I recently dumped my Pixel for an iPhone. Feels dirty, but it’s fine.
I’ve also been following the story of how Google Drive has lost a bunch of customer files and is just closing bug reports and support tickets without offering help, and I’m worried that Google is not an acceptable backup solution because they don’t seem to give a shit about customers… and why would they? They own the world. Fuck mere humans.
Anyhoo, I’m trying to figure out where to move my backups (100GB), my docs (I’d love something where I can do sheets and docs in browsers and mobile apps), and probably my email too, because why not… but I suppose I could do email through proton or skiff or anyhing, but everyone offers it.
I’m currently looking at Zoho as the possible best option. It looks like I could do all three for like $6/mo which seems reasonable. Does anyone use it?
How are the docs and sheets? Is searching email robust? Mobile apps? Does Zoho hate customers as much as Google? Will they eventually?
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iPhones are great, but not totally private, data collection still happens. If you really want a private experience, you could have kept your Pixel, and installed GrapheneOS on it, which would be the definitive option for privacy in a mobile setting.
For Docs, Spreadsheets etc, the only privacy friendly alternative I have found would be Nextcloud, which you have to host yourself, since as of now there aren’t any others as good. You could use libreoffice if you didn’t mind being local.
Never heard of Zoho, i’d probably stick with Proton Mail, Tutanota, or Skiff.
Have you looked at proton mail and drive?
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I’m using them for email with my custom domain. I’m using an android phone, so I can’t comment on their iOS apps, but their email and admin apps both work well for me.
I use Zoho at work and really hate it. At least from a technology point of view it’s pretty ancient and hard to work with. If you want a replacement for everything except document editing I’d suggest Proton. They do email, storage, and even password management all in one. For document editing I actually usually use Microsoft Office online. Microsoft isn’t great, but I still consider them better than Google.
Self hosted route would be nextcloud with lool or onlyoffice. Hosted third party solution proton or disroot both will do everything you want.
Or hosted / managed next cloud + onlyoffice I reckon.
A Synolgoy network attached storage device is very easy to set up to backup to AWS Glacier, and it has good apps for Android phone backup.
I don’t know how the app support is for iPhone is, though.
My experience with Zoho is out of date, but I was happy with them several years ago.
I’m fine with Google everything ATM. I keep local backups and Google Drive for offsite. 2TB for ~$100/yr. I think? I have one weird issue with Drive, but I don’t expect much support as it’s probably my fault/misunderstanding. Plus, it all works well with our (wife’s) Androids. Easy sharing, all that.
We use Google at work for our IdP and that’s been nice for a distributed work force. OTOH, no centralization kinda sucks. My team may be enforcing Active Directory this year. 🤷🏻♂️
Maybe we can pair on this and learn together? Love to investigate Zoho gain. Always looking for new solutions and Zoho never turned me off.
A Synology NAS would be a good shout if you don’t mind the self hosting and maintenance route. That said, I also have an Infomaniak kDrive setup for my cloud backup. With that I have my email, calendar, drive space and it even offers an office suite in the cloud.
It may not have all the bells and whistles you get with Microsoft Office but, for me, it certainly does the trick.
I was in that same boat about 4 years ago, albeit for different reasons (security and privacy). So I chose to build my own NAS (I ended up with UnRaid after testing about 7 different NAS Open Source OSs, but they all do pretty much the same. I try to stay away from commercial stuff like Synology and Qnap). I have everything “cloud” running out of it, replacing most cloud needs with Nextcloud + OnlyOffice. I have never looked back. For my other services, there are Dockers for pretty much everything you want to host such as Bitwarden (password manager), Joplin (best notes platform ever, replaces G-Keep) and like 10 other self-hosted services like Bookwyrm to replace Good Reads, Kavita for serving books, Manga and Comics. Can’t comment on replacements sold by other companies because I don’t trust any of them at all. And I am sorry to be the bearer of bad news on your choice of mobile platform, but you had the best option already in your hands with the pixel you replaced. Replacing the stock Android with GrapheneOS (that’s what I chose after a lot of testing the others), CalyxOS, LineageOS with or without Microg (depends on if you still need Google services) and a few others. Apple doesn’t have the best privacy record. In any case, everything Google offers has an alternative, but aas with everything else in life, there are trade-offs. Glad to see more people are getting away from big tech, this is the only way they MAY/may not rethink their approach with their clients.
I appreciate your advice here. I should have mentioned that I’m not really interested in maintaining a server myself.
I don’t know enough about security to trust myself, and I don’t want to troubleshoot things in my free time. I’d rather just pay someone to worry about all that, and I’m willing to take on the cost.
I totally get you, and you are correct. Self-hosting requires some time investment. If “playing” with these things is no equal to fun for you, you shouldn’t do it, and do what you want with your free time. I’m sorry I can’t suggest a service for this since I moved from big-tech straight to self-hosted. I hope you find the best fit for your needs.
I moved to Zoho back when Google decided to screw over people with the custom domains a few years ago. I have Zillum, which is designed for families (~ $70/year for 3 users), but you can also get their business offering for about the same price. Zillum comes with Writer, Sheets, and Show (presentation), and Workdrive (equivalent of GDrive). It also has email for custom domains. The office apps work like you’d expect. Zoho Mail is somewhat different from Gmail, but works fine. I’m perfectly happy using them, and they don’t sell my data to anyone else.
Also, zoho is what I use for email services. The free version for my family is sufficient (5 users with 5Gb of storage each, and 30 aliases allowed for each user). I just registered a domain for my family in Cloudflare for 10 years (about 87 bucks total), verified it in Zoho, and have never looked back again.
