GMAIL free life?

[Zucca]

I am not a youtubber (would love to become one), don't use Twitter, Instagram or Facebook (and I will never do, I hope). I use every day Whatsapp and dropbox only sporadically for not critical data.
I use GMAIL with Calendar and Contats.

Lately (don't ask me why), I got more interested to understand how my privacy and data in the internet are protected.
10sec later I realize that all my emails, contacts, calendar are in Google hands in some server on this planet. I don´t believe Google will cause damage to me, and it never did in the past (at least I did not notice that...).

What now what bothers me is the feeling there is someone (who could/can/is) always watching me and maybe keeping track of all my activities... I don't like it.

Please I don't want to start a political or ethical privacy discussion here (thread will be locked in hours, I believe), I just want a nice technical discussion what make sense to do in order to protect our privacy.

That says what I did so far....

1) At work only Chrome is allowed, so I have there 100% incognito on with uBlock Origin on. When I get home end December I will install Mozilla with noscript and auto cookie delete.
2) Use duckduckgo.com instead of google.com
3) On my Android Phone (yes I know... don't tell me) I installed the excellent Firefox Focus/Klar.
4) Pfsense with pfBlockerNG on (<-- This is very cool and stable! I love it)

Next on my list (with a very relaxed timeline/schedule) is to get rid of GMail.

I spotted this:

https://kolabnow.com/

which seems to be okay. (PS: Switzerland was famous to keep the bank info secret, now they want to keep the data secret?  )

Another attack plan (much more time and money cosuming) could be to buy a domain and have a nice server at home which runs IMAP email, ownCloud, Roundcube and Z-Push.
I am considering to buy a VPN service, but it is just shifting the problem I think. TOR is also on my radar, but I read it is slow.

I don't think I will ever be protected in the internet, but at least I want to try to rise the bar a little bit, right now I am just walking with my pants down and a smile on my face I think.

What you smart guys do? Do you have a private server at home? Thanks in advance for the suggestions.
Again please keep it technical, thanks.

TO MOD/ADMIN: IF YOU DON'T LIKE THIS POST FEEL FREE TO LOCK IT IMMEDIATELY. MY APOLOGIZES.

[bd139]

I subcontract it all out to FastMail, Apple, DuckDuckGo.

https://www.fastmail.com/about/privacy.html

https://www.apple.com/uk/privacy/

I do have a youtube channel but this sits in chrome. I don't use chrome for anything else.

Note I have run mail servers before (postfix/dovecot etc) and it's a ball ache. Don't even go there.

[brabus]

I understand your fear and worries.

What I do? Nothing. Google even has all the passwords of all the WiFi Networks I have ever connected to.
If someone reads my email, well, they can have access to many of the services I use, like social media, forums or similar, but... meh.

Passwords are preserved in my head, written nowhere, all different each other. I forget them often, to be honest, especially if seldom used, so it's a bit of a PITA, but I feel safer this way.

The only really important thing (i.e.: which could really cause concrete damage to me or my family) is my bank account, really. I never authorize any transaction without double-confirmation (via SMS Code for example, also with credit card).

To be honest I don't really see a problem here, since even banks share their information (any information, regardless of privacy agreements) with the world, and we have no control over it. I just accept it and move on.

[hammy]

Do you have a private server at home? Thanks in advance for the suggestions.
Again please keep it technical, thanks.

HP Microserver at home with several VMs:
- mail/calendar server: freebsd, postfix, dovecot, baikal (caldav/carddav), roundcube, let's encrypt (acme)
- NAS with dokuwiki, filestorage, video, music, etc
- pfsense separates dmz and internal lan (failover: ubiquity edgerouter)
- managed switch with vlan support
- piHole
- UPS for all core services
- automated backup for everything
- VPN (in and out)
- smartphones in use: "fairphone 2" without google services and open source os
- "cloud" for our smartphones on my own NAS
- threema / telegram messenger
- yacy search engine

If you don't want to spend time and money for this, get an account for a service provider with high privacy and security:
posteo.de
manitu.de
http://www.aikq.de/
https://www.mailfence.com/

The are some "privacy handbooks" (creative common) you can search with https://duckduckgo.com/

[MrMobodies]

For when 2 step recovery is required I have a pay as you go sim on an old phone with no credit waiting there.

I use Pfsense as well for to group two broadband lines four lans with spare network cards if I want try something and it has been going well for over 3 years now. Very good for viewing and managing traffic like VPN and blocking spammers who target what I port forward but most of them I forward are on different ports anyway. It is Quad core low power Xeon 2.5GHz, Gigabyte motherboard, 4GB of low latency ram, 4x Alteon Acenic PCI-X and 1x Quad port Intel MT server network card.

I also use a free beta copy of Dude 4 beta from Mikrotek for the managed switches you can see where the throughput is going as well on the map.

I do have a HP G5 DL380 running on my shelf but I wouldn't run an email server directly on it for anything important as that would depend on the broadband connection.

[Zucca]

HP Microserver at home with several VMs:
- mail/calendar server: freebsd, postfix, dovecot, baikal (caldav/carddav), roundcube, let's encrypt (acme)
- NAS with dokuwiki, filestorage, video, music, etc
- pfsense separates dmz and internal lan (failover: ubiquity edgerouter)
- managed switch with vlan support
- piHole
- UPS for all core services
- automated backup for everything
- VPN (in and out)
- smartphones in use: "fairphone 2" without google services and open source os
- "cloud" for our smartphones on my own NAS
- threema / telegram messenger
- yacy search engine

That's impressive, very cool and sexy. I can't do that it's too much for me, I am an EE and not an IT nerd. I can imagine how happy you were that day when everything worked as expected, did you get drunk and celebrated  ? Congrats anyway nice setup.

I will setup probably a (HP DL380 G6) FreeNAS server with USP and offsite backup at home with maybe owncloud as plugin nut I am terrified to move on in the rabbit hole with VMs. I never played with VM, xBDS too much and I am scared to burn my fingers and time. I will probably outsource everything like bd139 did.

[hammy]

That's impressive, very cool and sexy. I can't do that it's too much for me, I am an EE and not an IT nerd. I can imagine how happy you were that day when everything worked as expected, did you get drunk and celebrated  ? Congrats anyway nice setup.

This setup started ~10 years ago and is still ongoing. You never stop and sometimes it is necessary to modernize parts of it.

I will setup probably a (HP DL380 G6) FreeNAS server with USP and offsite backup at home with maybe owncloud as plugin nut I am terrified to move on in the rabbit hole with VMs. I never played with VM, xBDS too much and I am scared to burn my fingers and time. I will probably outsource everything like bd139 did.

Start small. FreeNAS, Zeroshell or pfsense/opnsense, pihole. Use some small Alix APU devices and RasPi. If possible keep your backup at home on usb-drives connected to your NAS for mirror/backup. Keep it simple. Owncloud/Nextcloud for your cloud/calendar/contacts.

A DL380G6 ist a huge and powerful machine, but also not cheap on your electric bill if you run it at home. If you use to much hardware it is cheaper to use a service provider.

[Zucca]

- yacy search engine

Very interesting.

[MrMobodies]

They sell some good quad port gigabit nics and Ebay and I got very cheap some time ago.

I think they are a HP 375T Netxen NX3031.
I get good throughput performance with them and I have a couple in LAGG for the file server.

On ebay I see 10 gigabit ethernet prices going all the way down about £100 for and fibre controllers are becoming even cheaper.
 
My HP G5 does use up a lot of power to run and gives out a lot of heat.
I had to make a shroud and put fans at then end where the power supplies are to blow out the hot air or it heats the case up.

I like HP over Dell because there are many options you can set in the bios that Dell seem to lack.

[rdl]

1. Whatever you end up using, don't leave emails on the server. If it's important, download it before deleting.
2. Chrome is Google. Trustworthy? Your call. I wouldn't touch it.
3. DNS server? There are probably better choices than what your ISP offers, or god forbid, Google.
4. Cookies are a problem. Most sites break badly without them. The damn things are relied on way too much for functionality.
5. Turn off all caching in your browser (unless maybe you have a slow connection). It can be used to track you.

[Zucca]

I know the DL380G6 is a heater and energy hungry... I just want to test it out and see how it goes (I don't even have AC in summer so... oh oh ....)  If it is too much I will replace it with something small and faster maybe.

I am very pleased with pfsense and pfBlockerNG so don't need a piHole I think.

MrMobodies I l think you have a wise and balanced setup,

4GB of low latency ram

on my pfsense machine I mounted ECC RAM...

Holy molly I just checked my GMAIL account I have about 13GB of crap. Size seems to be an obstacle (not cheap)  to outsource everything.

[ataradov]

I switched to FastMail after similar thoughts about GMail many years ago and I could not be happier. And FastMail provides a real IMAP interface, not the google-flavored one, and they don't screw around with their web interface. Gmail gets worse and worse over time.

Yes, it costs money, but it is a really laughable amount of money for what you get.

[Zucca]

3. DNS server? There are probably better choices than what your ISP offers, or god forbid, Google.

Thanks rdl I agree on everything, for DNS I use quad9:

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/chat/httpswww-quad9-net-dns-safety-layer-driven-internet-security-for-free/msg1881236/#msg1881236

[Zucca]

FastMail

25GB for 5$ an month, I like it.

[MrMobodies]

MrMobodies I l think you have a wise and balanced setup,

4GB of low latency ram

on my pfsense machine I mounted ECC RAM...

Holy molly I just checked my GMAIL account I have about 13GB of crap. Size seems to be an obstacle (not cheap)  to outsource everything.

ECC Nice.

In one of the places I worked about 5 years ago at were lots of old Dell Pentium 4's.

I got hold of a job lot of the Dual Intel MT gigabit network cards. I put 3 dual ports in each and we got a couple of them running Pfsense with Carp for redundancy with some UPS  to go with it. There were 3 slow 4mbps adsl lines. (1 dis used for SIP phones, one from a merged company. It worked really well until some digger dug through the lines on the estate.

[Zucca]

with some UPS  to go with it

For the pfSense Box I don't bother to put an UPS. If the power goes down then modem and internet goes down. For the FreeNAS box it's another story.

BTW thanks guys you are awesome.

[eugenenine]

e-mail is pretty easy, you can host it yourself or pay nearly anyone else to do it.  When I had to leave time warner's roadrunner service I knew I would have to tell everyone and change account at a lot of places from <myname>@rr.com to something else.  So I registered my own domain at that time so it would only be a one time change.  From then on I was <myname>@<mydomain.com> and have moved my e-mail hosting a couple times and simply re-pointed the domain.  This makes it flexible for me, I can host it myself or pay someone else without having to change all my accounts.

The other piece mentioned is calendar and contacts.  I use owncloud.  You can download and install yourself or pay to host it somewhere.  Then download sync tools on your phone/laptop/tablet/whatever and use the calendar/contacts and files there.

It takes maybe one hour or less to write (Slackware) Linux to a microSD card, boot it, download owncloud, setup apache and mysql and have an owncloud site up and running.  This keeps my data off of Google/Apple/microsoft/whomever else.

[Zepnat]

Wish I could understand all this 

[ataradov]

Yes, changing to my own domain was also a huge part of my decision to move to FastMail. Email is a big part of my life, and if google were to ban my email for whatever arbitrary reason, it would be a huge blow. If google bans me now, I will be mildly inconvenienced, but overall I would not care.

[Zucca]

I use owncloud

I will use FreeNAS and I see owncloud as a plugin. Still ponding to put ownclould on one of the hundreds Rasp I have and point it to the FreeNAS, and keep the FreeNAS plugin free..

was also a huge part of my decision

I noticed that too, 5$/Month for 25GB and own domain it's hard to beat. 

[PA0PBZ]

don't use Twitter, Instagram or Facebook (and I will never do, I hope).

I use every day Whatsapp

Someone should tell him...

[Nusa]

That Whatsapp is Facebook? Which is a bigger worry than Google, historically.

[Zucca]

Privacy 100% vs being isolated from rest of world.

I unfortunately cannot jump off the Whatsapp boat, all my friends use it. What I have to do?

[PA0PBZ]

Privacy 100% vs being isolated from rest of world.

I unfortunately cannot jump off the Whatsapp boat.

I know, it's just that you said you're happy to not use facebook.

[Zucca]

you said you're happy to not use facebook.

Oh, yes. Whatsapp is already time consuming enough. Imagine to deal also with Facebook. No thanks.