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What apps have you tried to "de-google" yourself?

1y 3mon ago by reddthat.com/u/pleasestopasking in asklemmy@lemmy.ml

Right now a lot of us are trying to divest and diversify from having our entire lives on Google both because of the way Google spends its money and the long-standing privacy concerns seeming a bit more scary now.

What services have you switched to and what has your experience been? What do you like, what don't you like, would you recommend them?

Been degoogled for years at this point:

  • Stock Android --> LineageOS or GrapheneOS (no gapps)
  • YouTube --> Invidious*, NewPipe
  • Google Search --> DuckDuckGo, Brave Search
  • Google Play Store --> F-Droid, Aurora Store

I've also decoupled from other similar services:

  • Outlook --> ProtonMail
  • Calendar --> Nextcloud*
  • OneDrive --> Nextcloud*
  • Windows, macOS --> Linux (after years of distrohopping, I found LMDE is incredibly stable while still being a nice "out of box" distro)
  • Google Maps, Apple Maps --> OSMAnd, Organic Maps

I never used any online password manager myself, I went from writing passwords in a literal book to KeePass, to now Vaultwarden* for that

* - self hosted

Nice, I have also chosen most of the same as you. For custom ROM there's CalyxOS, which ironically makes a Pixel phone one of the best picks for deGoogleing
I don't like the proprietary style of Proton Mail, plus they charge to have more than one account logged in, which is very inconvenient, so I set up my own Mailcow instance

For YouTube I highly recommend ReVanced

For notes I use Apache-CouchDB and connect using Obsidian with the LiveSync plugin. Live sync is fantastic and is as close as I think I'll ever get to OneNote.

NextCloud is great, a pain in the arse to add existing files as you need to upload everything, but a few hours of uploading with Cloudflare set to DNS only is fine

I've considered CalyxOS but prefer the hardening of GrapheneOS with no gapps - still means a phone decent on privacy. However I do try to keep an open mind, so if CalyxOS has additional privacy benefits to my existing setup I'd be interested.

I agree with the proprietary style of ProtonMail point, and my workaround for multiple accounts has been to use my own domain and have email rules for delivering messages to the respective folder. I don't have immediate plans to move from them, but I am watching the news cycle and have considered Tuta as an alternative.

I haven't used ReVanced, but I remember the original YouTube Vanced was a mod of the original YouTube apk - if that's still the case, I feel like ReVanced would offer even less privacy than Invidious or NewPipe. However I'm happy to be corrected.

I personally use Nextcloud notes but the Obsidian setup you have sounds interesting, especially if it's like OneNote - I'll keep it in mind!

Completely agree on your Nextcloud points - I uploaded my uncompressed Telegram archive to it, which took like 12 hours over my Gigabit lan. I suspect it hated the sheer amount of small files

You're absolutely right about Revanced taking the official app and adding mods, I pretty much rely on being logged in for now but the NewPipe etc. alternatives are definitely a more secure option.

Obsidian actually has more features that I appreciate than OneNote! It not only has community plugins, meaning any dev can bang together a feature, but it specialises in workflow, linking notes together, adding tags, and the golden egg of the app is their Graph view. I used this repo as a guide to set it up, except for manually adding the livesync configuration in-app

ProtonMail was the GMail alternative for awhile, until Proton CEO did a stupid move. Otherwise, ProtonMail had actually been a great service and it was nice having a data cap of 500MB. It told me that was all I ever needed for the few years I had with it.

Firefox Forks over Chrome.

Tuta also has a free tie up to 1GB. Been slowly switching over for a few years. It isn't perfect and you can only use the first party app for "security" but tuta supports a ton of privacy efforts within the EU also

What happened with Proton?

Proton CEO endorsed Trump. Proton's stance has always been against Big Tech and how Big Tech is bad and that's all well and good. But, it's contradicting when you praise or endorse an administration that's more than likely going to let Big Tech roll over everyone.

Was out of the loop on that so I just did the most cursory search. What do you think of this take on it?

I never saw anyone try to claim that he was MAGA. Even if he doesn't necessarily support Trump, the tweet is still beyond tone-deaf as it's still painting Trump in a positive light while Trump is trampling on our rights and the constitution.

Edit -
It should also be mentioned that Trump is also actively making things worse for privacy everywhere else, so why even bother cherry-picking that one nomination? It's obvious that the way Trump works is that if you don't follow his word he will just fire you. Even if this nomination may have a past that might show they would do some good things for privacy, if you're not a pawn under Trump's control then you will just be replaced. So the whole point is moot.

Additionally, look at the tweet in question "Republicans were the party of big business and Dems stood for the little guys, but today the tables have completely turned." There is zero excuse for praising the Republican party and somehow not supporting Trump. They are directly connected and the two concepts cannot be divorced. Supporting the Republican party in any way literally means supporting Trump. Full stop.

He also conveniently ignored that after working at the FTC, Slater become the vice-president for legal and regulatory policy for the Internet Association lobby group. Which was founded by "small business" like Google, Amazon, eBay and Facebook.

And involved in trying to infringe upon privacy rights. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/09/lawmakers-must-not-let-internet-association-weaken-california-consumer-privacy-act

So yeah, proton founder cherry picked information that tried to make it seem like it was acceptable to praise the pick when reality is the past is too murky to endorse in any manner. And that medium article that gets floated around ignores Internet Association too, so wouldn't be shocking if it was from proton attempting to do PR damage fixating on identity politics with intentional omission of Internet Association involvement.

It's even worse. I can't really see how someone can find anything positive to say about Republicans. I'm sorry but Non-Americans do not really know how bad Republicans really are here, until they're faced with a party governing their country that behaves similarly to them.

Oh by the way, Net Neutrality got killed again when the BIden Administration tried appealing for it to be restored. Can you guess which party or affiliation was probably behind it? If you guessed Republican, you'd be right.

I'm just waiting for the gotcha moment to come around and Proton will one day, truly see that Republicans are not on their side.

Could this be an attempt to clean the proton name? I think it's difficult to say anything when it comes from a source I know nothing about.

Poor article with it attempting to be a character fluff piece that completely ignores that after working at the FTC, Slater become the vice-president for legal and regulatory policy for the Internet Association lobby group. Which was founded by "small business" like Google, Amazon, eBay and Facebook.

And involved in trying to infringe upon privacy rights. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2019/09/lawmakers-must-not-let-internet-association-weaken-california-consumer-privacy-act

Proton CEO endorsed Trump

Even that's a bit of a stretch. He approved one thing Trump did. It wasn't blanket praise for everything Trump has done. He also didn't condemn everything Democratic, just one thing.

I don't see why approval of one thing someone did constitutes automatic approval of everything. What if Trump has an amazing recipe for a ham and cheese toastie? Would liking that recipe make me a Putin sympathiser? Of course not.

You're going down a slippery slope fallacy.

First off, endorsing means that you have a public approval of or support of so it doesn't mean what you twisted it up as. So when I say he endorsed Trump, I am saying that he supported or approved something he did, not saying that he's a MAGA voter. Contexts and learning what words are used in them is kind of important. Maybe you ought to learn that sometime.

Secondly, I don't give a flying fuck if Trump ever made some recipe, the old bastard is going around doing too much shit that outweighs any positive thing he's done. Any positive thing he's done, we would've much have rather it be someone else and not him, because of the amount of stigma that surrounds him because of the shit he's done that has affected millions.

That's literally saying and I really hate beating this dead horse, but it's saying Hitler actually did make some good art pieces, so we should ignore the fact that he was the executor of a grand scale war that costed millions of lives and hosted a death march on those he didn't like.

when I say he endorsed Trump, I am saying that he supported or approved something he did

Then you are misinformed about what it means to endorse someone. Or just intentionally twisting the definition to allow for ragebait. Contexts and learning what words are used in them is kind of important. Maybe you ought to learn that sometime.

I don't give a flying fuck if Trump ever made some recipe

They didn't ask if you cared about a recipe. You're tossing aside the point of their comment and getting on your pedestal to rant.

I really hate beating this dead horse, but it's saying Hitler actually did make some good art pieces, so we should ignore the fact that he was the executor of a grand scale war

Saying "Hitler made good art pieces" would also not be an endorsement.

I already mentioned this elsewhere, but he did praise Trump and platform him, then he praised the Republican party saying they are the party of "the little guys" (small business), which is just flat out wrong. He does not acknowledge that there are an abundance of things Trump is doing that is fucking awful and disgusting. At best it's an extremely tone-deaf tweet. What that does do, though, is paint Trump and the Republican party in a very good light. That's effectively an endorsement without saying it in exact words.

Also, it's so very obvious that anyone associated with Trump absolutely needs to abide by Trump's every whim or else he will replace you. So, the point he was trying to make is entirely moot in the first place.

There is just no way to praise Trump or the Republican party without showing your ignorance or alignment with them. Just like you can't just have a little bit of shit in your food. Once you've got even a little bit of shit in your food, then you've got shit-food.

Proton CEO endorsed Trump

This is a blatant lie. That never happened.

Not a blatant lie, but somewhat of an exaggeration. He praised Trump, then praised the Republican party while denigrating the Democrats in the same sentence.

He did not "praise Trump", he praised a single appointment that he made. This is the kind of tribal toxic bullshit that stifles any sort of progress. If Trump does something right (not that he did), you need to be allowed to say that without being accused of being a nazi or someone claiming that you "endorsed" him.

You're literally in denial of the definition of words.

Trump is a felon, a rapist, and a liar among other things. If you don't acknowledge that he's a scumbag while you give him an expression of approval then it makes it seem you approve of the person overall. If there was something Trump did right and people wanted to talk about that, then it would be pretty simple to say something like "Trump sucks, but..." That's not a crazy expectation and that's not "tribal toxic bullshit".

Imagine if someone was saying something like "It's nice that John Wayne Gacy participated in fundraisers and entertained the children" or "Thanks to Jeffery Dahmer for his military service" without acknowledging the horrible things they did.

You're literally in denial of the definition of words.

No. You are.

If you don't acknowledge that he's a scumbag while you give him an expression of approval then it makes it seem you approve of the person overall.

It may "seem" that way to you if you're not objective but it doesn't make it true.

That's not a crazy expectation

It actually is a crazy and ridiculous expectation.

  • Desktop: Linux (Tuxedo)
  • Browser: Vivaldi
  • Search: Ecosia & DDG
  • Mail / Groupware / Calendar / Contacts / Cloud Drive / Meet: Infomaniak kSuite Pro
  • Backup: Syncthing
  • Movies / Netflix / Amazon Prime: buying DVD / Bluray and ripping to my home media server with Jellyfin and Videoland.nl
  • Mobile Phone: Fairphone with /e/OS or Calyx
  • Whatsapp: Signal, Matrix / Element, Briar, Threema
  • YouTube: Grayjay, Floatplane, Nebula, Curiosity Stream
  • Maps: Magic Earth
  • Photos: ente.io
  • Authenticator: Ente Auth
  • Twitter / X: Mastodon
  • Cards: Catima
  • Keep / Evernote: Notesnook / Anytype
  • Backup comms: Meshtastic / UHF / VHF
  • Translate: DeepL
  • Podcasts: Antennapod
  • Google Home: Home Assistant
  • Google Assistant / Gemini: Mistral Le Chat / LLama
  • Router: openWRT (GL.iNET Flint2)
  • Firewall: opnSense (Deciso)
  • Pushbullet: KDE Connect
  • speedtest.net: LibreSpeed
  • Fing: Ning
  • Kobo / Kindle: Pocketbook
  • Amazon: Local / European dealers
  • Pocket: Wallabag
  • Creality / Bambulab: Prusa
  • VPN: Proton, Wireguard, Netbird

for speedtest, fast.com is pretty great as it's a pretty lightweight page and uses netflix's servers which mean it's not really possible for ISPs to game it

Cloudflares test site is more informative btw

Vivaldi is google

Wow OK! I didn’t know about Infomaniak kSuite, thank you. Looks great!

These are what I use:

Browsers: Fennec, LibreWolf

Email Clients: K-9, Fair Email, Proton Mail, Thunderbird

Pictures: Fossify Camera, Fossify Gallery

File Sharing: Proton Drive

YouTube: Tubular

SMS Messaging: Textra (It's not FOSS, but unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a FOSS app in existence that shows the actual name of the person who's sent the message in group chats. They just show an icon, which isn't enough for me to keep track)

App store: Droid-ify (F-Droid), Aurora Store

Password Manager: Bitwarden

eBook Reader: Librera FD

Books: Bookwyrm

Translation: LibreTranslator

Calendar: Proton Calendar

What I can't find good alternatives for:

YouTube itself - enough said

Phone screen translation - I still use Google Assistant, and I'm not aware of anything else that grabs and translates all text on my phone screen

Maps - Rant time. This one is so annoying because there are FOSS navigation apps based on OpenStreetMap that are excellent in every way except one that makes them unusable for me: Using POV navigation instead of observing the convention of up = north. I did find one that lets you maintain a normal map view during navigation, but it doesn't keep your position centered automatically, which makes it impossible to use while driving. I have no idea who all you deranged people are who actually like the POV navigation, but there are definitely a lot of you because I can't find a replacement for Google Maps. I even tried Mapquest because at least it's not Google, but when I tried using it to navigate the first time, it somehow autocorrected "St" to "Ave" and I ended up lost lol. This maps situation really grinds my gears. I do still try to contribute as much as I can to OSM though because it's an important project, and hopefully someday an uninsane developer will make a proper alternative to Google Maps.

Yeah Tubular is basically NewPipe with Sponsorblock. I'll give Freetube a try.

What I mean though is ... it's still YouTube, y'know?

I have no idea who all you deranged people are who actually like the POV navigation

I use both POV and up=north depending on my use case. For some routes where I don't care about the details of the route I find it useful to have the POV view with what I need now zoomed in and correctly oriented and what I'll need soon still visible and smaller but still distinguishable.

The problem with up=north is that when you've zoomed right in to see the detail, all the wider view stuff is missing, especially when out of built-up zones. It'd be better if the detail level would be replaced/augmented with a detail density setting, so that when you're out in the sticks with only you, a small single track road with grass down the middle and one sheep visible all the way up to the horizon in any direction that you don't have to zoom right in to the individual blades of grass before you see the road you're on.

Other times I do care about the route, and in those cases I'll use up=north and manual zoom as needed. I still get caught out though when travelling south and the arrow pointing left means I need to turn right.

When I first saw POV I thought it was a stupid gimmick. But then I tried it out and really liked it, but not always.

I always like seeing the details, and I can't imaging looking at a map and up not being north. It would be like reading a book turned sideways -- hypothetically I could do it, but it would require far more brainpower to interpret than it's worth. I do like my location kept as the centerpoint though. That's really nice, but apparently hard to implement. The "re-center" feature on Google Maps is my friend.

Would you mind hitting us with a direct link to tubular? This is one of the biggest hindrances to getting completely off google

Sure, no problem: https://f-droid.org/packages/org.polymorphicshade.tubular/

Thanks ♥️

I can't get it to work. It works for you?

Yes, I just checked, and it's working. You shouldn't have to do anything special either.

The only thing I have trouble with sometimes is watching videos YouTube has flagged as age-restricted videos or whatever. I have to click "watch in browser" and open them in Firefox while signed in. But I rarely encounter this.

You could check their github and see if anyone else has had a problem, but the link I gave you is the version I use.

Oh, and I go back and forth between Sear XNG and Startpage for search engine. I know Startpage is Bad, but there's no search engine in existence that really makes me happy.

The #1 Google service/app that I used in the past was Google Maps. I've replaced it with Magic Earth for the last few years and it's been great. It uses Open Street Map for its navigation data, handles addresses very well, has live crowd-sourced traffic and hazard data, and can record rolling footage if you want it to act like a dashcam.

It works on Android and iOS, and supports Apple watch and Android car play if you use those.

For email I use Protonmail, for Google drove I use Proton Drive and my own self hosted NAS. For browsing I use several different Firefox forks like Zen, Floorp, LibreWolf, etc. UnGoogled Chromium for the rare times that a website "needs" Chrome to run.

My phone runs GrapheneOS which works great.

I'll have to check out Magic Earth. My biggest fear switching from Google Maps was not having up to date road closures or accident reports.

The traffic data, at least in my area of the US, is pretty good.

Road closures are a rough point for sure. Generally, Magic Earth does have them marked, but not always. And the map data is only updated once a month. So even if a new closure does show up on Magic Earth, it takes several weeks to a month.

This isn't a terrible issue for me in my area, because I know the major roads and highways decently well, but when in other states or cities, it can be a problem.

That being said, it's still about 80% accurate on the whole. And on rare occasion, it has actually had a closure marked correctly that Google Maps didn't.

I have moved away from Google Contacts and Google Calendar and am now using Synology Calendar/Contacts. I've left Google Drive for Synology Drive and I've left Google Photos for Synology Photos. Everything is self hosted and self maintained.

Almost everything, finally!
OS: GrapheneOS
Calendar: Proton
Browser: Firefox
Storage: NAS
Youtube: NewPipe and SmartTube

I’m still stuck with Maps and Android in my car as it has Android Automotive, but I’m happy with my progress so far

@Bronzie @pleasestopasking for maps you can try magic earth and @organicmaps . They both support android auto now.

Thanks for the advice, but this is Android Automotive, not Android Auto.
The entire car runs Android stand-alone.
The app selection is quite small still.

@Bronzie oh sorry. I didn't realize that was a thing

If only osm had better search and complete addresses...

  • Desktop OS: Linux (Arch)
  • Phone OS: /e/OS
  • mail, notes, calendar, online storager: mureno
  • maps: cittymapper, magic earth

I'm pretty happy with all of those

You don't use gentoo? Ha. Peasant. /s

I actually love arch and somehow found arch easier than all the other distros once you get it down.

Firefox.

Immich for photos

Radicale for calendar and contacts

My own mail domain and server, for mail

Lineages on android

The only thing I cannot do without, is google maps.

My selfhosted Nextcloud does:

  • Cloud storage (including photo storage)
  • Contact/Calendar/Task Sync (DAV Droid)
  • Notes
  • Podcast subscription and progress sync (gpodder)

While I use OSMAnd for offline navigation MAPS is still my go-to for navigation/discovering places.

My phone is currently running stock Android

What podcast apps do you use with gPodder?

Honestly I just use AntennaPod on Android. I've used Gpodder Desktop before but I don't really listen to podcasts on desktop... So I don't really need the sync but it's nice to have especially if you're moving phones/OS

Regarding AntennaPod it's honestly the perfect podcast app it does everything (chapters/chapter images ...) I want from a podcast app and it's open source

I use Antennapod too, I really like it :)

Oh alright shame because I would love to find one.

I've heard of antennapod and did use it a couple years back. It's good for sure

I personally use pocket casts but its proprietary afaik

Have you tried gpodder? It basically does what it says on the tin it plays podcasts (and you can subscribe to them etc.) and if you have gpodder on desktop and a gpodder compatible app (like AntennaPod) on you phone it will not only sync over your subscriptions but even you listening status, so you can just pick up where you left off.

Oh last time I tried it didn't synch listening history just subscriptions. I'll have to give it another go one of these days, thanks

I fucked off Google Photos and now run Immich from a Raspberry Pi with raid 1 SSDs.

Just as a small note just in case, since this data is quite irreplaceable: raid isn't backup. Especially if the drives are of the same model, they're fairly likely to fail at the same time. Speaking from experience sadly

I use restic for off-site backups, hosted with a friend

Yup. Sneakernet backups monthly. When I can remember.

On your PC, freetube will work as a Youtube frontend, you can point it to an invidious instance to act proxy to youtube if you like.

Be warned, moving your subscriptions over is a bit of a pain in the as since you have to use Google takeout to download a json list if all your subs, otherwise it's solid and smooth, comes with sponsorblock built in

Mail: Posteo Maps: osmand for walking, hiking, cycling, skiing and magic earth for car navigation (because of real live traffic) Drive: nextcloud Phone: second Hand Google pixel with graphene OS installed (degiogled Android)

There are like 10 communities called something like privacy and a couple with degoogle in their name specifically. If you need more alternatives check them out. ;)

Desktop Environment

  • Operating System: Fedora Workstation Linux

    • Great package manager updates
    • Excellent performance

  • Productivity Tools:

    • Note-taking: Zim Wiki (preferred for GUI and plaintext storage)
    • Document Editing: Considering OnlyOffice if Collabora Office doesn't work out
    • Backup Solution: Filen cloud provider with desktop sync app

  • Browsers:

    • Primary: Firefox with Arkenfox
    • Backup: Ungoogled Chromium (for sites incompatible with Firefox)

  • Password Management:

    • Bitwarden (kept on phone)
    • KDE Connect for clipboard sharing between devices

Mobile Setup

  • Device & OS: Pixel 8 Pro running GrapheneOS

    • More stable and polished than previous CalyxOS on Pixel 5
    • Better Google Play sandboxing compared to microG

  • Mobile Apps:

    • Browsers: IronFox and Vanadium
    • App Sources: Primarily open-source from GitHub/F-Droid, updated via Obtainium
    • Non-FOSS Apps: Sandboxed Google Play for banking and other essential apps
    • Maps: HERE WeGo (previously used Magic Earth but it lacked public transport info)
    • Loyalty Cards: Catima

  • Search Engine: Kagi

    • Quality results
    • Sound business model (subscription-based)
    • Fediverse integration for Lemmy search

  • Self-Hosted Services:

    • Contacts and calendar via Radicale on NAS with Nginx

  • Car Integration:

    • Still using Android Auto (found MagSafe holder alternatives more distracting)
    • Physical cards stored in MagSafe wallet on phone back

Other than Fediverse apps/websites, and F-droid for FOSS, I have switched to ProtonVPN and their encrypted emails.

Yes, I switched to Proton as well and so far it's been really painless. Proton pass in particular is amazing.

It was a little hard to pay the real value for something I've gotten used to being so heavily subsidized, but I just am reminding myself that it's because they're not making money off of my data.

I just wish Proton Mail had a "send as" feature for mailboxes where you don't own the domain.

I am absolutely dumb with this stuff so I have one question: how do I get all of my photos off Google cloud? That's the only thing stopping me from shitting it down.

I also have a google pixel phone but that will be destroyed once my contract is up and I can afford something not google related

Don't destroy your phone, you can install grapheneos(a privacy focused android distro) and it's working great on pixels.

Interesting. Is that an app or do I need some technical know-how to implement it on my device?

Here's the official guide https://grapheneos.org/installIt's a bit technical, but very detailed.

Awesome. Thanks friend. Just like cooking: if I follow the recipe to the tee then it should have great results

I know there are more options out there but what I have is a synology nas.

I self host the nas at home and I can still access the photos and stuff everywhere I go.

I chose synology because even though its proprietary and a little overpriced, at the time, I was short on time to learn the inner workings of free operating systems and setting up all the certificates, ddns, ports, etc.

Ofc there are also other cloud providers as well, but I use the synology for jellyfin so I killed 2 birds with one stone.

Google office stuff > libreoffice

Chrome > firefox and librewolf

gmail > proton

Google > ddg

Iphone > grapheneos pixel

Youtube account > newpipe, libretube, grayjay with exported subscriptions

Google drive > synology

I think that covers about everything google specific.

Note: I included iphone because even iphones ping google SUPL servers whereas Grapheneos settings host their own servers to ping to avoid sending stuff out to google.

Chrome ➡️ Brave - Open source and privacy focused

Search ➡️ Qwant - Good search results and privacy focusing

Photos ➡️ Immich - Pretty much Google Photos but self hosted

Drive ➡️ Nextcloud - Use it with Hetzner Storage Share, pretty cheap and easy to use

Gmail ➡️ mailbox.org - European email hosting focusing on privacy

Meet ➡️ Nextcloud

Brave is google

No. Brave builds on top of the Chromium engine which is from Google but open source.

So, it depends on google

No it doesn't. If Google stops supporting it, the community forks it and continues development. Has happened often in the past.

You can't just fork a browser engine. You need a lot of resources to keep one alive. The only browser engine that I know of which was successfully forked was goanna. And that's a gecko fork from when it wasn't even multithreaded, and it still took years.

I use Ad Nauseum. Why degoogle when you can actively cost them money?

What's Ad Nauseum? What does it do and why do you like it?

As per their website:

As online advertising becomes ever more ubiquitous and unsanctioned, AdNauseam works to complete the cycle by automating ad clicks universally and blindly on behalf of its users. Built atop uBlock Origin, AdNauseam quietly clicks on every blocked ad, registering a visit on ad networks' databases. As the collected data gathered shows an omnivorous click-stream, user tracking, targeting and surveillance become futile

Yep that's it. It's not only an ad blocker, but an a huge middle finger to the ad industry. Leaving this on for a few weeks can cause thousands in damages. And you can set it up to only do this to tracking ads. It's pretty neat. You definitely should not run this with an extension that frequently refreshes the page though. That would definitely be a very bad idea if everyone did that.

It seems interesting

I recommend, as a bonus, to use Universal Android Debloater, it has an easy to understand GUI and it uses AndroidDebugBridge to connect to the phone via USB. It shows all the installed apps, recommends with various tiers the apps that are worth uninstalling - every app has a helpful description - and blitzes the fuckers. System or factory bloat isn't safe from it.

Replaced

  • Gmail -> Proton Mail
  • Keep -> Joplin
  • Docs -> LibreOffice + OpenDocument Reader
  • Drive 100 Gb -> Proton Drive (free 5 Gb)
  • Photos -> ente photos
  • Play Books -> ReadEra Premium + Kobo
  • Translate & Lens -> DeepL

Haven't been able to replace (just yet)

  • Wallet
  • Maps & Earth
  • Sheets
  • Home
  • Calendar

Tutamail has a calendar. Tutamail hasn't said anything positive or factual about the republican parties either. They've made no statements

Tutamail shared calendars (which is a must) subscription was so confusing I didn't understand it. Like their whole subscription model is needlessly complicated.

Since you already use proton you should check out proton calendar.

We tried it but my wife hated it. With Proton, you have choose one subscription. I already use Pass plus so I can't have Mail plus (shared calendars) without Proton ultimate which is an overkill in my situation and too expensive.

Google sheets is simply... Really good. I haven't been able to find anything else close. I've tried libre and even excel but sheets is by far my favourite. And I really love spreadsheets so I feel I'm in a horrible position and so torn.

I'm no accountant, but isn't excel way better than sheets?

Yeah, sheets lacks a number of very basic functionality. It's disappointing and frustrating.

Tell me about it. Wallet is literally the only good option. The alternatives to Maps don't come even close, it's simply the best and most convenient app. Same with Earth (use it rarely but still).

Google Search -> Ecosia, Qwant Browser -> Vivaldi Mail, Calender -> Proton* Drive -> Proton* DNS -> Quad9 Notes -> Joplin VPN -> Proton LLM/AI -> Mistral Translate -> DeepL Maps -> Here We Go Dall-E etc -> Stability Matrix Kindle -> Pocketbook

*Planning to move everything to a NAS with Nextcloud and synch in with Jottacloud as a backup.

I see from the "View source" option that your comment has everything in a neat, line-by-line fashion, though the final markup is decidedly not.

So, a pro-tip I've noticed from my own commenting experience: even if you have a line break, Lemmy (for some stupid reason) won't apply one when rendering; so if you want it to show, you have to use two line breaks, though then there will be an extra half-line or so that you probably never wanted.

For example, don't do

Line Item 1
Line Item 2

but rather do

Line Item 1

Line Item 2

Yes, I agree it's rather stupid.

It's the way Markdown works, for reasons, which is what Lemmy uses for its comment syntax.

If you want a regular line
break, you can put two spaces
at the end of a line.

Holy shit I've been using markdown message boards for years and
you just blew my mind

Yeah I know, and I don't like that limitation. Lol. xD

Yeah, it doesn't make a whole lot of sense here. Codeberg uses a Markdown flavor which honors single line breaks and it kind of surprised me how well that is working. Like, if you're used to Markdown, you can put those two spaces and they're just ignored. If you're not used to Markdown, it works like you'd expect.

I guess, the downside is that either each client needs to configure their Markdown renderer to behave like that, or I guess, the server software has to pre-process the Markdown to add in the double-spaces.
That's more of a problem for Lemmy than it is for Codeberg, because there is a number of different clients available.

Didn't know that Codeberg did that. I'll have to add that to my list of reasons why I love Codeberg. Lol.

Jerboa vs. the website do different things since they render Markdown differently. Markdown itself is so spartan that it doesn’t have many things users want or need, so a bunch of incompatible forks get made & everyone just pretends it is all the same when in reality, it often lies on a single tool’s implementation.

Take AsciiDoc with its verse directive or reStructuredText with its line-block directive. Both get you poetry-style newlines on demand & are a part of the spec instead of left to the implementer.

Yeah, that's kind of the advantage and disadvantage of Markdown. It's so simple that alternative implementations can be easily created, which helps with adoption. But because those alternative implementations exist and because there is a need to add more features, those alternative implementations will see custom changes for the format, ultimately making the format less standardized.

I find this pretty bad since everything seems to be compatible until it is too late & it is already adopted. I would like to see more uptake of the alternatives.

Here's my list:

  • Proton Mail: super painless to migrate over and a very similar user experience. Feels good knowing that Google can't read my emails and that they can't be subpoenaed by our insane government. Highly recommend. There's a free plan that offers 1GB of storage but I went straight to a paid account so I can't speak to that.
  • Proton Pass: LOVE this. It was easy to import my passwords from LastPass and Google. The best feature is the "hide my email alias" which on my plan I can make unlimited ones. It's basically making an anonymous throwaway email that automatically forwards to your inbox. If you start getting junk mail you can see who sold your address, but also with one click you can delete it if it gets compromised. It's basically the equivalent of making a bunch of different Google accounts but way easier.
  • Proton Drive: It came with my subscription but I haven't gotten that deep into it yet. It has a Docs alternative but not Sheets which I use a lot, so I'm hoping they develop something like that. Otherwise like a lot like drive. It's technically a photo backup too but the interface is trash (see next item). My goal is to get enough transferred that I can cancel my Google One subscription and maybe just use that for Sheets as needed.
  • Ente Photos: Cloud-based photo backup. I'm slowly getting my photos transferred over but it seems to be pretty user friendly. It has some but not all of the features of Google Photos, like organizing by faces.
  • Brave Search: They have a browser too but I'm just using the search in Firefox at the moment. I like that it's not based on Google's index but it sometimes means the results are not quite as good. Honestly for the payoff of not being algorithmed to death I'm fine with that.

The problem with Google services is that they will be probably one of the last ones (from big tech companies) I will stop using. I wanted to switch to Proton this year, but there has been some controversy of its CEO supporting Trump...

Edit: Removed unrelated paragraph.

Was out of the loop on that so I just did the most cursory search. What do you think of this take on it?

I guess I'll share my setup aha. Forewarning: I invested heavily into self hosting and being in full control of as much as possible, mainly to try to be 'Internet independent'.

  • Google ads, APIs, telemetry and everything else that is not necessary: AdGuard Home (selfhosted)
  • Android app store: Fdroid with IzzyOnDroid repo, failing that Aurora Store, if apps still whine about not being to use Play Services then I use the Play Store
  • Gmail: Mailcow Dockerized (selfhosted) with K9 Android client
  • SMS (not that I use it anyway): Fossify SMS
  • Instant messaging: Matrix (selfhosted) for Discord/Telegram style with Element client, or Telegram FOSS
  • File Manager (I goddamn hate that Google Files forces itself onto any phone after initial setup, even when there's a manufacturer installed one already): Material Files
  • GBoard (It's also really fucking invasive): HeliBoard
  • YouTube: via Revanced Manager, with Odysee as a hopeful replacement. Much lower userbase though, obviously.
  • Google Photos (refuses to settle for less than 100% file access): Part of a self hosted Samba share that I keep synced to via FolderSync (from Play Store - they charge €10 for the app outside of Google)
  • Chrome: Brave (I downloaded a script to debloat it of crypto and AI)
  • Google Search: My partner uses Ecosia for environment reasons, and I use DuckDuckGo for privacy reasons
  • Chromecast: I recommend a Roku
  • AndroidOS: CalyxOS if Pixel, LineageOS if not
  • Play Services: Gapps pico or nano because some things are still tied to Play Services
  • Maps is superior, unfortunately, but OSMAnd is a good alt
  • Google DNS, used by default by a lot of things like routers: Cloudflare 1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1

Brave is chrome

I definitely understand their sentiment though - Google is obviously a search engine monopoly, and I simply found Chromium to be better suited to my needs than Firefox, and settled for a modified Chromium base.

I've tried HeliBoard as already suggested elsewhere, but I find its autocorrect and suggestions absolutely abysmal in English and even worse in my native Bulgarian. With Gboard I can usually type a letter or two and it already knows what's up, and it often knows what's the next word based just on the previous one.

How's your experience with it?

That's pretty accurate tbh, I'm ashamed to say I only know English, but a couple downsides include poor suggestions and aggressive replacement (doesn't save if you prefer an acronym to be lowercase), and it's amusing watching it freak out when I enter an email address. I do need it though - I'm glad it *does have those features, and a clipboard. Plus I often remote access my PC and my Linux server, and being able to use up/down arrow keys is an absolute must, at least for now. Not even the Gboard had that and it took a little while to find one.

I suppose the best keyboard for you is determined by your reliance on features like autocomplete, predictive input (i.e. listing emails in an email box), clipboard, multi-language support, and aesthetic customisation!

Usually autocorrect accuracy is directly proportional to info stealing by the keyboard. Google's autocorrect is so good because it's constantly phoning home with what people write so they can improve their model.

I use a keyboard with no autocorrect (Unexpected Keyboard), and, although it took a while to get used to it, I got used to typing fast and mostly accurately after some time using it. You can also get used to your autocorrect's quirks, and you'll find that you will type faster with it.

I tried Heliboard but went back to SwiftKey. It's the best keyboard I've found. It's from Microsoft but I have internet access disabled in Tracker Control and it works fine with multiple languages, swipe and emoji.

I've tried SwiftKey as well, but last I remember it was a bit sluggish. I'll give it another try, thanks.

Search: Kagi (paid)

Email and calendar: Tuta (paid)

Synced storage (like Dropbox): Synology Drive (free, used with my Synology NAS)

Photos: Synology Photos (free, used with NAS)

Passwords: Bitwarden (paid)

Music subscription: Tidal

Music purchases: Qobuz and Bandcamp

No complaints about any of these. Quite happy having de-googled and de-appled.

I had to change my name and hairstyle

I even cut my hair and change my name.

I've recently been thinking about this.

I've seen plenty of recommendations for the Proton suite, but seeing as the premium plan runs 10 bucks a month for:

  • Mail (Need premium for IMAP compatibility with the Proton Bridge)
  • Calendar
  • Drive service --more on this one later
  • VPN (this one looked nice, but IIRC VPNs are less necessary for home traffic if all my requests are HTTPS)
  • Password Keeper
  • And crypto wallet,

it was a mite expensive for my tastes who was only going to use the mail service and calendar and perhaps the VPN. I looked into Posteo.de and it had all that I wanted from an email provider (encryption on-server, IMAP compatibility and privacy-focused). It's much cheaper (1 EUR/mo.) and it has a fantastically retro and sleek website (the epitome of web design-- nice-looking without being obese or fiddly).

I'm also trying out a few search engines, namely Mojeek and Marginalia-search because I want to both move away from Big Tech and Google in particular as well as open my horizon to the more human side of the web.

I have yet to figure out what to do about Android. I'm trying out using a dumb-phone for a while, but that's more of a temporary thing.

With regards to Proton Drive, it seems nice but I've heard of poor Linux support. That's a big dealbreaker for me.

I'm afraid that I can't step away from Big G just yet; work runs off it. But one can dream. And every bit of data that Google doesn't have is one degree fewer of control they will have over me eventually, when the Big Tech overlords pull the trigger on whatever they have cooking up.

Tuta is better and cheaper for just email and calendar than Proton, and unlike Proton they haven't endorsed US fascists.

Email

  • Proton Mail, (paid) I switched 7 years ago and it's great, I've never looked back. I don't use the attached services like calendar and contacts because it's a little bit too walled-off for the integrations I need, but I do use ProtonVPN and Drive.
  • Thunderbird (free) on desktop, to access my IMAP or exchange email addresses (work etc) along with Proton Bridge so I never touch the Proton web app. On Android, I use Thunderbird for the IMAP addresses plus the Proton app, which isn't ideal but not sure what the alternative could be.

Calendar and contacts

  • Nextcloud (free) installed on the basic shared hosting for my personal website manages all my contacts
  • Etesync (free) is currently syncing my calendars, but I'm planning to swap this soon to the Nextcloud instance just to simplify things.

Notes / Resource management

  • Anytype (free) is incredible and I now run my life off of it. Took months to really get the hang of it but it's worth the effort.

Cloud storage

  • Proton Drive (paid) is great, I use it for all my work applications, sending to clients etc and sync my most important files, but only have 500gb storage so
  • Synology Drive (free) installed on the NAS I use for backups covers all my personal uses, including photo backups.

Browser

  • Firefox (of course), with uBlock Origin (of course)

Search

  • DuckDuckGo (free), I ran Kagi for a while but the company seems shady and the price is extremely high for what you get

Passwords

  • 1Password (paid), migrated after the LastPass incident and before ProtonPass existed. It would make sense to save the money and switch to Proton but tbh 1Password has been great and I wouldn't risk the faff.

Documents

  • Honestly I don't have a lot of need for Google Docs replacements but when I do need to work on docs I'll use LibreOffice. If it needs to be shared I'd probably do a public share on Anytype, or use Proton Docs. More likely, someone else will have invited me to a Google doc and I'll have to sign in to use it.

Audio

  • PocketCasts (paid) is a great service. I also use Spotify (sorry, all my friends use it)

RSS

  • FreshRSS also set up on my web hosting so I get all my news/articles/substacks etc through ReadYou and Fluent Reader.

Google products I still use

  • Maps
  • YouTube (with uBlock Origin and SponsorBlock on both desktop and android), I just sadly can't let go of my carefully crafted algorithm oops