<![CDATA[The journey of tech empowerment and liberation from tech bros can be a long, bumpy road.]]>The journey of tech empowerment and liberation from tech bros can be a long, bumpy road.

The biggest tech regret of my adult life is that I didn't use a custom domain name as my main email address, so that when things invariably go south, I can simply hop to a new email provider.

The hundred or so email aliases I made with are a real headache right now. Time to clean up my mess.

What am I talking about? This ICYMI: https://www.404media.co/manifestos-fear-and-loser-thinking-inside-protons-ai-reckoning/

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/topic/701b916c-c511-4f63-ad84-8a12cad555e0/the-journey-of-tech-empowerment-and-liberation-from-tech-bros-can-be-a-long-bumpy-road.RSS for NodeTue, 03 Nov 2026 09:10:01 GMTFri, 30 Oct 2026 09:46:19 GMT60<![CDATA[Reply to The journey of tech empowerment and liberation from tech bros can be a long, bumpy road. on Fri, 30 Oct 2026 18:13:28 GMT]]>@_elena It's never too late for a custom domain email address 😝 and FWIW, StartMail lets you add your own domain, so maybe a viable option for you?

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://helvede.net/users/jwcph/statuses/117531214349277127https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://helvede.net/users/jwcph/statuses/117531214349277127Fri, 30 Oct 2026 18:13:28 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to The journey of tech empowerment and liberation from tech bros can be a long, bumpy road. on Fri, 30 Oct 2026 18:06:47 GMT]]>@smilingdemon @_elena this is a great idea, I just need to find a good host. Some coop or business that knows what an algorithmic impact assessment is, and has made some solid public pledge

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://social.coop/users/django/statuses/117531188074398077https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://social.coop/users/django/statuses/117531188074398077Fri, 30 Oct 2026 18:06:47 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to The journey of tech empowerment and liberation from tech bros can be a long, bumpy road. on Fri, 30 Oct 2026 18:05:25 GMT]]>@_elena Yeah, why can’t we have nice things? Or at least companies with a moral compass. 😐

Related to your post, what do you do with hide-my-e-mail aliases? Because I use those instead of +aliases for al sorts of things like shopping and newsletters.

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mstdn.social/users/jasperbuma/statuses/117531182759198356https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mstdn.social/users/jasperbuma/statuses/117531182759198356Fri, 30 Oct 2026 18:05:25 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to The journey of tech empowerment and liberation from tech bros can be a long, bumpy road. on Fri, 30 Oct 2026 18:04:19 GMT]]>@tobias “Oops! That page doesn’t exist or is private.”

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://social.coop/users/django/statuses/117531178409915775https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://social.coop/users/django/statuses/117531178409915775Fri, 30 Oct 2026 18:04:19 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to The journey of tech empowerment and liberation from tech bros can be a long, bumpy road. on Fri, 30 Oct 2026 17:47:33 GMT]]>@_elena
I think that if you cancel before the end of your plan, you can get a pro rata refund.

But I also thought that closing my accent in a knee-jerk reaction is probably a bit premature, in case there's such a backlash that they might change course. Unlikely, by the look of things, but user power can affect change.

Still, this does 𝘯𝘰𝘵 look good…

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://nerdculture.de/users/aerion/statuses/117531112495862524https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://nerdculture.de/users/aerion/statuses/117531112495862524Fri, 30 Oct 2026 17:47:33 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to The journey of tech empowerment and liberation from tech bros can be a long, bumpy road. on Fri, 30 Oct 2026 17:45:51 GMT]]>What about https://addy.io/pricing/ @seanm @_elena

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://caneandable.social/users/WeirdWriter/statuses/117531105808340701https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://caneandable.social/users/WeirdWriter/statuses/117531105808340701Fri, 30 Oct 2026 17:45:51 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to The journey of tech empowerment and liberation from tech bros can be a long, bumpy road. on Fri, 30 Oct 2026 17:23:17 GMT]]>@seanm I moved away to KeepassXC which is synced via Nextcloud. It works very well.

edit: I'm actually considering one of KeepassXC's paid options, simply to sponsor them.

@_elena

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://writing.exchange/users/paulk/statuses/117531017081451807https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://writing.exchange/users/paulk/statuses/117531017081451807Fri, 30 Oct 2026 17:23:17 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to The journey of tech empowerment and liberation from tech bros can be a long, bumpy road. on Fri, 30 Oct 2026 17:19:36 GMT]]>@paulk I strongly recommend not tying your password manager to anything else. It doesn't have to be an offline password manager but it should be separate from your email, office suite, etc service. I have read horror stories of people being locked out of their Google, Apple, etc accounts for random (or legitimate) reasons. If this account also houses your passwords then you're really out of luck.

I use a mix of KeePassXC and a cloud-based password manager service.

@_elena

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://infosec.exchange/users/seanm/statuses/117531002597686337https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://infosec.exchange/users/seanm/statuses/117531002597686337Fri, 30 Oct 2026 17:19:36 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to The journey of tech empowerment and liberation from tech bros can be a long, bumpy road. on Fri, 30 Oct 2026 17:17:20 GMT]]>@seanm "luckily" I created all my aliases inside ProtonMail - so they should last even after (if) I cancel my plan. It's a shame that SimpleLogin is owned by Proton, I don't know of any other good alternatives and I LOVED the Dark Web Monitoring, sigh

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.social/users/_elena/statuses/117530993680547835https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.social/users/_elena/statuses/117530993680547835Fri, 30 Oct 2026 17:17:20 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to The journey of tech empowerment and liberation from tech bros can be a long, bumpy road. on Fri, 30 Oct 2026 17:15:09 GMT]]>@_elena I've kept my SimpleLogin account separate from my Proton account for this possibility. Were you using the built-in alias functionality or a separate alias solution? I haven't tried to migrate, yet, but I'm hoping the separation does still exist for and I can just point my aliased addresses at a new mailbox.

I'm also probably going to look into a different email alias provider, because SimpleLogin is owned by Proton.

If/when I do migrate off of Proton, I'll likely use this as an opportunity to use my own registered domain, too. I still want to use a generalized alias email domain but having a custom domain for my personal email would be good.

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://infosec.exchange/users/seanm/statuses/117530985074838843https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://infosec.exchange/users/seanm/statuses/117530985074838843Fri, 30 Oct 2026 17:15:09 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to The journey of tech empowerment and liberation from tech bros can be a long, bumpy road. on Fri, 30 Oct 2026 17:13:38 GMT]]>@waltbaldwin I know. Inadmissible. That's why I'm waiting to see if the board gives him and the CTO the boot. I don't see how the company can recover from this

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.social/users/_elena/statuses/117530979114637524https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.social/users/_elena/statuses/117530979114637524Fri, 30 Oct 2026 17:13:38 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to The journey of tech empowerment and liberation from tech bros can be a long, bumpy road. on Fri, 30 Oct 2026 17:06:11 GMT]]>@burningTyger @_elena

i've been very happy with fastmail for many years.

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.energy/users/waltbaldwin/statuses/117530949813917885https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.energy/users/waltbaldwin/statuses/117530949813917885Fri, 30 Oct 2026 17:06:11 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to The journey of tech empowerment and liberation from tech bros can be a long, bumpy road. on Fri, 30 Oct 2026 17:03:54 GMT]]>@_elena

'In a follow-up message, Yen reiterated his point: “only losers think like that.” His ultimate message for the team was to “stop lovingly handcrafting all our code and use AI more.”'

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.energy/users/waltbaldwin/statuses/117530940803634747https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.energy/users/waltbaldwin/statuses/117530940803634747Fri, 30 Oct 2026 17:03:54 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to The journey of tech empowerment and liberation from tech bros can be a long, bumpy road. on Fri, 30 Oct 2026 16:51:07 GMT]]>@smilingdemon using your own domain name as your default email address may take away some of the pain (re: figuring out where to land next) because the transition is pretty much painless

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.social/users/_elena/statuses/117530890576800683https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.social/users/_elena/statuses/117530890576800683Fri, 30 Oct 2026 16:51:07 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to The journey of tech empowerment and liberation from tech bros can be a long, bumpy road. on Fri, 30 Oct 2026 16:49:58 GMT]]>@richardurban I don't want to deal with deliverability issues

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.social/users/_elena/statuses/117530886063311111https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.social/users/_elena/statuses/117530886063311111Fri, 30 Oct 2026 16:49:58 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to The journey of tech empowerment and liberation from tech bros can be a long, bumpy road. on Fri, 30 Oct 2026 16:44:02 GMT]]>@_elena Why not host your own email on one of your servers?]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://friendica.visionroot.org/objects/12d27972-206a-e4c9-5200-b5d292720250https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://friendica.visionroot.org/objects/12d27972-206a-e4c9-5200-b5d292720250Fri, 30 Oct 2026 16:44:02 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to The journey of tech empowerment and liberation from tech bros can be a long, bumpy road. on Fri, 30 Oct 2026 16:43:31 GMT]]>@_elena yea, switching e-mail gradually is relatively easy. The next challenge is finding a European VPN provider that works on the common video streaming platforms...

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.social/users/Kdude/statuses/117530860684984624https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.social/users/Kdude/statuses/117530860684984624Fri, 30 Oct 2026 16:43:31 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to The journey of tech empowerment and liberation from tech bros can be a long, bumpy road. on Fri, 30 Oct 2026 16:40:49 GMT]]>@dylenar Tuta is also flirting with AI. I think we have to face the fact that every software project is going to be tempted to embrace AI. How they integrate it into their dev process is going to be a differentiator.

For years the #1 Proton complaint, by far, has been how slow their development process is for new features. I suspect this is a reaction to that. Tuta also is a small team and I suspect the draw of AI is very strong.

https://mastodon.social/@Tutanota/117518311002072172

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.social/users/moelassus/statuses/117530850089228229https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.social/users/moelassus/statuses/117530850089228229Fri, 30 Oct 2026 16:40:49 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to The journey of tech empowerment and liberation from tech bros can be a long, bumpy road. on Fri, 30 Oct 2026 16:33:27 GMT]]>@_elena Thank you for sharing this, I also need a way forward like this and was feeling kind of overwhelmed.

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://infosec.exchange/users/logwyrm/statuses/117530821113658727https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://infosec.exchange/users/logwyrm/statuses/117530821113658727Fri, 30 Oct 2026 16:33:27 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to The journey of tech empowerment and liberation from tech bros can be a long, bumpy road. on Fri, 30 Oct 2026 16:24:19 GMT]]>@_elena this is something I need to do (and tbh have been meaning to do) with my Gmail for years... but haven't got round to because of the pain of the transition and difficulty in figuring out where to go.

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.art/users/smilingdemon/statuses/117530785214973002https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://mastodon.art/users/smilingdemon/statuses/117530785214973002Fri, 30 Oct 2026 16:24:19 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to The journey of tech empowerment and liberation from tech bros can be a long, bumpy road. on Fri, 30 Oct 2026 16:24:00 GMT]]>@tobias @_elena @doncow

No. That one worked. It's kind of a crap shoot. But I have to use a proxy to use FreeSound -- and the Libre Office home page.

And it might be why the KDE bug tracker doesn't work for me.

My ISP is using some outdated, over-eager IP block list (this is an ongoing issue, and I think I've hijacked this thread more than I should, already).

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://realsocial.life/users/TerryHancock/statuses/117530783913087434https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://realsocial.life/users/TerryHancock/statuses/117530783913087434Fri, 30 Oct 2026 16:24:00 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to The journey of tech empowerment and liberation from tech bros can be a long, bumpy road. on Fri, 30 Oct 2026 16:10:14 GMT]]>@TerryHancock @_elena @doncow what that is crazy. So you can’t access my website? https://tobiaseigen.org

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://social.tobiaseigen.org/ap/users/116695502542310794/statuses/117530729834378100https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://social.tobiaseigen.org/ap/users/116695502542310794/statuses/117530729834378100Fri, 30 Oct 2026 16:10:14 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to The journey of tech empowerment and liberation from tech bros can be a long, bumpy road. on Fri, 30 Oct 2026 16:05:09 GMT]]>@tobias @_elena @doncow

Have I mentioned that my rural ISP blocks a large part of Hetzner's cloud...?

Yes. I have IT problems to solve. 🤦‍♂️

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://realsocial.life/users/TerryHancock/statuses/117530709792779585https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://realsocial.life/users/TerryHancock/statuses/117530709792779585Fri, 30 Oct 2026 16:05:09 GMT<![CDATA[Reply to The journey of tech empowerment and liberation from tech bros can be a long, bumpy road. on Fri, 30 Oct 2026 16:03:48 GMT]]>@_elena I journaled my degoogling experience at https://digitallysovereign.org/t/degoogling-moving-personal-gmail-to-self-hosted-open-source-email/8?u=tobias

]]>https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://social.tobiaseigen.org/ap/users/116695502542310794/statuses/117530704479803206https://forum.fedi.dk/post/https://social.tobiaseigen.org/ap/users/116695502542310794/statuses/117530704479803206Fri, 30 Oct 2026 16:03:48 GMT