There is a version of me that uses Proton for everything. That version of me has made the clean break, pays the money for it, and sleeps a little better knowing his data is not being quietly turned into something useful for someone else.
That version of me does not yet fully exist.
What does exist: a ThinkPad running Bluefin, a Pixel 8A on Android 17 Beta, a Kobo e-reader and a family storage plan on Google that makes the math on leaving genuinely hard to argue with. The privacy case is airtight. The financial case keeps winning anyway.
Inspired by Hemispheric Views, here are the apps I use:
📨 Mail Client: Proton Mail
📮 Mail Server: Proton Mail
📝 Notes: Standard Notes
✅ To-Do: Standard Notes
📷 Phone Photo Shooting: Pixel Camera
🟦 Photo Management: Google Photos
📆 Calendar: Proton Calendar
📁 Cloud File Storage: Proton Drive + Google Drive
📖 RSS: Miniflux + Newsflash
🙍🏻♂️ Contacts: Google Contacts
🌐 Browser: Brave
💬 Chat: Signal + WhatsApp
🔖 Bookmarks: Standard Notes
📑 Read It Later: Standard Notes
📜 Word Processing: LibreOffice + Proton Docs
📈 Spreadsheets: LibreOffice + Proton Sheets
📊 Presentations: LibreOffice + Canva
🛒 Shopping Lists: Standard Notes
🍴 Meal Planning: Standard Notes
💰 Budgeting and Personal Finance: Fold
📰 News: Through RSS only, check above.
🎵 Music: YouTube Music
🎤 Podcasts: Pocket Casts
🔐 Password Management: Proton Pass + Authenticator
📢 Social Web: WordPress.com + Micro.blog
🧭 Map: Google Maps
🔎 Search: Brave
🎨 Graphics Editing: Pinta + Canva
📑 Research: Zotero + Google Scholar
📚 Library management: Calibre
📺 Media server: Jellyfin
🤖 Preferred LLM: Claude
💻 Code Editor: Zed
⚔️ Forge: Codeberg