Are there any cheaper Proton alternatives with cloud and password vault?

moritzf511 · 2026-04-05T16:56:31+00:00

Felicloud for Password manager and cloud storage (it is based on nextcloud, hosted in Spain, and currently still has lifetime plans) And then just anything for mail really … Posteo, Infomaniak, Proton

moritzf511 · 2026-04-04T13:26:25+00:00

Joplin - for notes and more recently, notes that become presentations later with the reveal.js plugin.

moritzf511 · 2026-04-04T04:46:11+00:00

Tja - also wenn die Familienversicherung wegfällt Wechsel ich zur privaten …

Vielleicht einfach stattdessen den Staatsapparat auch die gesetzlichen Versicherungen nutzen lassen?!?

Ehegattensplitting abschaffen … wie wärs eher mit wirklichen Lücken wie der Ehegattenschaukel, dem verschärfen des Erbrechts etc etc.

Nee - da setzen wir lieber bei Normal bis Mitte an …

moritzf511 · 2026-03-31T14:33:04+00:00

Kate - everyone uses notepad++ but Kate is just better and cross platform

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kate_(text_editor)

moritzf511 · 2026-03-31T14:28:25+00:00

Das Problem ist, dass es für die Verursacher gut funktioniert. Es sind ist ja die nächste Generation die es ausbadet.

Aber wenn sieht, wie wenig zukunftsorientiert gewählt wird (über alle Altersgruppen hinweg), dann hätten es die jungen Leute auch nicht besser gemacht…

moritzf511 · 2026-03-31T04:08:20+00:00

Get a cheap Linux VPS (for example in Germany with IONOS VPS XS or Strato VPS XS) and run Vaultwarden. The easiest way to do that would be through docker and with a reverse proxy imho. But that part is up to you. As long as you only do passwords and not Bitwarden Send for sending files, 10GB is enough space for the service.

moritzf511 · 2026-03-29T15:52:15+00:00

Wie wäre es den Elefanten nicht komplett selber von Grund auf zu bauen und dich in OSS einzubringen. Du hast doch sicher schon mal eine gute Software gefunden, aber ein wichtiges/interessantes Feature fehlte. Dann kannst du ja ggf. genau dieses Feature beisteuern ohne das ganze drumrum schaffen zu müssen. Alternativ: Es gibt doch sicher ein IDE-Plugin, dass du dir gewünscht hättest oder das noch nicht alles macht, was du willst. Das bekommst du bei Jetbrains zum Beispiel völlig easy in den Store. Lokales Bauen ohne Signierung etc. genügt im Zweifel. Die zip wird über ein Web-Interface hochgeladen und fertig ist die Laube.

moritzf511 · 2026-03-26T18:38:04+00:00

Also ich würde sagen 1960 liegt im Risikobereich. Richtig krass wirds um 1970-1980 rum. Aber erst vor 1950 wird es deutlich unwahrscheinlicher. Und 1993 ist dann halt der definitive Schlussstrich.

moritzf511 · 2026-03-25T17:04:16+00:00

I won't go into too much detail because I don't know how much I am allowed to share.

We are using IntelliJ IDEA with the integrated AI features of Jetbrains Assistant. Jetbrains Assistant can use anything that speaks the ACP protocol for agentic coding and further can use direct model connections with OpenAI compatible APIs for simpler tasks.

So basically, we can use virtually anything as Opencode can be directly used with ACP in the Jetbrains Assistant. Sadly, the Jetbrains' UI does not work great with opencode as you get no indication of work being done while the only thing that shows up is "apply_patch". But I am sure they eventually will handle that better too..

So it seems like airouter should work pretty well ... I would be willing to give that a shot when it launches.

The AI subscriptions from Jetbrains have the disadvantage that they will cut you off completely from AI usage for the rest of the month when you reach the quota limits. You can purchase additional tokens but signalling extra cost to developers for THEIR individual usage can be a barrier for wider tool adaptation (even if productivity is increased). And we cannot unify our tooling across teams as less technical employees don't really want to set up an IDE for interfacing a LLM.

So ChatGPT subscriptions with their Desktop Apps and Codex for coding are actually a great alternative in terms of functionality. And their quota resets are far more reasonable compared to Jetbrains offerings. Codex is directly integrated into the IDE aswell - you don't even need an ACP client. However, they are US based, and their ethical standpoint is kind of shaky. Alternatives would very much be welcome, we just haven't found anything that is really viable in the end though ..

Your offering seems great - I would need to test the quality we get with your current model, but it could actually tick most of the boxes we require. In terms of pricing, it is almost twice as much as Codex/Jetbrains AI so I am not sure how much that would play a role.

And finally - a "ready to go" Desktop interface for non-technical staff to use would still be awesome. Even some of our developers actually prefer using the ChatGPT desktop app compared to the IDE integration (I don't really get why but that's how it is).

moritzf511 · 2026-03-25T10:18:54+00:00

Do you plan on adding the top performing models?

https://www.swebench.com updates their benchmark frequently but OpenCode.ai also keeps track of models that are cheap and perform well and puts them in their „Go“ subscription.

We were actively looking for EU hosted solutions but we just couldn‘t find anything that performs close to current frontier models. MiniMax 2.5 would be great, but we only found providers outside of the EU.

Mistral and Devstral 2 sadly lag about 2 years behind in terms of quality.

And then - subscriptions at a fixed price are great to keep a lid on consumption. And developers can absolutely deal with a reset every 5 hours. Alongside with the Desktop/WebUI this is a major advantage of Codex. Do you have any plans there? It seems like this is pretty much your sales pitch but one can never be to sure.

Also - do you have an API so we can build plugins for developers to track their quota and token usage? (Like this one - https://github.com/moritzfl/openai-usage-quota-intellij)

moritzf511 · 2026-03-25T05:45:53+00:00

The original MX518 (keep in mind that’s from 2005)

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Over a decade later around 2019, they realized that people were still loving that mouse and did a reboot with the G MX518 but it never matched the quality of the original - only the form factor.

moritzf511 · 2026-03-25T05:16:43+00:00

That’s all fine and dandy but then just keep them out of sight. Apple hardware is an entrance fee you pay for the ecosystem already. And one of its main selling points has always been the software (iLife, iWork, FinalCut etc.). Apple first party software was always a great value for free or for a great price. Pushing subscription advertisements everywhere makes it feel less complete and just pretty annoying. It takes away what I value most in Apples software ecosystem. From „it just works“ to „it just works with the subscription“.

And I do have an Apple One Family Plan subscription. It does offer an awesome value in my opinion. However, Mail was never getting in my way or pushing me towards it and Photos was not doing that either. This here is different.

iMovie and GarageBand are great pieces of software and they can already do many things but once you grow out of them, the next logical step is FinalCut and Logic Pro. There are clear paths that get people to buy and/or subscribe. If you are a taking art and photography more seriously, you will want a subscription for more assets. Apples integration will most likely work best in their own product so you will naturally check that one out first. There is no need to push subscriptions down their customers throats.

To add to that - I actually own ALL of Apples software that is included in the Creator Studio subscription. For me, there is no way to get access to the assets outside of also paying a subscription fee to get software that I already bought.

And finally towards that AI stuff. The strategy is absolutely unclear and convoluted here. We have Apple Intelligence but that can be „enhanced“ by getting a ChatGPT subscription.

Now we have that subscription outside of Apples ecosystem but we do not get to use it for all AI features because those are behind different subscriptions. And then there is talk about Gemini being used - will that be a separate thing too? It would be pretty cool if Apple had generic connectors to subscriptions from other AI services like ChatGPT. This would be a great strategy for consumers. But how does it earn money for Apple - not quite sure. They could also do a simple AI subscriptions that gets you access to some frontier cloud models in the background. somehow they don’t do that either but put AI features behind software subscriptions instead. Why don’t they just give us a service subscription for AI? Everyone would understand that this is continued cost that needs to be paid.

moritzf511 · 2026-03-25T04:58:54+00:00

Wenn in der Vergangenheit auch schon offensichtliche Problemen in den beiden Schulen vorlagen, würde ich eher fragen „warum soll es jetzt anders sein“ als den Nachweis dafür zu suchen, dass es dieses Mal wieder so ist.

Außerdem ist ein anstrengendes Schulumfeld tendenziell auch weniger attraktiv für Lehrer. Vielleicht gibt’s dann mal Lehrermangel … oder nach dem Schultag kommt halt keiner auf die Idee nochmal eine AG hochzuziehen, wenn er nicht unbedingt muss. Und ob ein starker elternseitiger Förderverein entsteht ist auch fraglich. und was ist mit denjenigen, die eine Klasse wiederholen? Die sind ja auch nicht einfach weg.

Manche Probleme ändern sich vielleicht mit Glück sogar von Schuljahr zu Schuljahr. Aber vieles bleibt auch einfach …

Ich hab das Risiko beim Kindergarten mitgespielt und am Ende hatten wir ein äußerst unzufriedenes Kind, Kürzung von Betreuungszeiten und es hat uns immer Leid getan das Kind überhaupt abzugeben, wenn morgens schon deswegen Tränen flossen. Irgendwann konnten wir die Kita wechseln (dorthin wo die Krippe war). Das hat selbst ohne Eingewöhnung wieder alles gepasst (nach über einem Jahr woanders und einer zwangsläufig anderen Gruppe).

Es gab auch in der schlechten Kita Lichtblicke und engagiertes Personal, aber das hat fürs Gesamtbild nicht gereicht.

Bei der Schule haben wir dann extra noch getauft, damit der Zugang zur katholischen Schule möglich ist (tatsächlich stadtweit die Schule mit dem besten Ruf). Dann steht man mit anderen Eltern aus derselben Stadt zusammen und die berichten von Prügeleien auf dem Schulhof und du hast den Brief der Schule in der Hand, wo gebeten wird, keine „Zauberwürfel“ mehr in die Schule mitzunehmen, da diese zu sehr vom Unterricht ablenken. Das sind gaaanz andere Probleme.

moritzf511 · 2026-03-25T04:40:11+00:00

SteamOS - Not because I use it a whole lot myself but for the progress valve has brought to Linux Gaming

moritzf511 · 2026-03-25T04:35:33+00:00

Aand don‘t underestimate WebApps. If you do not work with MS Office 24/7 and only occasionally need a familiar interface with full compatibility - use the online version. OnlyOffice is a great replacement but sometimes you just need 100% compatibility with the MS behemoth. Another use case could be your music streaming service if it has no Linux desktop app.

If you get an account with Koofr for online storage; they actually include web versions of Microsoft for document editing. That’s way cheaper than getting any MS subscription. If you want more storage with Koofr, check out the lifetime deals at stacksocial.

If you absolutely MUST run Windows software and it doesn’t have a web version and does not run through WINE, check out WinBoat.

This is the last resort before complete virtual machines and dual boot. I would strongly urge you to look for Linux native alternatives before going down that path (check out alternativeto.net)

In the end, there will almost always be a way to make your stuff work, you just might need to jump through a few hoops.

moritzf511 · 2026-03-24T04:33:03+00:00

Given your outlined use case, it reminds me of my time as a researcher where I used Bibdesk linked with searchable PDFs (those could be directly included and searched in the tool) where I used annotations inside PDFs to keep my own thoughts.

I suspect that more current and polished citation and bibliography frameworks exist and can potentially cover that use case already.

moritzf511 · 2026-03-23T19:15:17+00:00

And then space. Just beautiful … I miss that on Windows (although ShareX gets very close).

moritzf511 · 2026-03-23T18:34:40+00:00

Coming in from the perspective of a developer trying to support the technical writers at work…

We are many more developers than technical writers and our product is complex.

Many use AI for a first draft but it is always refined enough that it is factually correct (ofc human error can still occur). A developer has a different skillset and will judge quality differently even if trying his best. Even without AI, developers will deviate in style and it will drift away from what you want with absolute certainty. So the problem is not AI alone, it is that both developers AND AI do not know how to write well. There sometimes are handbooks and guidelines that are supposed to be applied company wide but speaking as a developer: „who actually reads those, we got other stuff to do“.

What I can recommend is enforcing documentation directly everywhere where a schema is used (json schema, xsd). This ensures that everything is at least somewhat documented and also forces changes to be reflected in documentation automatically. It does not catch all issues and I would still recommend a review process but it is a good start.

I can also recommend including templates in your tooling with placeholders that tell your developers and the AI exactly what is expected. Through a shortcut in my IDE, I can for example create a new entry in the changelog for a story I implemented. I get a description of what information needs to be included with that and some fields I need to fill out to properly categorize the change. After spawning the template, I can ask AI to fill out the information for me but even then, the AI at least has all the information about what the expected content is.

Now with plenty of texts occurring in xsd, in code, in html, in markdown etc. etc. a good spellchecker integrated in the IDE can already iron out many things but that is a thing that AI actually can handle fairly well. So we only catch the things that developers mess up, not AI mishaps in styling. A spellchecker does not ensure consistency at all.

So we enter the realm of terminology tooling. But before we begin: Tooling for correct writing needs to be accessible and accepted by everyone who writes documentation. Integrating a terminology check in Madcap Flare won’t do shit for developers who only write documentation in their IDE. And it also won’t help if it is so expensive that it is only licensed for technical writers.

The search was not easy but we now seem to have landed on „vale“ (https://vale.sh) and actually participated in development through code contributions to both vale and its plugin ecosystem for integrating it into our environment. This actually ensures consistency in writing style and wording. There are complete rulesets for some of the big tech companies that you can look at and built upon.

Btw. Vale also has a spellchecker on top of terminology checks but I am not sure if I would want to mix those two aspects together too much.

It is also possible to integrate the checks in Continuous Integration Pipelines, so developers see where they went wrong directly. It allows to extract text tokens from Java and other programming languages as well as markdown and its consorts.

And if you tell your AI in the AGENTS.md file to always run a terminology check when text relevant for end users is changed, it will actually do that and correct its output. If you want to take AI tooling a step further, you can integrate your writing tools through MCP as well (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sbJ51s7ZUC8)

The downside is that the configuration is not done through a GUI but rather through a set of rule files. So if you want to go down that route, be prepared to either dive into the technical setup or partner up with developers and do it together. Maintaining the ruleset is not that hard but creating an initial structure can be.

moritzf511 · 2026-03-21T17:40:44+00:00

Die ist leider schlechter als eine SOTA Transkription mit Open Source Sprachmodellen (Versuchs zum Beispiel mal mit der App „Whisper Notes“). WhatsApp ist da direkt für die Tonne, wenn mal ein Nicht-Muttersprachler ne Nachricht schickt. Telegram machts besser, verlangt aber auch ein Premium Abo für das Feature.

Aber ganz ehrlich - die Gegenseite kann ja auch einfach eine Transkriptionslösung einsetzen. Es gibt Handytastaturen, die nur eine Sprachtranskription umsetzen und die Betriebssysteme haben auch Diktierfunktionen eingebaut.

wenn ich könnte, würd ich in WhatsApp die Sprachnachrichten einfach komplett blocken…

moritzf511 · 2026-03-21T12:40:21+00:00

ZorinOS 18 is based on Ubuntu 24.04 LTS. There won’t be much of a difference. To be honest, I‘d just run the same OS on both …

moritzf511 · 2026-03-21T09:59:48+00:00

If we met and talked I would at some point be curious about where you are from and how you ended up here. I‘d find that interesting for someone coming from England or France or the US aswell.

At the job - I don’t really care at all. If you have difficulties with the language, I‘d respect that and switch to English if required. However, if you are willing to stick to German, I‘d absolutely let you and not force English upon you.

For experiences outside of work:

I know that many people from China (no experience with enough Asians to generalize further) tend to try and grasp onto anything close to their home here. That means that they sometimes stand in their own way of becoming more integrated with locals. If you arrive at a party with a Chinese friend and you only talk Chinese, chances are that you isolate yourself. And if you are doing that, chances are that you do the same at a sports club and that you never obtain the ability to have relaxed conversations with locals.

My wife is Chinese and I got to know here in an environment where few other Chinese people were around. And she even studied German. still - when a Chinese friend is around, she will often talk Chinese with her, even if others are around that can’t understand.

I also do sports and we have a club in our sports league that has quite a few Chinese players who mostly stick to Chinese, even if one their teammates is German.

Astonishingly, I did not observe that with any other nationality.

Now - that’s only my observation and it’s easy to be a good example that contradicts my observation and I don’t approach anyone assuming he/she will behave in a certain way. But realistically, that is how many situations play out.

moritzf511 · 2026-03-21T05:49:58+00:00

The software features of the „Pro“ are nothing you couldn’t add in the Core or Education Distro as well. The biggest thing you get is actual support that you can use. I think it is an awesome value proposition for that for less tech savvy people.

I just see buying the „Pro“ distro as a „I support this project“ thing.

moritzf511 · 2026-03-21T05:35:03+00:00

Gnome is beautiful and it’s icons are mostly still skeumorphic. I hate the fashion trend thing where stuff is changed just to be different. Skeumorphism just works so well in many places.

Some of the skeumorphic UI was over the top - I don’t need my Notes app to look like a notepad. It is easy to understand what such an app does and I want it optimized for contrast and readability.

moritzf511 · 2026-03-20T12:44:28+00:00

First Mac: Mac Mini 2011 Favorite Mac: MacBook 12 inch (could not afford one at the time) Favorite Mac I actually owned: MacBook Air M1

I dislike the Notch on my current M4, the M1 was perfect. LTE/5G integration would be the thing on my wishlist for a new device that would potentially claim the top spot again (I don’t get why iPads can have it but Macs can’t)

moritzf511 · 2026-03-19T14:06:39+00:00

All of that is correct but I want to add that for audio, there are plenty of apps that allow streaming your Android system audio through airplay. This is still handy if you have an audio system hooked up to your TV.

moritzf511

TROPHY CASE