Hills and valleys: My Journey Away from Big Tech

I will take you on my adventure to switch from Big Tech software to more reliable, European or open-source alternatives. I honestly share my experience with you: successes, setbacks and challenges. Along the way, I encounter obstacles, such as hardware that doesn't work, services that cost money, and people who don't understand my choice. I share everything so that you can learn and enjoy this journey. Are you coming with me?

Two weeks on Linux

The speakers on my laptop still don't work on Linux. No matter how I try, I can't. Everything also works less easily. For example, I now use privacy-friendly browsers and notice that many features no longer work. I have to do a lot more manually. It becomes clear to me that convenience has a price. Because we prefer not to pay money, we pay with our privacy. It is shocking how many useful features disappear if you refuse to install cookies, trackers and tools. This makes you realize how much you are giving up unconsciously. Want to quickly log in to site X with your Google account? Nice and easy! But you also give Google access. And they probably do more than that pretty little screen tells you.

I wanted to report my attendance at a meeting digitally.

Apparently, my user agent, hostname and or IP address are important to tell me that I can't be at a meeting. I suspect (and hope) that spam protection is a problem here. But it is strange that all this is passed on simply because I No Want to say an invitation? Considering the report, I suspect that my VPN is not appreciated.

Privacy and self-determination make life less easy. I knew that, but the extent to which you depend on sharing your data has surprised me.

My digital move

Today I want to talk about moving my domains, hosting and email. The last week was all about moving hosting and cancelling my M365 accounts. I have three reasons for this:

• I want to leave the United States.
• I want to store my data sustainably and reliably.
• I had arranged everything out of convenience with the first best provider, without researching alternatives. Now that I'm without an assignment, I have time for that.

My current situation

My digital world revolves around three domains:

• data-pro.nu: My primary site and blog, linked to an M365 Business Standard account with all Microsoft services.
• aeventir.co.uk: My second product development site, linked to M365, but mostly used for Outlook, OneDrive and Teams.
• edunex.nl: The main purpose of this domain is to create e-mail addresses with this domain name.

Research

First, I made a list of what I needed. Then I looked for European, reliable and sustainable alternatives. But that was disappointing: There is no such party. No provider offers the same integration as Google and Microsoft. Microsoft even has a more professional offer than Google. Nextcloud is coming close, but I'll come back to that later. So I started to think differently: What do I really need? Domains, hosting and e-mail. In addition, an cloud storage, calendar and The todo-list. But what about Teams, Whiteboards, Office (PowerPoint, Word), To-Do? Does it all have to be integrated? I use it, but do I really need it? No, not really. This insight was a gamechanger. I was just spoiled.

The choice

Hosting + domains

I switched to halvar.io. This is a sustainable hoster, the CEO is an acquaintance of a friend. To my surprise, it is also affordable and good. Everything is physically in the Netherlands. The domain registration is still at Namecheap (USA), but that is purely administrative and easy to move if necessary.

E-mail and calendar

I have chosen for Proton Mail. My private account is henrove@proton.me. Once I had henro@proton.me and henrov@proton.me, but I lost those passwords, with no recovery options. Consequence: Loss of access. Rightly so! This feels safe.

Proton also offers business accounts where I can create addresses for multiple domains. Coming now info@data-pro.nu, info@edunex.nl and info@aeventir.nl Everyone inside me. Handy! Proton Mail feels safe: trackers are reported, nothing loads automatically and everything is encrypted. It is a pity that Proton has shared IP addresses of users with authorities in the past, but otherwise I trust this Swiss club.

Office and cloud storage

I switched to Nextcloud. A strong alternative to M365. They offer a lot, but no email hosting. You can integrate your existing email. This makes it just as expensive as Microsoft, but on the other hand: open-source, self-hosted and German. Here A comparison between M365 and Nextcloud. My only problem is the maximum file size. https://nl.tab.digital Could fix this because I have 51 files that can't upload due to this limit.

Task management

I am currently using Todoist (from Denmark). Super handy, but I can't just mark an email as a task. This is possible if I connect my Proton Mail to Nextcloud, but then I have two To-Do apps. And believe me, a task app is crucial for overview.

I'm not done with the move yet, but the plan is clear and I know the pitfalls. Now I'm adjusting my workflows. It's all in my Todoist.

Trackers and Spam

My first idea was to forward all my Gmail to Proton Mail. Only then did I see how much nonsense I'm getting. So I'm busy unsubscribing, changing email addresses and notifying people. I also found out how many emails contain trackers. Open an email from Quora and the warnings fly around your ears. Bol.com emails are full of codes that send information back as soon as you open the email! Emails without trackers are really exceptional. Not every tracker is necessarily bad – sometimes it is innocent – but you never know exactly what they are doing.

What do I think of it?

I'm far from done. This is a fascinating journey, with frustrations and big smiles when something works better than expected. But especially many eye-openers, such as how many free services I got in exchange for my data, privacy and autonomy.

‘Give me your services for free and I'll give you influence over me!’ That's what I thought for years. But I don't want that anymore.