Leaving Google
October 5, 2019 8:45 PM Subscribe
I want to move out of the Googleverse. To do so, I need three things, all of which need to work on (and sync seamlessly with) both my Android Phone and my Win10 desktop:
* An email client (I have my own domains through Dreamhost) AND
* A solution for managing my contacts (close to 1000) that works with the email client above AND
* A calendar that works with both of the previous items.
I am happy to pay for these solutions. In fact, I'd prefer to do so - I hate advertising. I already have an Office 365 account, if that matters.
Does your email host support IMAP? That is where the syncing of email will take place. The thing is that for calendar and contacts, your Win10 Desktop and Android will not sync directly with each other in any software I've ever heard of-- they need to sync with a server which supports those functions. The same is true with email, but it's a rare person who hosts their own email.
Outlook is likely your best solution for email-contacts-calendar. You may already have it as part of your O365; it not, an incremental cost to upgrade should work to add it. An alternative to Outlook (paid) is Thunderbird (free-- only advertises itself) and some plugins, all from Mozilla. (I presume you'll be using Firefox or Mozilla browser, or some port thereof?)
But either application needs a server to connect to, and do your own domains have a server/service which will sync contacts/calendar stuff? Maybe CardDAV will meet your needs, or one of its many offspring?
It's apparently possible to cut Google out of your Android phone, though I can't say I understand how. Take a look through here to examine the possibilities and liabilities.
posted by Sunburnt at 9:24 PM on October 5, 2019
Outlook is likely your best solution for email-contacts-calendar. You may already have it as part of your O365; it not, an incremental cost to upgrade should work to add it. An alternative to Outlook (paid) is Thunderbird (free-- only advertises itself) and some plugins, all from Mozilla. (I presume you'll be using Firefox or Mozilla browser, or some port thereof?)
But either application needs a server to connect to, and do your own domains have a server/service which will sync contacts/calendar stuff? Maybe CardDAV will meet your needs, or one of its many offspring?
It's apparently possible to cut Google out of your Android phone, though I can't say I understand how. Take a look through here to examine the possibilities and liabilities.
posted by Sunburnt at 9:24 PM on October 5, 2019
One can, with some effort, run an Android phone without the Google apps. I can think of two ways. One, buy a new Huwei phone that is not allowed to load Google apps. Two, get an Android phone such as a OnePlus that you can unlock the bootloader and flash a new rom such as LineageOS. Then when you flash the new rom, do not add the gapps package. The lineage OS is actually a great OS. It is well maintained.
posted by AugustWest at 10:40 PM on October 5, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by AugustWest at 10:40 PM on October 5, 2019 [3 favorites]
Best answer: Fastmail has a good reputation as a Gmail-substitute which can host email, calendar, and contacts. It has a nice web client (nicer than Gmail's, IMHO), it works well with Android phones, and you can bring your own domain.
See here for their Android-related documentation.
posted by value of information at 1:18 AM on October 6, 2019 [1 favorite]
See here for their Android-related documentation.
posted by value of information at 1:18 AM on October 6, 2019 [1 favorite]
Best answer: I recently moved from google to fastmail for calendar, contacts, and email. It is not the same, but I have been happy so far.
posted by Nothing at 5:12 AM on October 6, 2019
posted by Nothing at 5:12 AM on October 6, 2019
If you have Office365 you already have all the things you're looking for (although you may want to go up to Office365 Business Premium, which costs $12.50/user/month):
* An email client: Office 365 offers hosted Exchange email and Microsoft Outlook for the desktop/phones
* A solution for managing my contacts (close to 1000) that works with the email client above: Exchange syncs contacts between the server and email clients
* A calendar that works with both of the previous items: Ditto. Syncing calendar and contacts is one of the huge benefits that Exchange offers over IMAP
Setting up the domain in O365 is fairly simple. You add the domain to Office365, verify that you own it by setting a TXT record at Dreamhost, create whichever email accounts you need for the domain in O365, then change the MX record to point at Office365 instead of wherever it is going now. There's a little wizard that explains all the steps in detail. There are also tools for migrating existing email accounts into Office365.
Business Premium gives you access to hosted exchange + local desktop apps (Word, Excel, Outlook, etc). If you don't want the desktop apps, you can get by with Office 365 Business Essentials, which is $5/month/user. You could use the webmail interface at outlook.office365.com for PC's, and then it still syncs with phones/other Exchange aware apps like Windows Mail or the OSX mail client.
(For Android I recommend the Outlook app for email (it's free) over the built-in mail app, it syncs more reliably and is consistent across all Android apps, while sometimes phone manufacturers will replace the built-in Android mail app with their own, worse versions--looking at you Samsung!)
posted by JDHarper at 6:33 AM on October 6, 2019
* An email client: Office 365 offers hosted Exchange email and Microsoft Outlook for the desktop/phones
* A solution for managing my contacts (close to 1000) that works with the email client above: Exchange syncs contacts between the server and email clients
* A calendar that works with both of the previous items: Ditto. Syncing calendar and contacts is one of the huge benefits that Exchange offers over IMAP
Setting up the domain in O365 is fairly simple. You add the domain to Office365, verify that you own it by setting a TXT record at Dreamhost, create whichever email accounts you need for the domain in O365, then change the MX record to point at Office365 instead of wherever it is going now. There's a little wizard that explains all the steps in detail. There are also tools for migrating existing email accounts into Office365.
Business Premium gives you access to hosted exchange + local desktop apps (Word, Excel, Outlook, etc). If you don't want the desktop apps, you can get by with Office 365 Business Essentials, which is $5/month/user. You could use the webmail interface at outlook.office365.com for PC's, and then it still syncs with phones/other Exchange aware apps like Windows Mail or the OSX mail client.
(For Android I recommend the Outlook app for email (it's free) over the built-in mail app, it syncs more reliably and is consistent across all Android apps, while sometimes phone manufacturers will replace the built-in Android mail app with their own, worse versions--looking at you Samsung!)
posted by JDHarper at 6:33 AM on October 6, 2019
Although I do have to ask, philosophically, why you're leaving Google, because that might inform what the best solution is for you.
If your goal is just to keep advertising out of your webmail, then moving to Office365 will do that.
If your goal is to not support Google in particular because Google has done something to offend you, then you'll want to dump your Android phone and switch to something else (which, realistically, means an iPhone), as Google owns Android.
If the goal is to prevent a ginormous tech company from having access to your data, then Office365 might not be a good match--moving from Google to Microsoft is an improvement only in that you're paying money which, if you believe the aphorism, makes you the customer instead of the product. But they'd still have physical access to your data, and you'd have to trust them to honor your privacy.
But you have to trust someone to host your email, unless you build your own email server (which, let me tell you, is a pain and not worth the trouble for most people). Fastmail looks like a great email host if you're looking for something smaller than the Big Five but still robust.
posted by JDHarper at 6:56 AM on October 6, 2019
If your goal is just to keep advertising out of your webmail, then moving to Office365 will do that.
If your goal is to not support Google in particular because Google has done something to offend you, then you'll want to dump your Android phone and switch to something else (which, realistically, means an iPhone), as Google owns Android.
If the goal is to prevent a ginormous tech company from having access to your data, then Office365 might not be a good match--moving from Google to Microsoft is an improvement only in that you're paying money which, if you believe the aphorism, makes you the customer instead of the product. But they'd still have physical access to your data, and you'd have to trust them to honor your privacy.
But you have to trust someone to host your email, unless you build your own email server (which, let me tell you, is a pain and not worth the trouble for most people). Fastmail looks like a great email host if you're looking for something smaller than the Big Five but still robust.
posted by JDHarper at 6:56 AM on October 6, 2019
This is a long and complicated task, and understand you will give up a lot of conveniences. But it's quite rewarding.
A mefi response will not be sufficient to cover every bit of the chain where Google captures our data but here's a few starting places:
1) Get Google off you're phone entirely. You need to do some research here and learn how to install your own ROM. LineageOS is perhaps the most widely supported ROM in terms of the number of models it runs on.
2) Go to privacytools.io and check out some of the mail services. None of them are as good as the Google suite, but they all work. You might need to try a few to see what fits you.
3) Check out the /r/degoogle subreddit.
These are just first steps. You are going to need to be resourceful and put some time into this if you really want to do it, and even then you need to keep it up. It's kind of like a hobby once you get into it. Google and many, many other data harvesters have their hands deep in our data, it's gross, creepy and unethical.
posted by quarterframer at 8:30 AM on October 6, 2019 [2 favorites]
A mefi response will not be sufficient to cover every bit of the chain where Google captures our data but here's a few starting places:
1) Get Google off you're phone entirely. You need to do some research here and learn how to install your own ROM. LineageOS is perhaps the most widely supported ROM in terms of the number of models it runs on.
2) Go to privacytools.io and check out some of the mail services. None of them are as good as the Google suite, but they all work. You might need to try a few to see what fits you.
3) Check out the /r/degoogle subreddit.
These are just first steps. You are going to need to be resourceful and put some time into this if you really want to do it, and even then you need to keep it up. It's kind of like a hobby once you get into it. Google and many, many other data harvesters have their hands deep in our data, it's gross, creepy and unethical.
posted by quarterframer at 8:30 AM on October 6, 2019 [2 favorites]
Since I am seeing them both recommended, it seems worth chiming in as someone who runs both LineageOS (without gapps) and Fastmail on my phone.
On LineageOS: depending on the phone you get, it may be a real bear to install if you are not already intimately familiar with bootloading and flashing ROMs. It can be very easy to brick your phone. And the documentation exists for a lot of phones, but it is often written by people who do this sort of thing a lot, and it is sometimes not really vetted by anyone else, because there are just so many phones out there. Once (...if...) you've successfully installed it, your options to download apps will include the Fdroid app store, sideloading/downloading from other sources, and using an APK downloader service to build download links for you for stuff from the google play store without requiring you to log into it. Both of those last two you will need to do research on who to trust. Also with the last one, some apps still won't download, and some will but then won't work, because of course lots of folks who build apps for the google play store build them to run on google services. Updates won't push automatically (you may or may not be notified of them at all); you'll have to go through the workaround download process again.
On Fastmail: I love it, it's worth every penny. The web interface and android app are intuitively similar while remaining well designed for the different interfaces. I particularly love the plus-addressing/subdomain addressing, that has really changed how I interact with my inbox. Its contact and calendar functions are both sufficient to my purposes. My partner and I pay for two linked user accounts, so we can share calendar and contact information even more easily. This requires a certain level of trust, as at least one person will always have admin privileges over both accounts (in our case, we both do). When you create calendar events, in addition to putting them on a shared calendar so all users automatically see them, you can email them to other people, and I just confirmed that at least gmail will treat it pretty similarly to a google calendar invite - the gmail user can rsvp and have the event automatically created in their own calendar, and if you make changes to the event, they will be notified.
On Fastmail and LineageOS together: Fastmail is one of the apps you will have to download via a workaround - the only official ways to dl the app are google play and apple stores. As I mentioned above, the app is reasonably intuitive, and it will sync with contacts and calendar events you create/edit when logged into your account on other devices. Some caveats: I never before set up the native email client/calendar app/contacts app on my phone to link to my fastmail account, as I was just using the fastmail app itself. Out of interest when seeing your question, today I did that. The email client had no trouble importing my mail, and it sees all of my folders, but it does not recognize the visibility settings I have set for them (eg in the fastmail app many of them remain hidden unless they have unread messages; in Email I see them all). Also, although email synced fine, contacts and calendar apps still don't show my fastmail account as linked - but when I try to link it, it says I've already done that. So my fastmail app has all my contacts and events, but the contacts list I get when I hit the call button is not that list, and the calendar app on my phone remains empty. Another downside to the app on my particular LineageOS environment is that it does not notify me when I get new emails or even when I set reminders in the calendar. That's probably dependent on the particulars of your phone, the app works fine for my partner (who is still running google-standard android).
So, overall I like both Lineage and Fastmail, and I'm so happy to be de-googled! But there are some particulars about having the both of them together that are worth thinking about.
posted by solotoro at 5:43 PM on October 6, 2019
On LineageOS: depending on the phone you get, it may be a real bear to install if you are not already intimately familiar with bootloading and flashing ROMs. It can be very easy to brick your phone. And the documentation exists for a lot of phones, but it is often written by people who do this sort of thing a lot, and it is sometimes not really vetted by anyone else, because there are just so many phones out there. Once (...if...) you've successfully installed it, your options to download apps will include the Fdroid app store, sideloading/downloading from other sources, and using an APK downloader service to build download links for you for stuff from the google play store without requiring you to log into it. Both of those last two you will need to do research on who to trust. Also with the last one, some apps still won't download, and some will but then won't work, because of course lots of folks who build apps for the google play store build them to run on google services. Updates won't push automatically (you may or may not be notified of them at all); you'll have to go through the workaround download process again.
On Fastmail: I love it, it's worth every penny. The web interface and android app are intuitively similar while remaining well designed for the different interfaces. I particularly love the plus-addressing/subdomain addressing, that has really changed how I interact with my inbox. Its contact and calendar functions are both sufficient to my purposes. My partner and I pay for two linked user accounts, so we can share calendar and contact information even more easily. This requires a certain level of trust, as at least one person will always have admin privileges over both accounts (in our case, we both do). When you create calendar events, in addition to putting them on a shared calendar so all users automatically see them, you can email them to other people, and I just confirmed that at least gmail will treat it pretty similarly to a google calendar invite - the gmail user can rsvp and have the event automatically created in their own calendar, and if you make changes to the event, they will be notified.
On Fastmail and LineageOS together: Fastmail is one of the apps you will have to download via a workaround - the only official ways to dl the app are google play and apple stores. As I mentioned above, the app is reasonably intuitive, and it will sync with contacts and calendar events you create/edit when logged into your account on other devices. Some caveats: I never before set up the native email client/calendar app/contacts app on my phone to link to my fastmail account, as I was just using the fastmail app itself. Out of interest when seeing your question, today I did that. The email client had no trouble importing my mail, and it sees all of my folders, but it does not recognize the visibility settings I have set for them (eg in the fastmail app many of them remain hidden unless they have unread messages; in Email I see them all). Also, although email synced fine, contacts and calendar apps still don't show my fastmail account as linked - but when I try to link it, it says I've already done that. So my fastmail app has all my contacts and events, but the contacts list I get when I hit the call button is not that list, and the calendar app on my phone remains empty. Another downside to the app on my particular LineageOS environment is that it does not notify me when I get new emails or even when I set reminders in the calendar. That's probably dependent on the particulars of your phone, the app works fine for my partner (who is still running google-standard android).
So, overall I like both Lineage and Fastmail, and I'm so happy to be de-googled! But there are some particulars about having the both of them together that are worth thinking about.
posted by solotoro at 5:43 PM on October 6, 2019
Best answer: Fastmail, Fastmail, Fastmail. Oh, and might I suggest Fastmail, as well.
I should say I use Fastmail only for email; I use Apple's calendaring and contacts and don't use either on my Windows 10 laptop (though I may decided to try it, someday). Fastmail certainly seems to have a good calendaring and contacts interface. Their prices are reasonable.
I find Fastmail's webmail interface a little quirky but 100% usable, and their iOS client is good. I have my own domain and they were helpful in getting that set up to work properly. I'm unable to extricate myself from the Googleverse entirely for Reasons, but the stuff coming in to my old gmail account is mostly commercial email.
posted by lhauser at 6:07 PM on October 6, 2019
I should say I use Fastmail only for email; I use Apple's calendaring and contacts and don't use either on my Windows 10 laptop (though I may decided to try it, someday). Fastmail certainly seems to have a good calendaring and contacts interface. Their prices are reasonable.
I find Fastmail's webmail interface a little quirky but 100% usable, and their iOS client is good. I have my own domain and they were helpful in getting that set up to work properly. I'm unable to extricate myself from the Googleverse entirely for Reasons, but the stuff coming in to my old gmail account is mostly commercial email.
posted by lhauser at 6:07 PM on October 6, 2019
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by Pandora Kouti at 9:18 PM on October 5, 2019