CorvusCornix

Don’t threaten me with a good time!

smacks top of head this bad boy can fit so many fucking wolves in it

I’ll look into that, much appreciated! I think I was originally looking at predominantly English- and Spanish-speaking countries because those are my language proficiencies, and I was worried about the time it would take to learn Dutch (or another language) as I feel that’s an important step to understand and integrate with the broader culture. That said, I guess there’s never a bad time to start learning something new!

I’ll add to that: or a job. It’s almost impossible to get hired (as an outsider) even if you’re in a field many countries consider “critical”. Not that I blame them, I’d just give up a lot to live somewhere less homophobic.

I actually just went through this because I previously used iCloud’s Hide my Email service, but I’m de-Appling so I had to find something new. I’ve used Hide my Email, Firefox Relay, and Addy.io.

Hide my Email is hard to replace because it’s shared with the entire @icloud.com address pool, so it’s hard for companies to reject and it’s hard to link all of your aliases together.

I ultimately settled on a combination of having a Tuta paid plan, which gives you a few email addresses, and Addy.io. I chose Addy because it’s run out of Europe (the UK specifically) and has some great power user features while still offering easy-to-use apps for all of the platforms I use. I’ve only had Steam reject an Addy address so far.

At the time, I also thought Firefox Relay only allowed you to use your custom domain, but they do allow you to use the more generic @mozilla.com domain as well for better anonimity. Firefox Relay does have a limit to how long you can reply to emails you’ve received, though (I believe it’s 90 days), it’s run out of the US, and I think Mozilla has done some questionable things recently with respect to privacy.

I didn’t check out SimpleLogin since it’s owned by Proton, and I didn’t check out DuckDuckGo’s offering because I believe it’s also a US company.

Well I’m not gonna lie, I envy your firsthand experience, lol. I’ve looked at jobs they have open from time to time, but alas, they generally either don’t fit my experience or are more aimed at candidates from Europe.

Honestly I’d love if more companies could adopt their payment model. Phreeli looks like a solid cellular provider and I’m sure their double-blind armadillo thing is legit, but if I could just mail them an unmarked envelope with nothing but a numeric account identifier and some cash I’d like it way more. Same with Tuta. But I understand there’s some possibility for logistical concerns there (what happens if the user loses their account identifier? Too many banks still use SMS 2FA, etc. etc.).

I will be for sure! I’ve been trying out the different Fediverse “reddit clones” (for lack of better terminology) to see which one I liked the most (I started with just Lemmy) before I settled on which one I was going to support, but I’m pretty confident Piefed is the winner.

What I pay for:

• Mullvad
• Addy.io
• Tutamail

What I “pay” for (through donations, if that counts):

• The EFF
• Wikipedia
• GrapheneOS
• Asahi Linux
• Python

I don’t really subscribe to much, but I’m definitely looking to expand the latter list, so I’ll probably start donating to the maintainers of ad blocker filter lists and seek out more organizations fighting the good fight.