My former provider decided to move mail completely to Microsoft. This implied, that all the mail accounts of my 20+ domains are migrated to Outlook, for the attractive pricing of an additional €0,99 per month and account (which would easily push me into the €30+ range per month costs on top of hosting and domains). I maintain a few websites for friends and family, so their email would move to MS Outlook as well.
In times, when people get more and more sensitive about their digital sovereignty and in times, when having your data at an U.S. company might not be the smartest thing to do - and in times where I would love to support and strengthen the digital community in Germany and Europe, this move is not acceptable. And as I was looking around I found out, that I am not the only one to disapprove.
Finding a new home
So I went looking for a new haven to build my home in. There were some good choices, but then I stumbled across the post by Sebastian who shared my problem. And in his post I found Manitu, a small provider with its own data center. They have their own blog and a Mastodon-Account (!!!). The decision was almost made for me.
Moving domains & websites
Then I started the usually quite painful migration process. Backups were made, email accounts needed to be preserved, there was a podcast site to move and some professional websites where downtimes should be as short as possible. Thanks to the Manitu support team I was able to resolve all transfer issues and I can't thank them enough. It was due to them and their quick help that all the move and transferring and reconfiguring took only two days.
There may still be some quirks that I need to correct and some configuration I need to check, but overall it was an almost flawless process. Having the main websites based on the Kirby CMS helped greatly, since there was not database involved. People, keep your websites light - thank me later :)
So, all the Kudos to the Manitu team, thanks for the great help! And you all: Welcome to my new home!