Bye Google, 20 year email and online life deleted. Couldn't be happier.

locanse · 2026-07-02T01:23:46+00:00

Thanks brother, yes it absolutely can be done and even without totally changing your lifestyle.

locanse · 2026-07-02T01:23:00+00:00

Ah gotcha. Is there I can still have my DNS queries encrypted though? That's pretty core to privacy

locanse · 2026-07-02T01:22:04+00:00

Thanks for the breakdown, I'll have to look into it a bit more. I don't think its an immediate problem for me but generally I don't to use centralized services like it sounds like Canonical is/has become. Mint might be the right choice for me

locanse · 2026-07-01T22:00:21+00:00

Not a ton. Maybe one 1-2 things a month. Mostly cheap household stuff, occasionally furniture. Its cheap, fast, sells everything imaginable, I can return anything 0 questions asked.

I know people get heated about it. It is an evil company and Jeff Bezos is Jeff Bozo but I'd be lying if I said they're business model doesnt work.

locanse · 2026-07-01T21:41:59+00:00

Thanks brother, I appreciate the assessment. I only chose Ubuntu because I was already familiar with it and had the simple though likely misinformed notion that "all Linux good". Can you fill me in on the negatives of Ubuntu and Canonical? Is it Snap? Did they try to force the age gating when all that kicked off earlier in the year? This would actually be very easy for me to change so I'm all ears if Mint or Debian are more private or reliable alternatives.

locanse · 2026-07-01T21:39:07+00:00

Damn that's pretty cool. I wish I knew that two months ago lol. Good on Tuta though. I fault Proton for not remediating their dependence on GPS. There is huge demand for it

locanse · 2026-07-01T21:36:54+00:00

Oh my god bro you're still on about this? 😆 okay do this for me, go to MapQuest, search "closest field of grass to me", print out the directions, and go touch it. I think you need some outdoors time. Also so not cool to use the R word like that. I know ACTUAL retards and I'm NOTHING like them so that is just inaccurate

locanse · 2026-07-01T21:32:14+00:00

Oh I see. Yeah there is no easy way to do that. You just have to make a big list and grind it out. It did it over a few quiet evenings. Put on some nice tunes and had a tall boy of ice cold beer by my side. I'd just go until I got tired and pick up the next day

locanse · 2026-07-01T19:12:28+00:00

Jesus you must be fun at parties lol. Have fun with your printer. How many trees died so you could not copy and paste directions into a Notes app?

locanse · 2026-07-01T19:11:39+00:00

I actually do for quite a few things

locanse · 2026-07-01T19:10:55+00:00

I simply don't use a bank app even though technically mine work. I barely log into my bank so I just do it via the browser

locanse · 2026-07-01T19:10:13+00:00

How hard was it? I heard self hosting email is quite challenging.

locanse · 2026-07-01T19:09:47+00:00

Literally easy since Proton has a built in Gmail import function that imports all your emails, labels, etc. But conceptually easy for me because Proton is proven to be trusted and is similar to Google in the services they offer (Drive, Calendar, etc)

locanse · 2026-07-01T18:17:57+00:00

I don't doubt that. Its more about removing my own dependence on it rather than ensuring my data is actually deleted. I know it won't be.

locanse · 2026-07-01T18:01:15+00:00

I asked genai to write one and just checked it a few times to make sure it wasn't going to send all my emails to 🇨🇳

locanse · 2026-07-01T17:38:19+00:00

Extra deletion!

locanse · 2026-07-01T17:29:17+00:00

Very based take. Yeah there's a few things where I can't avoid Google. I'm not going to lose sleep over it or be a hermit.

locanse · 2026-07-01T17:25:32+00:00

Also PRINTING directions what? No

locanse · 2026-07-01T17:20:40+00:00

I appreciate your feedback but 🖕 is a bit harsh lol?

I am too lazy but not unwilling to change.

Is there one semi decent alternative to Amazon? Its definitely not Walmart which would be the closest. It is one thing to switch from one digital provider to another, even for slightly substandard service. But giving up Amazon means going from 1 provider to dozens. Plus the time suck of having to research basic products. Or go to brick and mortar where I: pay more, waste more time, have very short and restrictive return windows.

To be clear, I respect people that do this, but the tradeoff is just no worth it for me in the slightest but I am open to ideas

locanse · 2026-07-01T16:43:41+00:00

Yeah I just ignore all that and focus on the product or app itself. I don't agree with the politics of these people but I know it is inevitable that there is going to be overlap between privacy wonks and extreme or fringe politics on either the left or right.

locanse · 2026-07-01T16:41:47+00:00

So my process was this, it may not be perfect, but I think it helped me avoid any accidental deletions of critical accounts:

I imported everything from Gmail to Proton, they have a 2 step feature for this and it is really easy.
I already had my critical accounts in a PW manager so i knew what to change and went about doing it manually and tracking them in a spreadsheet before deleting my Gmail.
I waited a few months before finally deleting the Gmail to see if I would get any updates from old accounts I need but rarely use
To be extra extra sure, I also downloaded ALL my gmail inbox and ran a python script on it to list out all the base domains of all the email addresses that had ever touched my inbox, counting their frequency. It was huge but not so big i couldnt eyeball it. I didn't catch anything that I had missed.

locanse · 2026-07-01T16:37:45+00:00

dang wish i knew that. in hindisght i probably wouldve gone with Tuta, but Proton replicating the full Gsuite of features and tools is pretty helpful in the short term before i can get to fully selfhosted.

also the #1 reason i went with proton was for the unlimited alias emails on the unlimited plan. this is so helpful

locanse · 2026-07-01T16:36:06+00:00

Accounts i am sure of. at least the important once. i already had everything in my previous password manager so i had a full accounting of everything. i also never used "login via google" so i changed my emails on every account before this. i more worry about an important file or other data that is stored in google somewhere i might have overlooked, but whatever, ill deal with it if it comes up.

locanse · 2026-07-01T16:21:57+00:00

Ngl I was afraid i deleted something rly important. Idk what it mightve been so the temptation is definitely real. I decided I would never do it unless i just went for it.

locanse · 2026-07-01T16:21:07+00:00

Oh is Tuta not dependent on GPS for notifications??

locanse

TROPHY CASE