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Proton is good but “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket”
I’ve only got two hands. The basket is kind of necessary.
Learn to juggle.
Learn to juggle baskets.
What if I’m a basket case?
you can carry at least two baskets
I need one hand free to collect the eggs
I need one hand free to… I need one hand free!
You’ll love our next product: Basket Hands!
put the basket through your arms. then you can have both hands free for whatever you need!
Proton is telling people to use baskets in the first place. Instead of just rolling them along the ground and hoping squirrels don’t run off with them
Recommending Arch from Windows is a hot take.
I think this is just a statement what the person did
Not a recomendaton
The average win user is not that different from a child with an iPad.
CachyOS with KDE setting is less bold. But still bold for casuals.
That’s what I’m going for once I’m done backing up all the things I can’t afford to lose when I wipe the windows drive. Even then, I’m looking at ways to preserve it as a virtual image in case I forgot something. My work provided laptop is unfortunately on windows 11 so at least there’s that in case I need Windows for any reason
Damn the AI RAM price mania, I would have gotten running earlier with just a new drive.
Maybe it’s CachOS?
Came here to say the same thing
Nextcloud isn’t really a direct equivalent to Google Photos. For that you want Immich.
nextcloud would be more akin to google drive.
More like Google Workspace.
yes. it’s versatile and works quite well nowadays.
just nextcloud can replace most of google’s webapps.
I’ve also found ente to be a good alternative
Not direct, but with Memories installed it’s near identical, and if you already have NC… May as well
I wouldn’t say nearly. I demoed both of them over the last month, Immich has really leaped ahead in features and friendliness.
I haven’t managed to get Immich running on my server, so it’s more comparing the current Nextcloud memories app to the google photos app from about… A little over a year ago? I’m not sure about the web interface for memories, though, as I don’t really use it there
why not just local backup for photos?
So I can show people pictures that aren’t already on my phone lol or my wife took the pic not me.
no i dont, i tried it but with nextcloud i could use the current file structure i already had for my photos
Arch Linux is a very good distribution, but I would definitely not recommend it to the public at large.
I think most people should probably use something like Fedora or Mint.
For advanced users, either Arch, NixOS, or Gentoo.
+1 for Mint. Super easy to use, a lot of config can be tweaked directly in the UI, and it has old style GNOME vibes without all the mad workflow that GNOME 3 forces upon you.
I’ve begun my switch over to Mint from Windows. Its kinda wild to suggest normal users to switch to Arch of all things. Netflix (and streaming apps in general) straight to Jellyfin is also a stretch because there are… extra steps
Yes, the Netflix -> Jellyfin conversion doesn’t make much sense.
It would’ve made more sense if it was Plex -> Jellyfin. Because the extra steps are the same.
Let’s not start, please.
I am loving Fedora KDE after using mint for ages. It feels like a nice blend of macos and windows but with real control. It’s very nice on a laptop. And I would love to have Kwin on every computer I use
I used Kubuntu, and it really, fucking, sucks.
You instantly are forced to have an outdated package manager, that you are blocked from updating.
this is jist what i personally use. to new linux users i would always recommend fedora kde or an arch based distro thats easily installed
ChatGPT -> 🚫
We should not be using or recommending services dependent on stolen data, which are destroying the environment for essentially zero benefit.
Are there any models trained on ethically sourced material? Even though this wouldn’t necessarily solve the environmental impact, there are still many times when a traditional search engine just doesn’t cut it. All else equal and without a self hosted workflow, I prefer tools that at least pretend to be privacy friendly (Duck.ai, AI Horde), and I had not heard of Proton’s Lumo prior to this post, so I do appreciate the suggestion even if it doesn’t meet all of our criteria.
LLMs are jot a trusted source of information, period. There is no use case that if I could not fond an answer on a search engine, I would trust the hallucinations from an LLM
i use a local llm for usage as a thesaurus, ask a question in regular language about what word can be used for a certain definition. this has been the only real usage ive found.
Honest question, how is this better than just using a thesaurus?
You can always make one using your own data.
Everyone should strive to learn about Alots. They’re an invasive species!
Yeah, but I have Alot of love, so it’s okay
Immich is better than Nextcloud for photos.
I think Immich is one of the best open source software out there.
Strongly agreed.
Google Photos -> Immich! Trust me on this, nextcloud is great for a lot oft things, but definetly not photo backup.
I second this. It’s really good!
I’ve never seen Magic Earth, but as an OSM contributor, I don’t understand why I’d use a subscription service when all the underlying data is free (as in beer and freedom) and contributed by volunteers (and likely not the app devs). One-time app purchases like OsmAnd I understand because you’re doing stuff with the data like routing, overlays, etc., and that requires development work. But a subscription seems absurd.
I use both. CoMaps when I can, but Magic Earth has a better business data set and better traffic data right now. I also contribute to OSM when I can, but there is a lot of missing data.
Well, I just reverted to an old version of Magic Earth so I could keep getting traffic info. That’s literally the only tjing stopping me from other OSM apps like CoMaps. I wanna know if an accident happened or my usual route is blocked for some reason.
But yeah I hate their shitty subscription lol.
Nooo did they add a subscription? I tried it one year ago and it was free. But it was also buggy, so I went back to Waze…
you can pay for magic esrth?
Because it’s a refined way of showing that information. Because search actually works. And because it adds traffic data. If you don’t see the value in any of those things than it’s not for you.
Where is F-Droid?
app lounge fetches apps from google play store and fdroid, fdroid results get shown first
PlayStore -> AuroraStore and NeoStore
Google -> DuckDuckGo
Android -> GrapheneOS, LineageOS, PostMarketOS
Windows -> Linux
Google -> Kagi+
DDG uses bing and bing is owned my Microsoft
Enough said
I’ve heard… Questionable things about the Kagi CEO that make me hesitant to give them money. I just don’t really use search engines for much anymore.
What have you heard?
I think this blog post sums it all, but it was written in 2024, so some of its information may be dated: https://d-shoot.net/kagi.html
I read most of it. Nothing of concern compared to Google & Microsoft.
Kagi uses Bing and Google…
It’s kind of unclear what they use as sources nowadays. What is clear however is that they use their own search engine, Teclis, so it doesn’t just act as a proxy for other search engines but searches will only remain in their own engine.
They listed their sources before and they removed https://web.archive.org/web/20231228222303if_/https://help.kagi.com/kagi/search-details/search-sources.html
But than this month they write a blog https://blog.kagi.com/waiting-dawn-search and revealed everything again
Vendor Status Mojeek Direct license Brave Direct license Yandex Direct license Wikipedia Direct license TripAdvisor Direct license Yelp Direct license Apple Direct license Wolfram Alpha Direct license Our own Small Web Index Proprietary With Google and Bing, we failed - not for lack of trying. Bing: Their terms didn’t work for us from the start. Microsoft’s terms prohibited reordering results or merging them with other sources - restrictions incompatible with Kagi’s approach. In February 2023, they announced price increases of up to 10x on some API tiers. Then in May 2025, they retired the Bing Search APIs entirely, effective August 2025, directing customers toward AI-focused alternatives like Azure AI Agents. Google: Google does not offer a public search API. The only available path is an ad-syndication bundle with no changes to result presentation - the model Startpage uses.and “it doesn’t just act as a proxy for other search engines” it exactly does this, Teclis is <1% of the results (you can see yourself https://teclis.com/)
I wish any of those supported my phone. Stuck with stock android
Doesn’t help now, but when I buy a new phone I make sure it’s comparable with a custom ROM. Anytime I’m using a stock android (or iOS) phone it’s unbearable after so many years of custom ROMs. So hopefully you’re in need of a new phone soon.
Ya, hopefully lineage will support it eventually, they already have one for the same model, just a different year.
My last 3 phones are just kind of pain software wise.
Moto G5s Plus - the Android 8 update (latest official) made it a slow horrible mess with frequent crashes and high battery drain. PixelExperience 11 fixed that.
Poco X3 Pro - told not to update to MIUI 13 due to instability. Many bugs I had to learn to work around. Left and right microphones reversed in software. Extreme power saving that doesn’t even spare alarms.
Ulefone Armor 24 - UI often crashes (Quickstep) including navigation. In some cases Android version updates don’t show up. The legend has it they sometimes provide updates after you e-mail them, stored on the Google Drive. Those updates do a factory reset, because of course they do. Alarm also has a chance of being killed, but lower than with MIUI. Charging with fast charger kills USB communication until reboot.I don’t do updates anymore. Check the experiences online, and it’s all just new bugs, often pretty serious ones. So, if it somewhat works, and it isn’t absolutely clear that the next update would certainly fix something important, just keep it as-is.
TWRP could at least give me some peace of mind. I could just back up everything.
Ecosia is nice but is it really privacy-respecting?
Probably moreso than Google. Bit that’s not saying a lot
https://www.ecosia.org/privacy
Not perfect, you’d probably want to change away from Google for example, and Microsoft/Google seem to get your IP address or location along with the search, to get relevant results. Still seems leagues better than Google or Bing directly, and the issue seems to mostly be Google/Microsoft getting data, rather than Ecosia collecting data for itself.
No it’s not. It got bought out a few years ago.
As another person said, why put all or a lot of your eggs in one basket (Proton)? To me the value in switching away from big tech is that I can deversify my services.
Inevitably Proton will enshittify. If you, dear reader that scrolled past this comment, disagree, then i think you dont belong here.
Could you elaborate? Isn’t the fact that it’s owned by a non-profit foundation an obstacle to enshittification? Do you assume the same will happen to services like Signal too?
OpenAI was also non-profit and sure as shit wasn’t living up to its name of being open in any way. Then it became for-profit in late 2025 because it could, and also money.
Do you think there’s something snowflake-level special preventing Proton from doing the same fucking thing? It’s a corporation trying to make money; non-profit may be used to grift popularity or grassroots support.
If Proton is special and impossible to follow a similar trajectory after enough people use/are locked into their ecosystem, please share with us what your logic would be that would protect us from this. (Hint: you can’t)
Also to note, Proton AG is technically for-profit. They are majority owned by Proton, which is a non-profit, but the company that hosts everything is technically for-profit.
The service provided is not open source, or source available. The email clients are provided under a GPLv3 license, not the service itself.
It’s Open Washing (Gaining the marketing benefits without providing the freedoms)
Agreed. I use their mail and VPN, but I use a personal domain, so I could switch email with little trouble and Mullvad VPN can’t really be beat.
I don’t really need anything else Proton offers because I’ve got NextCloud.
Because my eggs can communicate with each other and because I can get all my eggs with 1 reasonable price.
Because its not all eggs. As you can see, they used a ton of google services, but only substituted a few with Proton. Ex. Google keep -> Joplin, Google Maps -> Magic maps. So saying that they put everything into proton is not true. It takes time to be fully independent.
I am very similar to OP. Proton right now gives good services, and is a good safety net right now for me.
Lumo isn’t really private. If you’re not local, you’re not private. AFAIK it sends to the model in cleartext (zero access) which isn’t E2EE. Signal, for example, is E2EE. Based on internet reviews, you’re better off running the models they offer locally for performance reasons on the cost anyway. I’d say you’re better off without AI in almost every situation you’d want to use an LLM of such such limited capability too so unless you really really want to set resources on fire it’s better to just drop it period.
Netflix cannot be replaced by Jellyfin. That is very disingenuous. To “replace” Netflix with Jellyfin requires a bit more infrastructure and while it might be cheaper there’s risk involved that isn’t present with your other changes.
Jellyfin/Plex is not cheaper than Netflix.
We like to pretend or tell our wives it is, but hard drives and electricity likely come close or maybe even exceed a netflix subscription.
Host your media collection because it’s in better quality, titles don’t leave the service, and overall it’s just cooler. But don’t do it because it’s “cheaper.”
8TB external hard drive ($160) + old laptop + “H265 sources” = way cheaper than a bunch of streaming services
Sure, just don’t tell my wife
It might not be cheaper than Netflix, but it’s a lot cheaper than Netflix + Hulu + Disney Plus + HBO Max + Paramount Plus + Peacock + Prime + Britbox + whatever new streaming service that somebody will launch tomorrow
Math does not check out. It is a lot cheaper.
Google -> Kagi
ChatGPT -> Kagi Assistant
I imagine most people aren’t willing to pay a subscription for their search engine
