bugsmith

Spectacle OCR is fantastic news. That is really going to simplify one of my current workflows.

I have used and enjoyed lawnchair for the past year. It’s quite minimal and I’ve found it very stable.

Personally, I think it’s great. It’s a smaller community than HN and the registration requirements, whilst not a perfect solution, do create a litmus test and ultimately creates an envrionment of mostly high quality posting.

To get in, you need to be invited in by an existing user. If you don’t know anybody, you can hang around on their IRC channel and once you’re familiar, somebody may be willing to invite you.

I’m a bit less extreme about it than many here. But, in short, back when Reddit made sweeping API changes it immediately gave me ‘the ick’ and so I sought less centralised platforms. Lemmy is the closest thing I’ve found to people just hosting their own message boards like back in the early internet.

I’m a big fan of decentralized platforms and I love the concept of ActivityPub.

That said, I still use Reddit and have recently started to really enjoy BlueSky, so I’m not militantly against the corporate platforms or anything.

Finally, I just like the natural selection things like Lemmy and Mastodon have for those who are naturally more techy and nerdy.

Another vote here for Fastmail. I also like Posteo, Mailbox and mxroute, but these are not as fully featured - which may be perfect for you if you’re after email only. What I really like about Fastmail is that on top of being a customer-focused business (rather than a customer is the product business), they offer a really snappy web interface with excellent search - and they are extremely compliant with email standards, building everything on JMAP.

I do not like Proton or Tutanota. I have used both, including using Proton as my main email account for the past two years. I do believe they are probably the best when it comes to encryption and privacy standards, but for me it’s at far too much cost. Encrypted email is almost pointless - the moment you email someone who isn’t using a Proton (or PGP encryption), then the encryption is lost. Or even if they just forward an email to someone outside your chain. I would argue that if you need to send a message to someone with enough sensitivity to require this level of encryption, email is the wrong choice of protocol.

For all that Proton offer, it results in broken email standard compliance, awful search capability and reliance on bridge software or being limited to their WebUI and apps. And it’s a shame, because I really like the company and their mission.