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Leaving Gmail for Mailbox.org

(giuliomagnifico.blog)
351 points giuliomagnifico | 9 comments | 22 Aug 25 17:41 UTC | HN request time: 1.182s | source | bottom
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TranquilMarmot ◴[22 Aug 25 18:30 UTC] No.44988014[source]▶
I spent the past month "de-Googling" my life after I saw a notice in my Gmail inbox that it was 20 years old. I took a step back and realized just how invested into the Google ecosystem I was. Gmail, Calendar, Docs, Drive, Maps, Keep, Photos, YouTube, FitBit, Android. Basically my entire digital life. My goal was more diversifying than security/privacy, but security/privacy is a really nice bonus.

I ended up going with Proton because they had a good solution for mail, calendar, and drive which I was looking to replace. I set up my custom domain to point to it and have my Gmail forwarding to it - any time I get an email to the old Gmail address I go change it on the website or delete the account altogether.

For Google Docs / Keep, I switched over to Obsidian and pay for the sync there. It's a great replacement for my main use case of Docs / Keep which is just a dumping ground for ideas.

For Google Photos, I now self-host Immich in Hetzner on a VPS with a 1TB storage box mounted via SSHFS. I use Tailscale to connect to it. It took a few days to use Google Takeout + immich-go to upload all the photos (~300GB of data) but it's working really well now. Only costs $10/mo for the VPS and 1TB of storage.

Android I think I'll be stuck on - I have a Pixel 8 Pro that technically supports Graphene but there are too many trade-offs there. Next time I need a new phone I'll take a serious look at Fairphone but I think the Pixel 8 Pro should last a few more years.

My FitBit Versa is really old and starting to die - I ordered one of the new Pebble watches and am patiently waiting for it to ship!

YouTube I'm stuck on because that's where the content is. I have yet to find a suitable replacement for Google Maps - OpenStreetMap is still really hard to use and gives bad directions.

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palata ◴[22 Aug 25 22:01 UTC] No.44990388[source]▶
> supports Graphene but there are too many trade-offs there

What are the tradeoffs? I have been following GrapheneOS for a while, and it doesn't seem like there are many tradeoffs.

> OpenStreetMap is still really hard to use and gives bad directions.

OpenStreetMap is a database, and most commercial services that are not Google use it. E.g. Uber or Lyft.

You just need to find an app that you like. CoMaps is nice, OSMAnd has a lot of feature but the UX is harder. And of course you can contribute to OSM and make it even better than it is! You'll see it's a great community!

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BeetleB ◴[22 Aug 25 22:54 UTC] No.44990913[source]▶
Someone showed me OSMAnd recently while we were hiking. I installed it as soon as I got home. Great for hiking.

Then last week I used it for navigation (on a phone with no SIM card).

Absolutely. Terrible.

Worst navigation app I've seen. Told me to make a turn at an intersection that did not allow turns. Then at another intersection, it told me to "Turn left", but the display clearly showed it going straight. I'm guessing that the straight road probably is angled 1 degree or something at the intersection and the app was viewing that as a turn.

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neilv ◴[23 Aug 25 01:47 UTC] No.44992229[source]▶
For an open source Android app for OpenStreetMap data, I like Organic Maps, and it normally works great with locally-cached maps. I've had better luck with it than with Google Maps or Apple Maps on phones.

(Though, I should mention that twice in the last year I've had Organic Maps become hopelessly confused about where I was, and where I should go. Both times, it had gotten a good GPS location, but then got confused while being out for an extended period of time, like maybe it was dead-reckoning only after that initial lock.)

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Freak_NL ◴[23 Aug 25 10:34 UTC] No.44994927[source]▶
Regarding Organic Maps: I would recommend keeping tabs on what is happening there since this year. They seem to be having significant governance issues.

https://community.openstreetmap.org/t/organic-maps-open-lett...

Short story: forget Organic Maps, use successor CoMaps or competitor OsmAnd.

https://www.comaps.app/about-us/

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1. neilv ◴[23 Aug 25 16:38 UTC] No.44997114[source]▶
Thank you, that's interesting and a concern.

Do you have pointers to information about the governance and legitimacy of CoMaps?

(I see a mention that it's non-profit, but no statement about what kind of non-profit, not even on the donate page where that info is customary and relevant for US tax reasons. Also, I see no mention of who's who, nor how they operate.)

The closest I find is this:

https://www.comaps.app/support/what-is-the-comaps-history/

> As a result of the issues not being resolved, in April 2025, the community of former Organic Maps contributors created the CoMaps project, based on the Organic Maps open-source code.

If what that sounds like is true (that it does represent the community of contributors), it still will be important to have safeguards against someone taking over the project.

Or, if what that sounds like isn't true, that could be bad.

One matter that will have to be resolved with governance (if it hasn't already), is that there's what looks like an allegation that the CoMaps project is already tainted with code to which is expressly doesn't have license:

https://codeberg.org/comaps/comaps/pulls/1039#issuecomment-6...

A concern is that a funded commercial competitor could bankrupt a less-funded volunteer project with lawyer fees just arguing the merits of that.

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2. Freak_NL ◴[23 Aug 25 16:47 UTC] No.44997182[source]▶
Nope, all I know is what I picked up in the OpenStreetMap community, like that thread on the forums, and this open letter:

https://www.comaps.app/news/2025-04-16/1/

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3. opensourebuild ◴[25 Aug 25 08:12 UTC] No.45011491[source]▶
The claim about open-source is coming from the shareholder of Organic Maps, Alex, but there is no basis to it, as the code for that repository is licensed under the Apache 2.0 license.

It appears Alex is angry about the fork and doing anything possible to spread negativity.

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4. ihatehn ◴[25 Aug 25 09:15 UTC] No.45011866[source]▶
Very astute! Legally the code is owned by each contributor and licensed via the DCO. Financially the project is underneath the umbrella of the Platform 6 co-op (see OpenCollective)

This is temporary though and a permanent nonprofit home is a top priority.

5. infinitesector7 ◴[26 Aug 25 07:36 UTC] No.45023431[source]▶
The code is open-source. biodranik is the main source of the governance issues.
6. biodranik ◴[26 Aug 25 16:26 UTC] No.45028757{3}[source]▶
The code used by the fork was never published. It was stolen from a private repository and a private server, and then published/used in the fork without the authors' approval. That's a serious legal issue.

The fork also took the new website design that was developed for Organic Maps even before the Organic Maps website was updated.

Don't believe everything on the internet; there are many lies spread around.

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7. roundcast ◴[27 Aug 25 03:02 UTC] No.45035008{4}[source]▶
So Organic Maps is not actually open-source?
8. palata ◴[27 Aug 25 08:54 UTC] No.45037034{4}[source]▶
Hmm... This says otherwise, with detailed explanations and screenshots: [1][2]

It shows that you, biodranik, removed the MIT licence from the repo with a commit saying "No MIT yet, sorry". It says that the code had been licenced as MIT since 2021. It is not clear if you own the copyright to all the contributions since 2021, and therefore it is not clear if you are legally allowed to remove the MIT licence.

It also says that the fork was made from the repo in the state it was when you removed the MIT licence. Therefore it is a fork of an MIT project by someone who had legal access to the MIT-licenced code: it's legal.

> Don't believe everything on the internet; there are many lies spread around.

You don't say :-).

I was not entirely sure about the CoMaps vs Organic Maps situation, but this very comment of yours clearly favours CoMaps IMO. Or did I misunderstand something?

[1]: https://github.com/orgs/organicmaps/discussions/9837

[2]: https://web.archive.org/web/20250815050441/https://github.co...

9. palata ◴[27 Aug 25 08:56 UTC] No.45037047[source]▶
I think this is relevant:

https://github.com/orgs/organicmaps/discussions/9837

https://web.archive.org/web/20250815050441/https://github.co...

In the discussion you link, biodranik tries to say that it was illegal for those with access to the repo to dispose of the open-source code because that open-source code had not be published. I don't think this is right:

Open-source does not mean at all that the code has to be public. It can be private to a community. But whoever has access to that code is allowed, under the open-source licence, to dispose of it under the terms of the licence. My understanding is that this is what happened with the fork of Organic Maps. And it is pretty clearly explained in the codeberg discussion you linked.

> an allegation that the CoMaps project is already tainted with code to which is expressly doesn't have license

I don't think it says that CoMaps doesn't have the licence. It says that whoever forked the codebase did not have permission by some of the founders of Organic Maps. That's very different: the licence doesn't say that you must ask permission to the founders; it says that the code can be used under the terms of the licence. A fork part of those terms.