I’m working on degoogling and moving away from major tech companies. I’m really curious what others here are using instead — especially for everyday tools and services.
What do you use for things like:
1.Email
2.Cloud storage / file sync
3.Maps & navigation
4.Search engine
5.Web browser
6.Calendar
7.Contacts management
8.Notes / to-do lists
9.Office suite (docs, spreadsheets, etc.)
10.Messaging / chat
11.Video calling
12.Social media / microblogging RSS reader / news
13.Music streaming / podcast app
14.Video streaming / YouTube alternative
15.Password manager
16.VPN / DNS / Firewall
17.Launcher / Android OS (if you use custom ROMs)
18.App store / APKs
19.Photo backup / gallery
20.Weather
21.Smart assistant (if any)
22.Anything else you’ve replaced?
Would love to hear about your setup — both what works well and any trade-offs you’ve had to make. Always looking for better FOSS or privacy-friendly alternatives
ProtonMail for mail Nextcloud for cloud, self hosted. Here wego and Mapy for maps, but I still have Google Maps as a fallback:(((
For search I’m using a combination of DDG, Qwant and Startpage.
Web browser: Vivaldi and Firefox, Brave and DDG as backups. ProtonCalendar for calendar
Still using Google Android on my daily driver so haven’t moved contacts yet, but really looking for some recommendations!
Apparently my task list is an app just called Reminder, haven’t thought about it for years
Don’t really do office stuff myself much, but if I do and it’s just for me I just use any text editor (even Vim) and if I collaborate it’s almost always some Google Doc :(((
Messaging is still FB messenger and Discord, but I’m trying my best to move my best people over to Signal, it’s not a battle I think I’m gonna win any time soon tho.
Lemmy and chats for social media. Antennapod for podcasts. Qobuz and Bandcamp for music.
For youtube I just run the site in either Vivaldi or Brave on my phone without logging in since they allow for background playback (might have to change a setting for it to work), but I mostly just stopped watching TV/screen content for completly different reasons so 😅 I also host a Jellyfin server with some films.
Bitwarden for passwords. Only use VPN for work, haven’t seen any compelling reasons for having my own, but if I did I’d probably use Tailscale or Wireguard.
I have been testing e-OS on an old Samsung S9 for a few years and that’s a great alternative to Google Android, it’s on my list to consider when I feel like I can defend getting a new phone.
Forgot to mention, for app store I try to use Obtainium when possible, then F-Droid, then Aurora store. Only uses Play Store for work apps.