flatbield

Sadly even Linux is a fuss. This is primarily due to full os updates needed every four years plus the changing security landscape. Then there are the hardware issues and replacement every ten years. I guess a partial alternative is a rolling release but then you have the issue of constant change.

Windows 2000 was nice. MS could have pretty much stopped there.

Keep in mind that there is some history too. Linux was released under the GPL earlier then BSD became open source. It then developed faster and got more support. So it became the popular kernel.

There are not a lot of choices. People in the US typically either use Google, Microsoft, Apple, or their ISP. Beyond that you have to go to a hosting provider or host your own. One of the most important things of a mail provider is that it support MTA-STS. There are many providers in the EU that do. Not many in the US. It is also important to pay for an email product, rather then be the product.

Regarding MTA-STS. Fastmail did not the last time I checked, you should check if that has change. Google does. Microsoft was testing it but I don’t know how that turned out. There are EU providers that do including Proton does support MTA-STS last time I checked.

I actually use Namecheap cpanel email. They don’t do MTA-STS but the do allow opportunistic transport encryption. Technically I should be able to configure incoming MTA-STS but I’ve not gotten it to work. Maybe just does not, or maybe I’ve not put enough effort in to do it.

I use my own domain and cpanal email in the namecheap shared hosting plan.

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Just to emphasize it is the reputation problem and getting common mail providers the accept. You’ll need to get a well known domain like a .net or .com domain. You probably need to have a web site too on the domain. Then let that stuff age. You’ll also need to get a static IP for the VPS your using that has a good reputation and your hosting provider will have to allow you to send email which means you’ll have to talk with them to make sure everything it setup. You’ll also probably want certs both for the website, and for your SMTP server. Then there are SPF, DKIM, DMARK, and DNS configuration you’ll have to make too. Optional other configs like MTA-STS, or DANE. Just a lot of detail. Once your setup, there are testing sites you can go to test or SMTP server.

Another issue is you want email to be full time. So I think that probably means 2 incoming mail servers on two different VPS systems maybe in two different data centers. Then you need IMAP, and maybe a webmail system. I guess these last two could be one one of the VPS systems hosting one of the SMTP servers. Lot of components.

I don’t actually using my own VPS based mail system for my main email addresses. Instead we use a shared hosting plan and our own domain instead. You might want to look at is Namecheap CPanel Email that Comes with their Stellar Hosting plan. That is what we use. You can use up to 30 addresses on their base plan and maybe unlimited on the next level up. It is less then $100 per year after you add all you need, the hosting plan, a domain, and certs (maybe more in the $60 range?). The advantage of this, the hosting provider takes care of the infrastructure, and it is cheaper and lest time consuming then two VPS systems and all the work to maintain them.

About getting other providers to accept your mail, I’ve found Yahoo and the domains they serve to be one of the worst offenders.

Yes. I have used Linux for 26 years. Never have I ever considered leaving.

Antivirus is not the begin all and end all. I do not specifiically have AV installed and have had 0 issuses over the past 26 years of Linux use.

On the other hand I do only install software from trusted sources. I keep my system updated. I do scan things with VirusTotal if there is a question. I have wine installed but not the exe handler. I have a firewall. I do sometimes harden my systems and use security scanners to help with that. Probably biggest attack vectors are email attachments and the web browser. I am careful about attachments. In the brower I use uBlock Origin at a minimum. I segregate sensitive things too so even compromising my general user account would not be fatal. I also have good offline and offsite backups.

As for AV like stuff. I do sometimes install ClamAV or a rootkit scanner and sometimes do a manual scan but have never found anything. Same with my IDS. My WS for example has Tripwire but not all my systems and have never found anything.

My point really, I view security about process and defense in depth then AV specifically. Keep in mind that AV introduces attack vectors too.

Besides. What is there to really mange. There are only a few that one are likely to change. Every thing else is in /etc. Besides all of thia is in whole system backups and snapshots anyway.

For what it is worth, my Bluetooth hearing aids just work on Ubuntu. Have not tried BLE.

Various uses of “find” in particular. “xargs” sometimes too. The capabilities of “bash” in general including scripting and the whole redirection, piping, and multiprocessing capabilities in particular.

No. People do what they do.

What I find more laughable is people complaining profusely about windows but doing nothing about it.

Using something different is hard too. Most people are somewhere between cows and idiots. I have been using Python since the late 90s even on Windows and at work too. I got some strange reactions and push back over the years. You just have to not care. We see now how that turned out.

However when many apps have a permission it becomes meaningless.

The thing about most default configs of any OS is that user storage is largely accessable to all apps. True of Linux, Android. Windows, …

Graphene has options to restrict that but you have to set it up that way. Android also has App sandboxing for app data.

Thinking through the threat model of course is always good. All security is porous. Linux is fine generally. If one is exposing services on the public net it is not clear that any OS or software is sufficiently secure, that takes constant effort in terms of monitoring and management.

If you have never used a password on windows or some other authentication mechanism then your Windows is not very secure.

Most of the differences you quote are pretty much the same both systems.

I guess the one exception is the UAC prompt which on Linux is a bit more secure in that it requires a password. Some random person or app cannot just click through it.

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There are so many good providers in the EU. In the US basically those that implement MTA-STS are Google, Microsoft, and Comcast with all of their issues.

I actually ended up at shared hosting provider. I get 30 mailboxes for less than $100 per year. Only incoming MTA-STS though unless I went to my own VPS.

All email services have vendor lock-in unless your using your own domain.

For what it is worth, I just moved my mail from my ISP to my own domain at a hosting service after 30 years. Took about 5 months to get everything changed but if I can do it anyone can.

Downside, using your own domain is probably less private but kind of depends.

Thanks, I did not see that before.

Other interesting thing is that about:config is disabled on mobile except maybe nightly. Wonder why?

The other advantage of Brave is that it is more secure out of the box. From privacy point of view that should be better at blending in to the crowd depending on user base size. In Firefox I usually add an extension and configure it and some about:config settings. Somewhat minimal but probably quite unique.