Noooo! Ugh, that’s so disheartening to hear but I can’t fault imsodin for his reasons. I sincerely hope that someone steps up to the plate, even if only for the F-Droid releases.
For anyone else interested, the discussion is taking place here:
https://forum.syncthing.net/t/discontinuing-syncthing-android/23002/7
I can only speak for myself, but I would never trust opaque, proprietary software to manage my credentials, especially in a networked environment. For me, that’s a total showstopper.
I’ve never had need to use Bitwarden or Vaultwarden as I’ve always been happy with KeePass, but this news would definitely have me choosing an alternative.
For what it’s worth, I only ever had sync issues when sharing a database between devices with transient connectivity. Once I added an always-on instance of Syncthing into the mix, collisions were a thing of the past.
We’ve been using KeePass trouble-free for many years now, sharing a single database across more than 6 devices, with frequent use and modification.
If you want free tier with good privacy practices, Proton is going to be the best option.
I have several paid webhost accounts already, so I just use those for email. Any important messages (which are increasingly rare) are saved to PDF and stored offline (business/tax/medical info, etc.), and the rest is purged once read/sent.
Despite some of the comments here, I suggest that you don’t overthink it; just buy an APC Back-UPS 600VA and be done with it. You have relatively low power requirements. The UPS will provide some surge protection (490J), several minutes of uptime, and a USB connection for automated shutdown.
The 600VA unit is less than $100 USD and replacement batteries are about half that. I’ve been using several of this same model for years without issue and we have many brown/blackouts being in a rural BC community. The batteries have lasted me 4-5 years.
You can always plan for something more significant down the road, if your hardware or needs change, but this should do fine in the interim.
Lots of great responses here already. In terms of simplicity and ease of maintenance, Hugo is going to be the best solution with its single binary, built-in features, and ease of setup/use.
Mullvad VPN provides a variety of blocklists, including ads, trackers, malware, gambling, social media, and adult content.
The biggest hurdles are unavoidable under stock Android, but it really depends on your needs. What are you trying to protect against?
Any offline or disconnected smart TV, pi 4 with Kodi (LibreElec), Steam Link, blu-ray player, AVR, and a Logitech Harmony remote to tie it all together. We have a huge disc collection that we’ve ripped and we also grab media from the library.
Glad you found something that’ll work!
Nice writeup, thanks for sharing. For your music woes, have you tried plain old VLC? It’s what I use for music (and Mpv for video) and it’s been fine. I like that I can keep my mp3 folder structure the way I like it and still be able to browse and queue albums without relying on metadata.
Just replying to my own comment to say you should think very carefully about switching to a personal domain name for email, for the very reason mentioned by the OP.
What if your domain registration lapses and someone else grabs it? What if you can’t afford the cost five years from now? What if you just don’t like the domain name someday? All of these reasons will be problematic and some can result in identity theft and significant fraud. It’s definitely not a decision to be taken lightly, particularly if you have a lot of online accounts.
No, once you delete a Google account it can never be used again, by anyone (link).
I use a password manager (KeePass XC/DX) to track all of my accounts.
In your situation, I would update whatever accounts you do know about to the new email address you intend to use. Set Gmail to forward emails to this account too, and then stop using Gmail for everyday mail. Leave your Google account active for a year and see if any issues crop up.
if I recall correctly, there is a separate link in the same settings area for deleting any data stored from off-site partners.
I can’t say that I’m surprised when a privacy-focused company has a dose of unfounded or biased paranoia. For me, this is not reason enough to distrust them.
I also don’t fault them for doing away with SMS when most of the populated world had already moved away from SMS by then too. As a North American relying on SMS for about half of my messaging needs at the time, I wasn’t happy about it either. But I don’t fault them for making that decision, and ultimately it did push me to rely on more secure options, which I see as a good thing.