Chrome is bad: cdevroe.com

@cdevroe I kept Chrome only to read the local free newspaper. Just tested that to find it does work in Safari, so Chrome is now gone! Thank you.

@cdevroe Thanks for this. Another Google hook removed from my machines. Now if i could just figure out how to migrate off of Gmail…🤔

@gregmoore May I recommend FastMail for your emailing needs. I’ve moved to it when Google shutdown Inbox and it’s been great. You can setup automatic pulls from your existing Gmail account meaning you can change your email address over time instead of in one big bang.

@JMaxB hey there. So many people recommend fast mail. Trying to decide on that offering or Proton mail. You ever tried the latter?

Thanks @Imika and @JMaxB 👍🏻 I’ll give them a try. My issue is not a giant archive but a ton of services, billing, and 2-factors go through through that address so it’s scary to know how to move away without screwing myself.

@maique I’ve heard great things and my needs are bare minimum. It’s less a service issue as it is knowing how to make the switch.

@Munish I use Protonmail because of its end-to-end encryption and Swiss locus. But I’m a voice in the wilderness: it’s only encrypted between me and others on Protonmail. It’s a bit cludgy on desktop (Mac) because it requires a “bridge” app for encryption functioning.

@ReaderJohn ahhh thanks. Did not realise it only encrypts proton to proton, that’s a bit of a shortcoming. Will take a look and see what I think of it.

@gregmoore When I left Google years ago, I opened my password manager and searched for “gmail.com” and just changed each account to my new email. I kept Google active for about a month then, once confident most accounts were transferred over, I deleted Google. Good riddance, too.

@gregmoore From my experience, FastMail is pretty good at pulling mail from your old Gmail account. I’ve been using FastMail for a year and a half now and I’ve still got loads of accounts that are configured using my old Gmail email address. I’ve had very few issues with emails not come through, and I think the only issues were just delays in the forwarding.

This is also something you can do over time. What I did was setup a FastMail account and Gmail forwarding, and only started using my new email address for new services and other “non critical” communications. Once I’ve got some confidence that things were working, I started changing my email address in services that I’ve signed up for using my Gmail email address.

One last thing: FastMail offers email addresses using their own domain but I’d suggest setting an email address up using a domain that you control (being on Micro.blog, you probably already know this 🙂). They’re got pretty good documentation and checking tools to make this easy.

@Munish I could be wrong. Maybe it would work with PGP (if that’s still a thing). Don’t take my word for it. The Protonmail website probably has FAQ.

@Munish @JMaxB @gregmoore Okay, you have me intrigued about Fastmail. I have a gmail account that’s almost entirely dormant and do most of my email in mac.com (aka iCloud, but I’m an early adopter) and Protonmail. Any compelling case you see for Fastmail?

@ReaderJohn so for someone who works in Cyber, I forgot I had a proton mail account. This is why I stopped using it last time. protonmail.com/support/k… people got annoyed with me 😂🤦🏽‍♂️

@Lmika @mariovillalobos @Maique Thanks for the great advice! I’ll be putting those suggestions to use this week. 🙂👍🏻

@lmika @gregmoore Fastmail is great. Been using them for years. Highly recommend.

@Munish A quick note: I’ve had Protonmail for 2 years, and I like them. BUT, recently we’ve had 3 merchant websites refuse to make accounts with protonmail email addresses. Sadly, some scammers used pm email addresses, and some merchants are blocking protonmail. Very annoying.

@Cheri Couple of suggestions: Do you have a paid account with them? Have you tried the pm.me domain option? Or since you have your own domain you could connect your domain to protonmail and get email via your domain rather than a protonmail domain.

@ronguest We have paid accounts. My custom domain email works fine but we’ve had issues with our pm.me addresses. I hope they resolve it!

@Cheri That sucks. I’ve never had a problem with my pm.me address but I’ve heard others like you who have.

@gregmoore Another recommendation for Fastmail from me. I’ve been using them for about 4 years now with no complaints. Lots of features, including labels. I love how Fastmail handles plus addressing. In addition to user+service@domain.com, service@user.domain.com works as well.

@gregmoore I use the service@user.domain.com all the time since some services don’t like user+service@domain.com. You can also configure a wildcard with a custom domain so you can use anything@yourdomain.com.

@Munish I’ve got a free account with Proton. It’s more expensive than Fastmail and the end to end encryption only works between other Proton addresses.

Sorry, @cdevroe I didn’t mean to hijack your post with my own thread. 🤣 I really do appreciate everyone’s answers though.

@gregmoore You’re welcome

@cdevroe I enjoyed the conversation thread but as an average user I have never heard of ProtonMail or Fastmail. I suppose when a product is free, the user becomes the product for the company.

@Munish I think I knew that once, and I can say that I would hesitate to click the link to the encrypted message for fear of malware or phishing.

@Miraz 👏

@gregmoore I’m still working on moving my email. Winter project.

@gregmoore No worries at all! :)

@ridwan I’ll likely be switching to FastMail.

@ReaderJohn agreed

@jmreekes hmmm others just won’t follow the process. Thank for the info

@Cheri that is annoying. Have you moved to an alternative

@Munish No, we like protonmail enough that we’re giving it some time.

@lmika

+1 for Fastmail. I love it.

@cdevroe @gregmoore @lmika I just made the Gmail > Fastmail switch. Or rather, I’m in the process of making said switch. I’m forwarding my primary Gmail address for right now, I’ll add a rule that sorts those emails into a folder so I can assess what action I need to take as far as notifying the sender, just let the fact that I respond from my domain address, etc…luckily I’ve been using a secondary gmail for most lists, purchases, etc for years so I just forwarded that to an alias I created with the same username portion @fastmail.com so it’s easy to make the same adjustments as necessary. My goal is to delete my gmail account by next summer.

Oh yeah, and I’m loving Fastmail!

@jessekelber That’s great to hear. Good stuff. You’ve done the hard part, which is deciding to make the switch. Everything else follows on from that.

@lmika Thanks. I won’t own up to how long ago I actually made the initial decision to cut out Google…let’s just say it’s taken some time, research, and energy to get to this point. Thankfully I’ve been using Firefox as my primary browser for some time, so at least eradicating Chrome from my personal laptop wasn’t too painful!