You have a point but you didn’t really frame it very well. I think you meant to defend the average person for not knowing how evil companies are, which I actually agree with.

It’s true that the average user doesn’t know better, or doesn’t care, or has simply given up. It’s unfortunate though.

It’s not your bad. Most people are in the same boat. Excited for you though.

If you’re anything like me, you’ll need to hear the advice to pace yourself and protect your sanity. You can get away from all of these companies without mental turmoil if you do it right.

The UI layer is the only part that’s closed source. Vivaldi’s UI is also one of the main reasons people use it.

Better than Google in terms of ethics and privacy maybe, and not shoving ads in your face when you don’t use an adblocker. But it’s behind in features.

And unfortunately Google caters to the majority, who generally don’t care about privacy, even the ones who say they do but refuse to act on their words (and I’m not even going to comment on the “they have all my info anyway” crowd).

To me comparing Gmail to Protonmail feels similar to comparing FB Messenger to Signal. The former has more features and therefore is chosen by most people despite the enshittification.

Fair point. I think protonmail is only that way with other protonmail users, and I practically never send personal emails, so I honestly forgot about that feature. It’d be nice if other hosts could integrate with that.

I’m unaware of true feature parity alternatives then. I guess I just tend to use other communication media when I need encryption.

They offer email hosting and kSuite. It’s an alternative and more.

I’ve been happy with infomaniak. If you host a domain name with them, you get a free email too. I switched from Godaddy, gmail, and protonmail earlier this year all to infomaniak.

I’m also happy with AirVPN, but a lot more sites block it than other VPNs, so be ready to deal with that.

Covid matters but comparing death counts doesn’t exactly mean the deaths in 9/11 didn’t matter. That would be the relative privation fallacy. I wouldn’t shrug it off just cause it was “only 3000 people” or something.

I think the confusion about your reply is that it reads like you’re assuming the person giving advice was being ego-centric or thinking everyone lives in the US or something, when in reality they were just answering the question. Nothing malicious. Spreading their own wisdom.

I tell them privacy is a human right, that I don’t need to come up with justifications for why I don’t want to be exploited, and that you’re only conditioned not to care.

If they don’t see my point then I say OK then.