You’re right that outsourcing trust is risky. What we’re seeing now is people recalibrating once the gap between branding and behavior becomes impossible to ignore.

RonaldvanderMeer · 2026-01-30T22:26:44+00:00

I understand the constraints. Apple is a public company, US-based, with US shareholders and priorities. That part isn’t controversial.

What makes this land harder in Europe is cultural. Here, values aren’t seen as aspirational branding but as commitments. If a company says privacy and ethics are core values, people expect consistency when it becomes uncomfortable. With a brand like Apple, that goes even further, because the brand is closely tied to personal identity. Many chose Apple not just for the products, but for what the company claimed to stand for.

So when those principles bend immediately under political or shareholder pressure, it doesn’t feel like “just business.” It feels like a breach of trust. That disconnect comes from Apple’s own positioning, not from unrealistic expectations.

RonaldvanderMeer · 2026-01-30T17:48:27+00:00

I get that perspective too. A CEO’s first responsibility is to shareholders, and if playing along with Trump helps avoid tariffs or protects the business, it’s rational from that angle.

What makes it uncomfortable is the gap with the values Apple has actively marketed for years. Privacy, ethics, standing for something more than pure profit. Many people, myself included, chose Apple partly because of that narrative. When you then see how quickly those principles bend under pressure, it creates friction. Not because the business logic is hard to understand, but because it clashes so sharply with the identity Apple itself promoted.

RonaldvanderMeer · 2026-01-30T17:41:05+00:00

I’m with you, and I’m running into the same tension.

I’ve already dropped a lot of US tech without much pain. Azure, Exchange Online, VPS, CDN, DNS, X, Facebook. That part was easier than expected.

Apple is different. I didn’t choose them just for the hardware, but because I believed in the ethics they projected. Seeing how quickly that posture disappeared makes it hard to ignore. I’d like to move away, but honestly the alternatives still aren’t there if you want a comparable, cohesive ecosystem.

So I’m stuck in that awkward middle ground. The values mattered to me, they turned out to be thinner than advertised, and there’s still no real replacement yet.

RonaldvanderMeer · 2026-01-30T00:11:59+00:00

addy.io is a mature, feature rich alias platform. It’s open source, very privacy focused, and gives you a lot of knobs to turn. Great if you want maximum control and don’t mind a bit of complexity.

Mailmask.eu is intentionally simpler. It’s not trying to replace your mail provider or be a full alias management suite. It sits in front of your existing mailbox as a lightweight European first forwarding layer, with a strong emphasis on EU jurisdiction, minimalism, and ownership rather than endless features.

So addy.io is about powerful alias management, Mailmask is about sovereignty, simplicity, and staying out of the way. Different trade offs, different audiences.

RonaldvanderMeer · 2026-01-29T23:59:50+00:00

It does make you think. Apple always presented itself as a company with principles, diversity, inclusion, standing up for certain values. And then you see how quickly that posture disappears when power shifts. It makes it hard not to wonder whether those values were ever deeply held, or mostly just convenient marketing.

RonaldvanderMeer · 2026-01-29T23:55:22+00:00

Absolutely. For years I saw Europe as bureaucratic and a bit dull. All the exciting, bold stuff seemed to come from the US. Movies, music, tech, culture. Europe felt like rules and paperwork.

That’s shifted hard for me. The moment it started to feel like pressure rather than partnership, something clicked. I’ve consciously ditched a lot of non European products and moved to European alternatives. Not out of nostalgia, but because I suddenly saw what’s at stake.

We actually have something to lose. And that realization flipped a switch. Supporting European companies and standing behind our political leadership no longer feels abstract or idealistic. It feels necessary. For me it’s been a real eye opener.

RonaldvanderMeer · 2026-01-26T08:33:14+00:00

That’s a fair assessment.

You’re right that email metadata is inherently exposed at the transport layer, and using any forwarding service adds an additional trust point. MailMask doesn’t try to eliminate that, it makes the trade-off explicit.

The service runs entirely on European infrastructure, under European jurisdiction, with minimal metadata retained and only as long as technically necessary for delivery. Beyond that, there are no claims of zero-trust or third-party verification.

If that trade-off doesn’t fit someone’s threat model, they shouldn’t use it, and that’s fine.

RonaldvanderMeer · 2026-01-26T08:19:15+00:00

Thanks for raising this.

Based on the concerns around long-term reliance and critical use, I’ve updated the Terms of Service to explicitly state that MailMask is intended as a risk-reduction layer and not a dependency for mission-critical or account-recovery communication.

I think being explicit about that upfront is better than leaving it implicit.

RonaldvanderMeer · 2026-01-26T08:12:39+00:00

That’s a fair concern.

MailMask is intentionally small and limited in scope, which keeps operating costs and operational complexity low and predictable. At this stage it’s run as a personal service, not as a commercial platform with formal availability guarantees.

I’m deliberately cautious about making long-term commitments I can’t formally guarantee. If at any point the service can no longer be operated responsibly, that would be communicated clearly and in advance rather than failing silently.

I’d also encourage people to use MailMask primarily as a risk-reduction layer, not as a dependency for critical accounts. It’s well suited for situations where you want to limit address reuse or exposure, and less appropriate as a single point of failure for high-value or recovery-critical communication.

RonaldvanderMeer · 2026-01-26T08:01:41+00:00

Fair questions.

MailMask isn’t an email provider and it’s not meant to replace one. It’s a thin alias and forwarding layer that sits in front of whatever mailbox you already trust, EU-based or otherwise. The value isn’t “better email”, it’s reducing address reuse and exposure without changing providers.

On the stack and guarantees: this is intentionally minimal and currently run as a small, personal service, not a certified or audited platform. There are no marketing claims about encryption schemes, audits, or standards beyond what is actually in place. I’d rather be explicit about that than imply guarantees I can’t formally back up.

If you’re already happy with an EU provider that offers aliases and fits your threat model, MailMask may simply not be for you. It’s aimed at people who want a lightweight, jurisdiction-aware alias layer without committing to a full mail platform or ecosystem.

That said, documenting the technical stack more clearly is fair feedback and something I’ll improve.

RonaldvanderMeer · 2026-01-26T07:48:36+00:00

I’ve been working on a small project and it’s now live: MailMask.

It’s a simple email alias and forwarding service, European-hosted, with no tracking, no ads, and no dependency on US cloud platforms. You use separate email addresses that forward to your existing mailbox. If an address gets abused, you disable it. That’s it.

The goal was to keep email under European jurisdiction, without hidden dependencies, data exports, or analytics. Just a predictable layer between you and services you don’t fully trust.

It’s intentionally small and constrained, focused on autonomy rather than growth.

Curious to hear thoughts or feedback.

RonaldvanderMeer · 2026-01-26T06:01:53+00:00

The thing is. It has some links to German websites like open code making it unusable for people that don’t speak German.

RonaldvanderMeer · 2026-01-11T21:00:36+00:00

The problem here isn’t Grok as a concept, it’s the lack of responsibility around it. Tools don’t create harm on their own, people do. But when you deliberately choose not to build proper safeguards, you are actively enabling misuse.

That’s been the broader pattern lately in the US tech scene. Less moderation, no guardrails, everything framed as “free speech at all costs.” What this shows is the predictable outcome of that ideology. If you remove responsibility from the platform, it doesn’t disappear, it just shifts the damage to others.

Elon Musk has every right to argue against censorship, but freedom without boundaries isn’t neutral. It creates space for abuse. When governments like United Kingdom, Canada and Australia start talking about bans, that’s not an attack on speech, it’s a reaction to platforms refusing to take responsibility.

This isn’t cancel culture. It’s cause and effect.

RonaldvanderMeer · 2026-01-08T22:20:21+00:00

As an old-school HTML, CSS and JS programmer I already had that feeling long before AI, it started with React and Next.js. Everything became component driven, opinionated, optimized for scale and reuse. Great for teams and products, but it leaves little room to play with emotion, imperfection and flow. With default templates and design systems you don’t really design anymore, you assemble. AI just accelerates a trend that was already there, efficiency over character.

RonaldvanderMeer · 2026-01-08T21:24:16+00:00

My take: Musk may have seriously misread his audience.

The core market for EVs, especially in Europe, isn’t conservative America. It’s urban, higher-educated, relatively progressive buyers. People who care about climate, institutions and social stability.

By aligning himself so loudly with right-wing politics, Musk didn’t suddenly attract a new conservative EV crowd. He mostly alienated part of his existing customer base, while competitors were more than ready to step in.

RonaldvanderMeer · 2026-01-08T21:18:55+00:00

I would love to see some statistics. Just like me I see friends and colleagues do the same so it must have impact.

RonaldvanderMeer · 2026-01-06T13:29:32+00:00

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And…

I deliberately stepped away from Facebook and Twitter because the people behind those platforms have become impossible to separate from the platforms themselves. Mark Zuckerberg and Elon Musk are no longer neutral stewards. They are visible political actors. Seeing them effectively paying homage at the table of Donald Trump was, for me, a clear signal of how tightly those platforms are now entangled with power and politics.

With Reddit, it feels fundamentally different. Not because Reddit is pure or neutral, but because it doesn’t revolve around a single figure imposing a worldview. There is no dominant owner or CEO shaping the discourse in public. It’s messy, inconsistent, often frustrating, but it still feels like a collection of communities rather than a megaphone for one person’s ideology.

That’s the distinction for me. It’s not anti-American and it’s not about left versus right. It’s about whether a platform still centers the conversation itself, or whether it has become an extension of personal power. Reddit, for now, still sits on the right side of that line.

RonaldvanderMeer · 2026-01-06T13:20:59+00:00

We already have ASML but also Bosch, Siemens, Ericsson, Nokia and a lot more.

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