To clarify:
ProtonMail. I don’t hate it, but their choices in what to monetize is bizarre to me, like the ability to make more folders than three, you have to pay to have more folders. Also, it’s not a perfect mail system, you’re going to not get or be able to send 100% of mail because there are mail services people or businesses use that simply don’t register when using ProtonMail.
In an age where there are tons and tons of things out there that is a subscription, paying for the ability to have more features that have been normalized would turn off some people.
Proton is not stellar privacy wise either. They claim to be privacy oriented but according to their own transparency report their compliance rate is near 90% and they rarely actively contest the requests. In 2025 data was conceded in over 8000 cases.
–Edit–
In other words they seem to be voluntarily handing out user data to pretty much anyone who happens to ask.
I’m not really sure what people want when they raise this complaint about Proton, it’s going to be true of any company. They can’t refuse a legal order, there’s very few jurisdictions on earth where the authorities will just allow a business to refuse to comply with a legal order and the ones that do are not worth running a business in. As far as I know, they’ve never given up content of emails or traffic logs.
If your threat model includes the authorities of the US or any country you might happen to be in, then you shouldn’t be trusting any business that might be compelled by them.
Legislation does not require blind obedience. Requests can and sometimes should be contested. Proton doesn’t seem to be taking a very active approach when it comes to contesting requests.
For example German based tuta seems to be much more active with contests, with reported 75% of user data requests contested/denied, which goes to show that resisting requests can and should be done.
While there are differences between the two companies (tuta being a much smaller player and certainly with its own problems) the difference in compliance percentages is simply staggering.
Iirc signal also doesn’t fight requests. They just don’t have anything to hand over.
Proton OTOH has plenty of info on their servers, like the recovery email address, your payment info, etc… It’s all optional, but to be safe from governments you need to know what is not safe to tell them.
They could come up with a better scheme for payment, idk why they don’t do the automatic gift card method.
Linux.
While a lot of things do work, some only work ok with vendors not really worrying about a 2% and growing user base.
I really want to like Linux, I really do and I only ever install it on laptops that have aged.
But it never reaches my desktop, my mainstay, because it can’t do 100% of everything I wanted to. One day, I sat down, opened up a notepad and tried to see what games or what software would work on Linux. My distro of choice would’ve been Mint, here. So, I found a detailed wiki and combed through what games wouldn’t work outright, even with Steam installed. I counted about at least 20+.
As for software, there is no Notepad++ and I refuse to go without it or settle with alternatives. I don’t mind alternatives, but I’ve been using a computer since I was a kid and for years I’ve had to move on from things I once cherished and happily had as my load-out series of programs to install. I’m just tired of always having to do it and I wasn’t going to, to use Linux.
Linux just seems to me, to be best geared for lightweight users at best. Very few can wing it with no problem (obviously long-tenured users and/or programmers). If checking your mail, browsing and streaming is all you care about without the Windows nonsense, with some scattershot choice of gaming, then Linux is for you.
This is not true:
If checking your mail, browsing and streaming is all you care about without the Windows nonsense, with some scattershot choice of gaming, then Linux is for you.
Everything else in your post is preference, which is fine. I do not understand the love for Notepad++ but that is your choice.
But when you said Linux is basically checking mail and the rare game, well that is nonsense.
I use Linux because I need reliability and no bullshit so I can do my work. I remote into all sorts of environments and deal with Windows often, I would never want any of that on my home or work computer. Windows is too slow and too broken for me to rely on for earning money.
But I also do all my hobbies: music production, photography, graphic design, 3d modeling, 3d printing, creating web pages, etc. There is really nothing I need windows for.
As for games: My library shows 1200 games ready to play, so I am not sure why you say “scattershot”. I am playing the latest Resident Evil Requiem right now. Works perfectly, no set up steps at all.
So fine, maybe linux isn’t for you, but no reason to spread fud.
Linux just seems to me, to be best geared for lightweight users at best.
A bold opinion in these towers, for sure.
As a desktop, exactly.
I don’t have time to play fuck-fuck with desktop stuff.
For servers/services, Linux is where it’s at.
Healthy eating.
It’s so much more expensive and effort than the mainstream stuff. Its easy enough to cut back on the junk foods, but the cutting out the processed “essentials” is harder.
I think the Omega-3, Organic and whatever trendy label they use now is all a scam.
Omega-3 offers like, a slight advantage, just a slight. Nothing grandstanding if you primarily shop for that stuff.
Organic is basically companies saying “oh, we treat these a little more carefully than our mainstream line”. When, you know, they could just fucking do that process for ALL of their foods.
Yeah, I don’t care for the labels, I just try to pay attention to ingredents.
processed “essentials”
Like, which ones?
Everyone’s essentials will differ, for me it its things like canned veggies, jarred sauce, frozen veggies, canned soup - basically easy meals or sides to easily make dinner after work.
Yes, most of that is healthier than a TV dinner, but fresh is still better (and tastier).
I could learn to can or pickle my own, but that’s not with out its own difficulties.
Ah, I see. I thought you meant like heavily processed when you used the word “processed” but you meant the “something has been done to it” kind of processed :D
For what its worth, frozen stuff is usually equally as healthy as fresh stuff. I use like 90% frozen stuff because I’m lazy and don’t want to walk every other day to the shop, that is over 400 meters away from me. Lately my favorite snack has been to roll some frozen green beans in oil, salt and pepper on them and throw them into the oven until they are brown.
I’m also extremely lazy to cook. Now that I don’t have a girlfriend to cook for anymore, I just throw some stuff into the pan/pot, let them be there for 30-40minutes, mix it up with rice or quinoa and stuff that in my mouth. Takes very little effort, pretty cheap and because I keep a semi low heat, I don’t have to keep my eye on the stuff all the time so I can go bother people in IRC and not worry about burning anything. If I have extra time, I use the slow cooker thing I have, throw shit in there and leave it be for a few hours.
Yeah a lot of frozen vegetables are fine, especially when cooked in a casserole or something, but not on their own.
I know it’s not practical to avoid all processed stuff, not that I want to, and a lot of it is healthy enough. It’s just all the stuff with reasonable amounts of salt/sugar/etc and still tastes good tends to cost more. (even then you have to be careful, a lot the stuff marketed as healthier really isn’t. Exhibit A; Diet Soda)
It seems protein is the latest trend, a lot of stuff is highlighting how much protein they have in them. Protein is great, but I’ll get that from the regular sources not a dense candy bar or meat stick. Gosh even some milks (that aren’t specifically protein drinks) are highlighting protein content now lol.
These days I feel its important to remember that doing some is better than doing nothing. I sometimes feel like I’m being screamed at for not being vegan enough, not eating healthy enough, not recycling enough… I do all those things as much as I possibly can. But I guess thats just a consequence of online social media virtue signalling, everyone is trying to out do everyone else by screaming into the void about how well they are doing with not eating bacon or whatever the fuck is the latest trend.
This is only true if you have fallen into the trap of not understanding what healthy means.
Eating healthy can actually be very cheap, you just won’t get to eat the things that societies thinks are exciting or the most delicious. You won’t be getting “I can’t believe it’s not meat” and the latest type of chia seed detox bullshit.
You can eat rice, lentils, onions, carrots, potatoes, oats, chickpeas, beans, tomatoes, bananas, and some dairy products and keep your meal prices down to less than a dollar while filling all nutritional requirements.
A basic Indian Dahl on rice works out to significantly less than a dollar per serving if you buy the ingredients in more than single use packages, 500 calories, 17 grams of protein, 8 grams of fat, and 80 grams of carbs for $0.75 is pretty fucking healthy.
Two servings of oats and a banana for breakfast? 50 cents, for again around 500 calories, 17 grams of protein (mostly the oats), and 7 grams of fat. You could splurge on a bit of yogurt and keep it under a dollar easily.
In terms of “effort” if you consider cooking 10 portions of Dahl for an hour and then freezing them individually to be too much effort, you don’t actually care about the cost of eating, you’re just too lazy.
This exactly!!
We became vegan a couple years ago and we save so much money by each ng the way you mentioned.
Basically every meal includes a bean, a green, a grain , and whatever extra veggies and or additional protein (the beans already have plenty though) like tofu of seitan.
People often think its expensive to be vegan because they focus on meat replacements and processed foods. They don’t realize when you cut that, its so much cheaper.
Sure the staples are pretty easy, but a head of iceburg is a dollar while all the stuff with some nutritional value costs $3 for less per pound.
Going to the store with produce that isn’t already half dead, so it will last the whole week costs more.
Going the store multiple times a week for fresh produce costs more in gas and time (and “extra” buying). I end up with lots of fresh meals at the start of the week, but towards the end its all frozen or canned vegetables, which is a lot of salt.
Buying the juice, or any snack, not full of high-fructose corn syrup costs more.
Fresh bakery bread costs $5+, while a loafs cost $1-2. A loaf of wheat or multi-grain bread costs around $3.
It all adds up, and yes I am lazy.
You still don’t get it.
You don’t need to eat Lettuce to be healthy, you’ve been taught to think that way but it’s not even close to the truth.
Do you think that people 100 years ago had fresh produce all the time? That’s not how it worked for most of human history and they definitely ate healthier than we do now.
Frozen vegetables don’t have extra salt. Canned sometimes does but a) salt isn’t unhealthy and b) you can rinse them to get most of it off if you wanted.
Juice is not healthy. That’s pure marketing bullshit. It’s almost as bad as soda.
Your mindset is wrong. You expect what society has told you to to do. That’s expensive because our society is built around selling you shit you don’t need.
Never heard of Proton being rejected anywhere.
My requirements for email are
- Not Google
- Works reliably and can be trusted to do so indefinitely (no small operations that might fold)
- Has decent storage space so I dont have to micromanage deleting/saving emails
- Doesn’t have to be spelled out when I verbally tell someone (sorry but tuta fails this one)
I’m using proton for now and it checks all these boxes for me, but would be happy to switch to something more trustworthy if I knew of one.
I’m trying Tuta now, and at the end of the year I’ll switch because it doesn’t have enough features for me.
Can anyone recommend fastmail? Or alternatives?
What do you mean by the not being able to send 100% of mail? Can you explain that more… I haven’t heard anything about it
Ive been using protein mall for abbot two years now and I am also curious what he means.
The only thing I think it might mean is if you want to use a proton pass/simple login alias to create an account, some businesses prevent you because of fraud prevention.
Email is de facto not private/secure without adding additional layers to it, so using services like ProtonMail or Tuta are putting lipstick on a pig. They give a false sense of security and privacy that just doesn’t exist without a ton of additional overhead and opsec. Unless you plan to only email other Proton accounts, or use janky one-time password secure messages, your email isn’t E2EE, it’s just encrypted on Protons servers which is table stakes for most paid mail services. They are marketing something that just can’t fully work in the real world. You also then make a ton of trade offs like very limited client support (especially on mobile), and can’t even use S/MIME for compatibility with enterprise secure mail solutions.
To be clear, I think it makes sense to pay for something as critical as email so you aren’t the product, as well is using your own domain for portability. But I don’t recommend folks buy into the false security and privacy promises of services like Proton for email/calendaring.
Jellyfin. Just use that instead of Plex/streaming! Except it keeps using 100% of my server’s cpu while idling, and oh wait, you wanted to access it anywhere outside of your LAN? Here’s a 10 page document of technical instructions to keep your computer from becoming part of a Russian botnet
Or just use Tailscale.
Only 10 pages?
I’ve been using proton mail as a PWA since for some reason the desktop app and using a third party app is exclusive to the paid tiers
I like the service but I agree with the weird monetization choices
What is PWA?
Progressive web app Its an app with a web backend
Sorry, pedantry police here. A PWA is just a website which looks and acts like an app when used on a mobile device. You can also add an icon to your launcher/Home Screen to start it, but that’s basically a fancy shortcut.
Nothing wrong with PWAs though! After all, lots of “real” apps are just a wrapper around a website.
This is a much better responce thanks
