smoliicek - blog

Moving away from Gmail

So yea, it happened to one more person, I finaly got fed up with Gmail.

So, why?

Let’s get through the obvious things first.

  1. google bad!
  2. google steal data!
  3. google bad

Now that we have that out of the way, let’s get to actual things.

Google’s constant “harassment”

Pretty much from the day i hit around 10 gigs used on my Google account, Google was constantly harrasing me and telling me to buy more storage. It even got to the point that they were telling me that they will stop getting my emails if I don’t pay! (even tho i had enough storage).

Google’s age verification

Last week I got a disturbing email, Gmail will delete my account in 14 days if I don’t provide a goverment issued ID. No, just no. It wasn’t my main account, but it was the last nail in the coffin.

But where?

I’m glad you are asking, I had a few criteria

  1. Decently priced
  2. Good privacy (includes privacy laws of hosting country)
  3. At least 5GB of storage
  4. Calendar included

That’s all, so, let’s get to work. I first got to the r/DeGoogle wiki and started looking. I first crossed out all the providers that don’t have calendars, so we are left with Proton, Tuta (Tutanota), Fastmail, MailFence and Zoho.

Next step was crossing out all the non-private mail providers, so Zoho is out, and Fastmail is hosted in Australia, which doesn’t have the best privacy laws = out.

I also wanted something that at least 3 people know of (joke, don’t come at me), so MailFence is also out.

We are left with 2 providers, Protonmail and Tuta. Both of them are very good, it just comes down to personal preference. And since Tuta is cheaper, and I’m a very broke man - Tuta it is!

Tuta (formely Tutanota)

Some of you may disagree with me, but I think Tuta is one of a kind, and also probably the best from the providers I was choosing from. I know, I know, it doesn’t support PGP, but nothing is stopping me from encrypting the message myself and sending it like that, is it?

I opted for the 3€/month tier, it’s still pretty overkill for my needs, at least in terms of storage, but it isn’t that bad.

I really like the dedicated calendar app on Android, it has it’s own widget and I can create as many calendars as I like.

I also moved my domain to Tuta! So I can create as many aliases as I like with my own domain.

The only actual downside is that I can’t use any third-party client, it does make sence, since the emails are decrypted on device, but it still sucks. I know Protonmail has an application that acts as a bridge between the servers and the client, but I don’t really like that aproach, and I’d rather stick with the Tuta app anyway. :)

Moving

I’m still currently “moving”, it isn’t a job that can be done in a day. I have a list of all the important services, so I changed my email there. But populating that email to other peoples contact books and email clients is a long process. I still regularly check Gmail, but it’s in the works. I’m probably going to make an update after I fully migrate and get more hands-on expirience.

Conclusion

So, yea, I’ve actually done it. I moved (or at least started moving) away from Gmail. If you have any questions, or need some advice about moving away from gmail, feel free to drop me an email here -> me@smoliicek.cz.

As Tuta said, happy encrypting!

– Signed-off-by: Smajl <me@smoliicek.cz>