Last week I asked whether Fastmail was a good alternative to Google Workspace and while the sole response was a ‘Yes’, I did my research on it before signing up.
I set up a free trial account with Fastmail and got to importing my emails from Google Workspace.
Maybe it was just fate, but when I went into the Google Admin Console, there was a banner with a message stating that “The price of Google Workspace Business Starter subscription will be increasing on or after 14 Feb 2024.”
It was going from €5.20 per user per month (excl VAT) to €6.90 per user per month (excl VAT). Including VAT of 23% that would be €6.40 and €8.49 respectively.
Fastmail works slightly differently, for the equivalent plan, which is their Standard plan, per month it would be $5. Then they add on the tax (23%) and bill you in USD, which equals $6.15. In Euro, that would be €5.61. That is cheaper than Google’s old price, including VAT!
I ended up buying Fastmail for the year at $50 which is $4.17 per month. Including tax, that is $61.50 and $5.13 and converting that to Euro: €56.18 and €4.68.
Even if you are paying monthly, that is still a good deal.
“But what about Google Drive, Google Photos, etc?”
Most of that stuff is on my non-Workspace Gmail account that I am (slowly) moving over to my own Nextcloud instance. But I’ll probably keep that as backup (for now)
I stopped using Google Analytics back in March 2022 and replaced with self-hosted Matomo
“What about YouTube?”
A while back, I switched to using Piped, an alternative, privacy-focused front-end for YouTube. I don’t have it self-hosted and probably won’t as there seems to be a bit of a set-up with it.
Surely, you are still using Google Chrome? You liked Vivaldi and Arc, right?
Nope. Not any more. I switched to Firefox about 6 months ago and haven’t looked back. I loved Vivaldi and Arc, but I have felt that there was something off with all of them a while back and decided to switch.
Not only that, but I’ll keep Vivaldi installed on my computers whenever I need to test something in a different browser.
Okay, but you are using Google for searching.
Nah, I have switched to DuckDuckGo. I know it’s had some bad press with hiding search results over the last while, but it’s not enough to consider me ditching it.
There are Google products that I will probably continue using with my free Gmail accounts. Mainly Google Maps. It’s probably the strongest maps app that I have used. I really love the idea of using OpenStreetMap, but Street View is a killer feature that I love using. (And I love playing GeoGuessr)
The last year for my using online tools and services has been a whirlwind, and in a good way has me not shackled to Google. While it’s great for people who live in the ecosystem, it simply isn’t for me.
Will I be telling people to stop using Google services? No. Absolutely not. You may have one reason or another for using that service, and if you don’t care about the privacy concerns or advertisements, then that is cool too. Times have changed online, and I needed to change too.
On Thursday last, Instagram’s newest product, Threads launched. It is a new microblogging service set to rival Twitter which has been steadily hitting every branch while falling off the social media tree, while services like the Fediverse and Bluesky have sprouted leaves.
But as Instagram is owned and operated by Meta, you know that there are going to be privacy concerns with the platform. So many privacy concerns that the app is not launching in the EU*… for now.
* Noyb has blocked the article in Ireland due to Section 26A of the Data Protection Act 2018, so here is the Archived version.
The following image shows what information is gathered by Meta by using its new Threads app. A bit concerning. Why does it need ‘Health & Fitness’ data? Why does it need your ‘Financial Info’? Why does it need to look at your ‘Search History’?
Threads ‘App Privacy’
Why does Meta require so much data, most of which is insignificant to them?
While this means that anyone within the EU27 cannot use this app, it doesn’t mean that we will never interact with users there.
In Instagram’s post on their own page about Threads, they stated that eventually, Threads will federate with ActivityPub.
But what is ActivityPub?
ActivityPub is a protocol (like SMS, Email, etc) used to send messages to and from users on different servers [Or instances. I will interchange between the two throughout. Eg, you can go from Mastodon ↔️ Mastodon, but you can also go from Mastodon ↔️ Calckey.
OK, but what is Mastodon?
Mastodon is a social media network created in 2016 by Eugen Rochko and designed to be an alternative to Twitter that can be hosted by essentially everyone. It has nearly 8 million users on over 12,000 servers. And with the addition of ActivityPub, those 12,000+ servers and their users can interact with each other.
You mentioned Calckey, what is that?
That is another microblogging service that also runs on ActivityPub that has fancier features like being able to bold, italicise and animate text.
While the animations and fancy text won’t work on other software like Mastodon, text, images and videos will still work normally.
So what does this have to do with Threads?
Eventually, (within 3 months according to some sources), Instagram will allow users to interact with Mastodon servers… and others. So you can have:
Threads ↔️ Mastodon.
Calckey ↔️ Threads
PixelFed ↔️ Threads (PixelFed being a direct Instagram alternative)
Now, given the privacy concerns, some (read: a lot) instances are going to be blocking Meta’s new project from being federated, meaning that you won’t be able to interact with Threads users regardless of what Meta does.
So while you cannot join Threads today, you can join Mastodon (or one of its many alternatives).
And for comparison, here is Mastodon’s, Ivory’s (A 3rd party Mastodon app made by the creators of Tweetbot) and Mona’s app privacy page:
Mastodon, Ivory & Mona’s app privacy page on the iOS App Store
Due to the surge of users signing up to Mastodon servers since November 2022, specific servers may not be accepting signups and others may have ‘Manual verification’ to ensure that you are not a bot.
Closer to your home (geographically) – Eg. I am signed up to Mastodon.ie as I live in Ireland.
A topic that you are interested in – Blahaj.zone – If you like the IKEA BLÅHAJ 😉, tech.lgbt if you are a member of the LGBTQIA+ community and also into technology or metalhead.club if you are into heavy metal music.
There are many servers out there with new ones appearing all the time and if you are technically inclined, you also start your own server!
While Meta celebrates the launch of their new product, they will need to sit down and address some major issues which would need to be done before they launch support of ActivityPub.
Implement features that already exist within other Fediverse software.
We are talking about editing, quote posting, lists, groups, content warnings, polls, DM’s and specific interactions with other servers (copy links, share, etc).
Become GDPR Compliant.
If Meta is serious about this new product, rivalling Twitter and integrating itself with ActivityPub services across Europe, it would need to become GDPR compliant. How they do this, I don’t know. I am not a legal expert and don’t know the full ins and outs of GDPR.
Commit to being open.
This is going to be more difficult for them from a business perspective. They obviously will want to set themselves apart, but the Fediverse thrives on the protocol and (most) platforms being open.
Meta needs to ensure that it can keep itself ‘open’ to the rest of the world and not force people that are on the Fediverse to create an Instagram account to interact with a Threads post or view specific material.
Work with existing servers and server admins.
This should be a no-brainer. Meta is running this service for the first time, and if they plan to integrate alongside the rest of the Fediverse, they need to comply with things that have become the norm with the Fediverse.
Content Warnings.
AltText on images/videos.
Ability to block users and/or instances on a user level
Actually, on that last one, they are going to learn quickly what types of servers are out there. There are some problematic ones and if they are going to be federated to those problematic servers, then their users are going to be in for a rough time which may come back to bite them.
If you are in the EU and a social media marketer and you need to be on Threads today, do yourself a favour, join a server that is on the Fediverse (Like Mastodon, Calckey or similar) and be ready for when Threads DOES federate with the rest of the Fediverse regardless if they are able to launch into Europe or not.
Me, since I don’t have access to Threads, I am not going to sweat it too much. Mastodon has been my social media ‘home’ full-time since November 2022 (I had been using it on and off over the last few years) and I am not going to be looking back.
I am even slowly working on transitioning my posts from Instagram over to my Pixelfed, so I can use that in the future.
The last couple of months within the social media industry has been wild, to say the least.
Whether it’s Elon Musk buying Twitter for $44 billion and subsequently changing the platform, or people signing up for Federated services like Mastodon/Pixelfed/PeerTube, there has been a sense of bringing the internet back to how it should be.
Once the mainstream (non-techie) audience figured out that the likes of Mastodon are: ‘Just like email… It doesn’t matter what provider they are with, they can communicate.’, things have been looking more positive in terms of growth.
We have become sensitised to a ‘walled garden’ approach for over 15 years. Whether that is Facebook, Twitter, or even going back as far as Bebo. These are/were walled gardens that you could not have communicated with others on other platforms.
🕸️
The rise and adoption of AcitvityPub have been a positive for the internet!
While Mastodon has been going since 2016, it has slowly been gaining traction. Ever since the rumblings of Elon buying Twitter were heard earlier this year, some people decided to jump to Mastodon. While some stayed, many went back to Twitter.
When the deal was done on October 28th 2022, that is the day that Mastodon really took off. It exploded in popularity bringing servers to their knees. Many instances were locking themselves down to contain the onslaught of sign-ups. Even Mastodon.ie within the first couple of weeks experienced some hardships but with the generous community, we were able to come together to make Masotodn.ie a new home for Irish Twitter.
This got me thinking. I want to embrace Federated services like Mastodon/Pixelfed going forward. I want to help make the Fediverse increase in popularity. And the best way to do that is to use it as much as I can and utilise it for my blog, websites and other content.
Therefore, in 2023, I have decided on the following:
Using Mastodon as my ‘replacement’ for Twitter posts.
Let’s be real here, we all know for the majority of people, Mastodon is not going to be the replacement for Twitter and that is something that I never want Mastodon to be. I see Mastodon (and other microblogging services) as an ‘Alternative’ to Twitter.
And the simple reason for that is there are journalists, companies and celebrities that either will not come over or will never be introduced to it. I, personally, am not going to completely abandon Twitter or close my account. I will be keeping it, and using it to browse content but I will not be tweeting as much if at all.
Use Pixelfed as much as Instagram.
I have not given Pixelfed a proper chance as a solution as I would post most of my content on Instagram. I am going to be making an effort in 2023 to post more on the platform. Whether that will be random food pics, drink, or whatever.
Learn more, deploy or sign up for new services that use the Fediverse.
This one is simple, I will be signing up and trying out new things this year. Some may stick, and some may not. But hopefully this time next year, I will be able to talk about products/services that have either come onto the scene or improved their existing products/services and hopefully be able to recommend them as an alternative to existing services.
And I want to make something clear, while my focus will be on this new adventure, I want everyone to understand that everything is an alternative. That is what they should be treated as. Not replacements.
Since Ghost (the platform that I am using for this blog) currently doesn’t have ActivityPub support, I will be spinning up a WordPress blog with an ActivityPub plugin and will be cross-posting my posts there. You can follow @padraig@w.pf.ie or searching for https://w.pf.ie/author/padraig/ [Update: September 2024, this has changed. This blog is a WordPress site now!]
Earlier today, Facebook head lizard, Mark Zuckerburg announced that the parent company for Facebook, WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger and Oculus is now becoming ‘Meta’ as they double down in the Metaverse… meta.
Their idea is that they can bring a real world scenario (Like your home) into the Virtual world to the point where doing work with the power of moving windows with your fingers like they do in the movies is becoming a reality and not a cliché.
It doesn’t change the fact that Facebook are a scummy company. No changes to privacy or safety on the platform and this new ‘horizon’ gimmick is nothing more than them announcing they are doubling down on the invasion of privacy and safety.
With people deciding to leave Twitter, Facebook and other social services, some are turning to alternative sites and services.
Here are a few that I personally use:
Alternative to Twitter:
Mastodon – This is a decentralised Microblogging service that is on the Fediverse. It allows you to follow and interact with users that are on different servers (Instances). Think of it like emailing a Yahoo! user from a Gmail account.
You can join one of the thousands of instances that have open registration or you can set up your own server for a “Single User Instance” – Having one of your own means that you can set the rules for your community.
And with Mastodon having powerful tools for moderation, you can completely block domains from appearing on your instance.
Gab, which is a far-right micro-blogging service, runs on a forked version of Mastodon and a lot of instances have it blocked.
There are other micro-blogging services like Mastodon that run on ActivityPub (The tech that does the whole Federation bit) such as Plemora and GNUSocial (GNUSocial is the continuation of StatusNet which ran identi.ca back in the day)
Alternative to Facebook:
Diaspora* is a social media website similar to Facebook which launched back in 2010 with them launching their first ‘pod’ (Servers) they have been in active development since then with their last release being 6 months ago (from this post).
While they haven’t made as much ‘noise’ compared to Mastodon, they would still be considered the first kids on the block to be running a decentralised social network.
There is also MeWe, a newer social media site that opened up in 2012 and left Beta in 2015 and became popular with Hong Kong users in 2020. MeWe focuses on being a privacy-focused social media site. Unlike a lot of the other options in this list, it is NOT on the Fediverse, so the users on MeWe can only interact with members of MeWe.
Alternative to Instagram:
PixelFed started back in 2018 as an alternative to Instagram and got a lot of following from Mastodon users.
It runs on the same technology as Mastodon (ActivityPub) and much like Mastodon, you can run your own instance of it or just join pixelfed.social which is the largest instance of the service.
Alternative to WhatsApp/Facebook Messenger/Viber etc
There is a couple of options here that you can download, but most of them are well-known:
Some of these have different levels of privacy but all of the above have end-to-end encryption.
Alternative to YouTube:
I was alerted to this service a while back but had forgotten the link when creating this list. Odysee is a video-sharing site that is very similar to YouTube but it is on the Blockchain.
Alternative to Twitch:
(Added 10th October 2022)
Twitch has slowly been shooting itself in the foot with recent changes to payouts if you are a partner on their platform and multiple cases of inconsistent bans and/or restrictions. Glimesh is a new platform that was born from the ashes of Mixer (Mixer was bought by Microsoft and shutdown) and offers a transparent 60/40 split for their streamers and no advertisements on the platform.
If you know of alternatives, let me know on Twitter: @PadraigFahy
