My journey to privacy

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I don’t remember exactly when it started, but at some point I got really into privacy and open source. I looked at my email (Gmail) and realized there were about 5,000 messages, tons of spam, and I’d exposed my data basically everywhere. It became clear that something had to change. I started slowly cleaning up: not just deleting emails, but actually removing accounts on services and wiping everything related. I had seven Google accounts, can you believe that? I even lost access to some of them, cleaned and deleted the rest. Still working on one, but it’s almost done.

Then I learned about private services, the degoogling movement, end-to-end encryption. I was really hooked. It’s genuinely interesting stuff.

I was on iPhone for a long time, but after six years I decided to try Android. My first one was a Fairphone 4. Pretty decent phone overall, but a lot of things bugged me, not the OS itself (I adapted to Android quickly), but the hardware: thick bezels, mediocre camera, just nothing special really. That’s when I started flashing different custom ROMs and settled on CalyxOS. Then at the end of 2025 I got a Pixel 9 Pro and immediately installed GrapheneOS. Really happy with this phone. I also use KDE Connect, super convenient for quick syncing between my laptop and phone.

I ditched Windows and switched to Linux about four years ago. As a Linux newbie I tried a bunch of distros: spent a long time on Ubuntu, but eventually settled on Debian because the transition was easier since Ubuntu is based on it anyway.

For about two years now I’ve been trying to use private services wherever possible. Tried Tutanota and ProtonMail, but lately I’m really into the Proton ecosystem because I want both privacy and convenience, to feel like a normal person.

For cloud storage I’m currently using Filen, grabbed 200GB on Black Friday. It’s a good service with lots of features, but sometimes it’s pretty slow. I’d really like to move completely to Proton. Thought about self-hosting everything, but having it all ready and private in one place is way more convenient and attractive, especially compared to Google’s and Apple’s ecosystems. The difference is obvious.

I’m a developer, so I dig into privacy from the technical side and do what I can to improve my setup.

I used Telegram for ages. It’s super popular where I live, everyone I know was on it, so quitting was tough. At first I actually thought Telegram was private, plus it’s convenient, like a super app. But over time I cleaned everything up there, dropped it, and switched to Signal. Managed to get friends and acquaintances to move there, now we chat on Signal. Felt weird at first, but you get used to it quickly.

I probably left out a lot because it’s hard to fit several years into one post, but I’m glad to be part of a community that respects privacy and to share my experience.

My question: how can I further improve my setup to use the internet comfortably without ending up with a mess of different services? You know what I mean, all these platforms that supposedly make life better, but then you find yourself signing up for every second service and once again you’ve exposed yourself everywhere. What do you use? What’s your set of services for a convenient and private life?

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It seems you have consolidated most of the services so not much left to say, I agree you could migrate from Filen to Proton to further simplify your service setup.

I personally did some other things to compartmentalize my life a bit better.

I own multiple phone numbers for different aspects of life, none of them require KYC. It is not for circumventing potential surveillance from carriers, but for damage control purposes in case of data breach or due to poor digital hygiene of my contacts.

I use prepaid 5G for home network (locked to a specific tower and band), instead of fixed fibre, for the following reasons:

  1. No KYC, no contract
  2. Portability
  3. The IP assigned must be an internal IP (so even you leaked your IP and people use iplocation to track you, it will not be your home location)
  4. No ISP modem required
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This is really cool! This is the first time I’ve ever heard of this and am curious how you found this to be true? Also how does speed compare to other ISP setups? Do you notice a substantial slowdown during peak times since it’s on a cellular network?

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I assume you are asking about the IP part, this is something I learnt from some mobile network engineers ( in a professional setting) quite a back before 5G became mainstream. They used some Ericsson technical documentation to explain to me, it should stay true until ipv6 becomes the default. You might want to do some more research if you wanna know more.

It really depends on where you live. In my area there is no 5G SA coverage but 5G NSA (with 100mhz bandwidth), so my downlink is ~350mbps, but uplink is pathetically slow ~5mbps. If you needs uplink then this is not for you.

Rarely, maybe less than 5 times a year. Primary reasons would be severe adverse weather or cell tower reconfiguration, then it might get unstable for briefly unavailable.

It does slow down during peak hours, maybe from ~350mbps to ~200mbps. I have no complain as it is ~85-90% cheaper than fixed fibre (just in my scenario).

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Your fixed fibre ISP wouldn’t have allowed you to use your own?

5G wouldn’t have worked for me. Symmetrical speeds are important, and even if it wasn’t a requirement this setup is so flaky where I am that you’d end up paying for nothing

Sounds like a lot of work. Care to elaborate?

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I think in most cases you will need to extract the credentials / configuration from your ISP modem, then hope the ISP would accept your own modem to connect, in my country the chance is very slim.

If this is the case then fixed broadband is the only option.

Not a lot, really.

One number for work (I only told company admin / HR and my boss), one number for memberships, one number for bank and government, plus one burner number for daily use.

I set my work number to forward calls to my burner number, membership and government numbers are always offline, I just turn them on once a month, send an empty SMS to keep them alive.

I simply tell everyone that I don’t do SMS, Whatsapp, Facebook, and what not, they could either contact me via work email / personal email (then I will give them aliases), or if they have one, Signal.

People who care enough will download Signal to contact me, if they didn’t bother, I am more than happy to enjoy my peace.

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I see. BYOD is merely discouraged where I am, and remote management via ISP provided hardware (at extra cost, of course) is pushed hard. However, they will give you the credentials to connect to their network if you ask for them, but will offer zero support for troubleshooting packet loss, dropping PPPoE sessions, or other issues you might have. Support seems unaware of the optimal settings for their own network, forcing you to manually calculate MTU values via ping tests etc. Still, I mostly find it a breezier experience than using their hardware.

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The multiple numbers approach is underrated. I’ve been using virtual number services for this - rent numbers for specific purposes, keep them separate from your main line. No physical SIM swapping, no store visits.

One thing I learned the hard way: most VoIP numbers get flagged instantly by platforms. Banks, social media, anything serious - they detect VoIP and reject it. Had to switch to services that use actual mobile numbers (non-VoIP). Way better success rate, just costs a bit more.

For the data side, the prepaid 5G idea is solid. If you go the eSIM route, one thing I ran into: some providers route everything through a hub in Netherlands or wherever, even when you’re “connected” locally. Might matter depending on your setup.

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For virtual phone services (I am a bit reluctant to use the term VOIP as you will quite often get very different search results), I have yet to find any non-US services could function properly without google play service, they will also most likely to require you to pay for subscription within google play ecosystem. So as much as I like the virtual phone idea, I just couldn’t use it, which is a huge shame.

eSIM on cellular router could be quite tricky to work, I ran into an issue with my current cellular router, where its firmware and physical esim card (something required for my router to work with eSIM) just won’t accept the eSIM I purchased.

At the end I just contacted the eSIM provider just to mail me a physical sim instead, again, its a shame but I just have to live with it (for now).

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I would love to hear more about these options you are using.