I have tried Infomaniak. Extremely hard to understand their control panel! Very high learning curve. But that has maybe changed since last time I had a subscription (before the pandemic).

Now I use Posteo and I love it.

I am not surprised. Meta is the company that do not follows the rules and gathers as much data about their users + others outside of their services (mainly thanks to Meta Pixel), as they possibly can. Extremely greedy!

• If you want to switch to a safer place to chat on, switch to Signal.
• If you want more privacy and stability, switch to XMPP and use OMEMO (Signal Protocol).
• If you want maximum privacy, switch to SimpleX.

Awesome! I truly, truly hope that the self-hosted version will not require a phone number for each user. That is basically the only reason why I don't use web.fluxer.app, even if date of birth requirement is alarming (due to age verification that have bloomed "everywhere").

Use softwares that are open sourced and be happy. There's plenty of period tracking apps on F-Droid.

Open sourced softwares can't hide trackers from users since the source code must be up-to-date. If not, people will be suspicious. And if a open sourced software do use trackers, the community will complain... a lot!

Privacy, no bloat (depending on distro), no Big Tech, freedom, no cost.

If you want to have them locally stored with export and import capability: Aegis.

If you want them in the cloud: Bitwarden. Just make sure to backup the 2FA tokens every now and then.

LibreWolf

• Moshidon: letting me communicate with people on Mastodon
• QKSMS: text message (SMS) app
• KISS Launcher: a very neat launcher that took a while before I could love it as I do now
• FairEmail: an email client with tons of options
• Mull: a fork of Firefox
• Privacy Browser: a browser based on WebView
• Simple Calendar Pro: for managing my self-hosted CalDAV (waiting for Fossify's version)
• Fossify Gallery: managing my images and videos
• AntennaPod: listening to podcasts
• Bitwarden: managing my self-hosted vaultwarden
• Download Navi: download files instead of using the browser
• Foxy Droid: making browsing apps on mainly F-Droid and IzzyOnDroid like old-school Google Play Store
• Loop Habits: logging my habits
• Hypatia: protecting my smartphone from malware using ClamAV
• Lemuroid: able to play my childhood favourite games wherever I am
• Miniflutt: read RSS posts through my self-hosted Miniflux server
• Mullvad VPN: protecting my identity wherever I am
• OpenTracks: track my movements
• Seal: download videos from mainly YouTube, but also converting YouTube videos to MP3 files (perfect for downloading music mixes for my bicycle trips)
• Syncthing: syncing important files to and from my desktop
• Voyager: browsing Lemmy
• URL Radio: listening to manually added radio stations
• Tasks: reminding me to do stuff
• Unexpected Keyboard: by far the best keyboard with really good shortcuts
• Planisphere: exploring the sky and letting me plan my astro photography
• LibreTube: exploring YouTube through Piped API
• Simple Voice Recorder: letting me record stuff when I don't have my audio recorder with me (waiting for Fossify's version)

Never ever post a link to YouTube in a channel that are about privacy! Link to a privacy-friendly front-end like Piped instead.

• Requires Google Play Store to install the app. They refer to Play Store from their release page on GitHub.
  • No client on F-Droid nor IzzyOnDroid.
• Based in USA.
• You can't install the server on your own server.
• The server's source code appears to be closed.

I wouldn't use it or trust it 🙂

• Requires a phone number
• Depends on Big Tech's servers
• Got founded by the US government
• Seems to absolutely love Big Tech because they hide the APK download page quite well[1]
• It's centralized

I use my own Snikket server to communicate with people using OMEMO (Signal Protocol). No phone number requirements, no centralized server, no Big Tech, just you and the people you write with, with your privacy fully intact. Just like in the good old days (as it should be to this days, greedy f*****s).

[1]: signal.org/download > Android redirects you to Google Play Store. signal.org/download/android > Download for Android redirects you to Google Play Store. signal.org/install redirects you to Google Play Store. You'll search "forever" to find the "download APK file" link until you give up and using a search engine: "signal apk".

Not until then you'll find signal.org/android/apk. And when you visit that page, a link to Google Play Store is listed on top, and below it, in the "danger zone", you'll find the APK download button. Yes, exactly, the Signal team wants you to be on the "safe zone" by downloading the app through Google Play Store.

"focus on privacy" my ass. Close to forcing someone to use Big Tech shitty stuff is NOT focus on privacy.

Sorry, rant is over. Now breakfast time.

Initally Facebook, but then also Google and Microsoft.

Different people, different taste.

I love FairEmail because of its "millions" of settings and the privacy features, for an example if you press a link, you'll get a popup with options (for an example, what app you want to open the link with). And if the link contains trackers, FairEmail will remove these by default and saying "tracking parameters removed" with yellow text in bold.

K-9 Mail feels incomplete in comparison. Have you tried FairEmail?

I totally agree with you. But!

But Signal from what I've heard really wants us to use their server.

Signal doesn't have their own servers. Instead, they rent servers from 4 companies, 3 of them is Google, Amazon, and Microsoft. So Signal is relying on Big Tech and if Big Tech decides that enough is enough, they can easily shut Signal down.

THAT is what I find most terrifying. And why not use their own server? Not enough money, but they are working on it (good).

And to make it a little bit worst: Signal depends on a third party company for sending out SMS. Your phone number is therefore handled by not Signal, but by yet another company, highly likey an American company. And they are against privacy invading companies at the same time they are one. Oh, the irony.

You want sources? Sure.

• https://signal.org/legal/ (below "Information we may share")
• https://signal.org/blog/signal-is-expensive/

Don't get me wrong, I absolutely love the idea of Signal. But there is flaws that makes Signal more privacy invading than privacy friendly.

For me it's Mumble. Open sourced and completely free with encryption, and temporary chat logs.

If you don't care about sharing your phone number with Signal and a third-party company (Signal refuses to state what company it is) that send the text message with the activation code to you. And if you don't care that everything will be saved on servers maintained by Amazon in USA.

Then yes, Signal is the right app for you even in 2026.

But if you do care (and you should) about your phone number and the location of your data, you should focus on something more privacy like XMPP (Snikket would be the easiest way to setup your own server) and SimpleX.

XMPP (for an example Snikket) uses OMEMO and OMEMO is based on Signal Protocol.

That was the issue! So v4.18.8 change from Shortcuts to Tree automatically. Good to know when Thunar will be updated on my laptop. Many thanks :)

Then OsmAnd is the right map app for you.

Other say that Organic Maps is better, but after testing it while travelling, I don't understand how. The road instructions was barely seen while you could clearly see it in OsmAnd.

1. They have their own closed eco system
2. They think money is key and throw large amounts at their consumers
3. All source code is closed
4. They are based in USA
5. They love AI

Like what another person said, hate is a strong word. But when it comes to Big Tech, I'm all for the word.

Might have missed adding something to the list. Will add more if I have.

They are really good. I use both Codeberg and their self-hosted solution Forgejo for my projects.

But far-right people hate Codeberg for allowing for an example equal rights projects, they attacked Codeberg in February last year. And Codeberg gets DDoS attacks every now and then. The most recent attack was last month.