cross-posted from: https://lemdro.id/post/44115090
i posted this on reddit before but i wanted to get your opinion on this
i use my familys google drive/photo thing (i cant really change) and i obviously want us to switch, but my mom (who take care of this whole thing) says that she likes the ecosystem that google has. Like she uses her calendar and stuff. The closest ive found is proton, which is fine, but it doesnt really have the best rep. Any alternatives?
BTW: im not gonna self-host since im not comfortable hosting such a big thing like this
Honestly, been happy enough with Apple. I just don’t appreciate their move into services.
It’s so weird, when the big advertising giant got into phones, they convinced people that phones made by an advertising company were better because they weren’t made by a computer company. Just like when MySpace and later Facebook took over from forums and said now you have to use your real name. I didn’t see the point. It was better before. Only thing is, while forums are still around, they’re not as big as they once were. And we could say “maybe that’s a good thing,” but you look at the paedophiles and AI bots ruining Reddit, Twitter, Facebook, and the others… and maybe forums weren’t so bad. Apple never went anywhere. They just kinda went stale. I don’t think they’ve innovated anything in the last 5 years. Apple Silicon Macs, and the Dynamic Island on iPhone, maybe. Otherwise, the new tech is much the same as the old tech. It just runs AI better, which I don’t give a shit about.
Also, I like Proton. They don’t have the best rep? As opposed to Google? Google stopped saying “Don’t be evil” because it was inconvenient to their plans of actually being evil.
Instead of Google Docs, I use a thing called Ellipsus. It’s a freemium Docs alternative, as in most features are free. I’m paying $6 a month for it, but after 2 years, I will own it, and I’ll get the premium features without paying anymore. (You can also pay $60 a year or $100 straight up.)
I use Proton at work. I don’t log into anything I own or use outside of work, at work. Even my Plex server, I made a new account with my Proton email and shared my libraries with that user. I can delete my Proton account and it wipes everything. Then just stop sharing with that “other” Plex user.
Self hosting is not that scary, but it does require some learning. I don’t do it. I’ve looked at used business PCs on eBay and Amazon. Some great deals up there. The idea is, you put some good cooling in the thing, and plug it in somewhere where it will not get a lot of dust (and/or you clean it regularly), and you remote in from another computer. So you have your own server. Macs, Windows PCs, and of course Linux PCs are great at remoting into servers, and so are Android phones. Not sure about iOS since they don’t have terminal, but if there’s a web interface, it should not be a problem. And of course a lot of servers have app interfaces for the phones.