Privacy

Bitwarden is a good option for password manager.

I would discourage anyone from moving to Proton. I know people are quick dismiss the CEOs political views as fluff but here's a evidenced account of what unfolded:

This is what the CEO posting as u/Proton_Team stated in a response on r/ProtonMail:

Here is our official response, also available on the Mastodon post in the screenshot:

Corporate capture of Dems is real. In 2022, we campaigned extensively in the US for anti-trust legislation.

Two bills were ready, with bipartisan support. Chuck Schumer (who coincidently has two daughters working as big tech lobbyists) refused to bring the bills for a vote.

At a 2024 event covering antitrust remedies, out of all the invited senators, just a single one showed up - JD Vance.

By working on the front lines of many policy issues, we have seen the shift between Dems and Republicans over the past decade first hand.

Dems had a choice between the progressive wing (Bernie Sanders, etc), versus corporate Dems, but in the end money won and constituents lost.

Until corporate Dems are thrown out, the reality is that Republicans remain more likely to tackle Big Tech abuses.

Source: https://archive.ph/quYyb

To call out the important bits:

1. He refers to it as the "official response"
2. Indicates that JD Vance is on their side just because he attended an event that other invited senators didn't
3. Rattles on about "corporate Dems" with incredible bias
4. States "Republicans remain more likely to tackle Big Tech abuses" which is immediately refuted by every response

That was posted in ther/ProtonMail sub where the majority of the event took place: https://old.reddit.com/r/ProtonMail/comments/1i1zjgn/so_that_happened/m7ahrlm/

However be aware that the CEO posting as u/Proton_Team kept editing his comments so I wouldn't trust the current state of it. Plus the proton team/subreddit mods deleted a ton of discussion they didn't like. Therefore this archive link captured the day after might show more but not all: https://web.archive.org/web/20250116060727/https://old.reddit.com/r/ProtonMail/comments/1i1zjgn/so_that_happened/m7ahrlm/

Some statements were made on Mastodon but these are subsequently deleted, but they're capture by an archive link: https://web.archive.org/web/20250115165213/https://mastodon.social/@protonprivacy/113833073219145503

I learned about it from an r/privacy thread but true to their reputation the mods there also went on a deletion spree and removed the entire post: https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/1i210jg/protonmail_supporting_the_party_that_killed/

This archive link might show more but I've not checked: https://web.archive.org/web/20250115193443/https://old.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/1i210jg/protonmail_supporting_the_party_that_killed/

There's also this lemmy discussion from the day after but by that point the Proton team had fully kicked in their censorship so I don't know how much people were aware of (apologies I don't know how to make a generic lemmy link) https://feddit.uk/post/22741653

Great guide, thank you :)

PS: You should probably add a disclaimer to proton, many people are against it now, and i'd say for good reason but YSK.

Also, to all who read: Email aliases are amazing. There are two good choices:

• https://simplelogin.io/ (owned by proton fyi)
• https://addy.io/

A couple of tips:

Adding 2FA to any online website, especially email. I use "Authy" for this.

Authy is known to be shady. Some better (open source) alternatives are Ente, aegis (android) and 2fas (apple).

Authy practically traps you in its walled garden, since you can't export. Also it's closed source.

Switching your browser to something like "Librewolf".

I recommend against using forks of firefox. Instead users should use a configured and personalized version of it, with Arkenfox. But that may be extreme (tho librewolf uses arkenfox).

The reason why is because often those forks are outdated or are late by days, when crucial security updates may be available. Most of their features can also be recreated in the user.js or userchrome, so they're often redundant too.

Switching to a password manager like "Proton Pass" or "1Password".

Both of those are closed source; a better, FOSS and trusted alternative is Bitwarden. I've been (and others here) using it for a long time and i can confidently say it's the best password manager on the market.

BTW: While we're all here, should we create the [soon-to be created lol] guide on the community, codeberg or dbzer0's wiki feature? I'm fond of the wiki and i'd like to try it, but reply with your vote.

It’s hard to make the full switch towards a more private life, but switching your mail already fixes a big underlying issue: that being, Google or other companies having access to all your emails. So, I’ll cover the basics of making your online mailing more private.

The issue is that the moment you send a mail to someone or receive an email from someone that is using Gmail (or whatever provider that don't care about privacy), your own email is not private anymore: it's read by that other company. So, unless everyone was to start using encrypted emails and I should say compatible encrypted emails, real email privacy will be little more than a wish.

It's a good move to ditch companies like Google, obviously, but one should not let potential switcher believe that it's a magical wand that will make their emails private. It is not.

As a side note, I would also suggest for a much better privacy: use emails aliases so you never share your real email with any company or service provider.

i have some very bad news about proton

Proton lol. Also the only privacy is achieved with OpenPGP but no one uses it.