CorvusCornix

I’ll look into that, much appreciated! I think I was originally looking at predominantly English- and Spanish-speaking countries because those are my language proficiencies, and I was worried about the time it would take to learn Dutch (or another language) as I feel that’s an important step to understand and integrate with the broader culture. That said, I guess there’s never a bad time to start learning something new!

I’ll add to that: or a job. It’s almost impossible to get hired (as an outsider) even if you’re in a field many countries consider “critical”. Not that I blame them, I’d just give up a lot to live somewhere less homophobic.

I haven’t had any issues with tracking (that I’m aware of, anyway) and their privacy policy is pretty straightforward (email storage is opt-in, they don’t share data with third parties except law enforcement and what they need to process payments). I suppose one could argue that you have to take them at their word, but that’s true of anything.

It’s hosted out of the Netherlands, which I believe has pretty strong privacy protections, though the developer is from the UK which fares marginally worse in that regard (again, grain of salt with my opinions here).

I’ll confess I’m also not a technical expert in email systems, but you can use your own PGP keys for what that’s worth, and if you’re super concerned you can always download their server runtime and self-host it as well.

I probably wouldn’t use it for my bank, mostly because it’s another moving piece that could break, but that’s why I combine it with Tuta - I can have a “real” address for my bank, another one for my doctor, and a few others for anything that might reject an Addy address (and that I can’t live without), and then Addy for everything else.

I didn’t get the time I wanted to reply to this earlier, but it’s a great help! I am in the US, and I guess in my head I thought it might be like charities, which often are opaque or are good at hiding their misuse of donations (perhaps that’s too cynical a take, lol). It sounds like as long as a center is active and licensed, it’s a pretty safe bet to donate to them which is great because it takes a great deal of decision paralysis away from me.

I indeed don’t have Facebook (or anything but Lemmy really) but I checked out that list and it looks like most of the centers around me have full volunteer rosters, which is of course great but I was also hoping to see about also helping out - guess I’ll just have to be patient!

Thanks again, this has been very useful for me and hopefully anyone else who comes across this looking for ways to help out!

I actually just went through this because I previously used iCloud’s Hide my Email service, but I’m de-Appling so I had to find something new. I’ve used Hide my Email, Firefox Relay, and Addy.io.

Hide my Email is hard to replace because it’s shared with the entire @icloud.com address pool, so it’s hard for companies to reject and it’s hard to link all of your aliases together.

I ultimately settled on a combination of having a Tuta paid plan, which gives you a few email addresses, and Addy.io. I chose Addy because it’s run out of Europe (the UK specifically) and has some great power user features while still offering easy-to-use apps for all of the platforms I use. I’ve only had Steam reject an Addy address so far.

At the time, I also thought Firefox Relay only allowed you to use your custom domain, but they do allow you to use the more generic @mozilla.com domain as well for better anonimity. Firefox Relay does have a limit to how long you can reply to emails you’ve received, though (I believe it’s 90 days), it’s run out of the US, and I think Mozilla has done some questionable things recently with respect to privacy.

I didn’t check out SimpleLogin since it’s owned by Proton, and I didn’t check out DuckDuckGo’s offering because I believe it’s also a US company.

Great picture, and don’t be sorry one bit, this is exactly the kind of info I was looking for and I greatly appreciate it!

I’d wager nobody can fault you for donating to your own outfit, and at the end of the day it’s a win if animals in need are getting help! These really are services that should receive more (read: any) public funding, but… that’s a whole other conversation I suppose.

Sorry to keep asking questions - do you have any advice for vetting local centers for prospective donors? Are there any good ways to make sure the centers are being run in a responsible way, and that the wildlife in their care are being treated well and handled ethically?

You feature Raven Ridge frequently in your posts and seeing as you’re very knowledgeable, do you feel that they’re a responsible and trustworthy wildlife rehab center to donate to? Thank you!

I think we can skip the “loving” part and leave the rest…