I never imagined the original post would go so viral and be seen by +6M people. But I guess it shows there’s real momentum — and the perfect time to finally escape big tech’s grip.
I went through hundreds of reposts of the image and took in feedback from community comments. I’ve replaced USA-centralized apps like Brave and Bluesky with more open alternatives, and added self-hosting indicators.
As many of you recommended, I’ve also created an online version with descriptions that we can constantly update and improve.
Drop a comment if you have suggestions for a better alternative, improved description, or a feature for the site. Let’s break free together!
Any European email provider who provides free tier and allows more than one personal account, just like Gmail? No problem for me if the amount of free storage is low.
IMO Gmail -> Thunderbird is a bit flawed since you’d still need a service provider. It could be Thunderbird + Posteo / others (please no ProtonMail).
Ever tried Tutanota or Disroot ?
No, I haven’t tried Tutanota because I can’t use a client I want. I decided PGP encryption is something I can do client side anyway on the rare case I want it.
What is wrong with Protonmail?
They support ✨nazis✨
They do?
Yes
Let me give you a more precise info; The CEO is a Trump supporter & the Compsny doubled-down
Of course it didn’t impact the product, but still why would Trump “Stand up for the little guys”
My answer was precise, yours just added fluff.
Trump is a Nazi and proton did express support. Therefore they support nazis. This isn’t complex math.
No they don’t. Their CEO is an idiot and said that Republicans are the party of small business and did so on the official Proton social media channels. But it clearly is their opinion and they never said they support Republicans and Trump on anything else.
Ok Nazi apologist
👍
“CEO” is the company, we are still in a capitalist society. The board would also count but we can very safely assume they’re agreeing.
Nice, but highlighting a particular Linux distro might not be great. I see the point in minimizing amount of choices, but many people may not like default Mint experience.
It’s debatable, there’s no perfect answer. As a dev I am always on arch and never tried once mint. Every opinions I read the last 5 years says that mint is solid and very friendly to windows users. I can live with such a recommendation in a cheat sheet for unaware people.
Ok Zorin then
Also controversial. Just leave Linux, and it would be useful to have a page outlining major newbie distros
Zorin, LinuxMint & PopOS are newbie-distros
Or would you rather have OpenSUSE ?
All are fine. Also, Manjaro if you’re feeling adventurous.
I agree. At least suggest both Mint and Ubuntu. I recently started using Linux just a couple of weeks ago. Started with Mint and I hated it! Then I moved on to Ubuntu and it’s way better for my taste.
For me it was Manjaro that helped me switch over, and now I’m on Fedora. Didn’t like Mint either.
As with all impromptu lists, this one is pretty flawed. For example, as much as I love it, lineageOS is not useful for “digital independence” in any meaningful sense, since it’s just a more cleaned up version of android. Or PeerTube, which can’t really be considered a realistic alternative to yt. It’s fine in itself, but it’s so small and so hard to scale that you might just be better off giving up the yt format altogether. And then there’s Thunderbird. I love it but it’s a CLIENT, you’ll still need a mail provider.
If you search about it you can lock your bootloader with LineageOS.
LineageOS is worse than that. You can’t have it and also have local security as you cannot lock your phone bootloader with an unsigned image. You can’t protect yourself from anyone with physical access to the phone.
Not to mention the fact that a bunch of banking apps won’t work on LineageOS. You can try magisk as a workaround for some, but others just won’t.
So the moment you get lineage anyone with physical access can install bootloader things in your phone? Eg cerberus?
Can install any software
LineageOS uses microG which does mock some GSF API and reduce metadata sent through to the rest. GrapheneOS could be a better alternative but there isn’t enough second hand Pixels available for everyone.
Peertube is perfectly fine and we should start using it and encourage creators to move to an instance
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I have no idea how to use PeerTube. Installed it on my phone, found no interesting videos to watch, at all. I wonder how would it scale, like how easy/hard would it be to find videos I’m interested in.
Peertube is decentralized like Lemmy. I think you have to add instances you want to browse from
Its a bit odd to suggest Nextcloud for Google Drive but then leave it off the replacement list for photos and Docs. Use the Memories App in Nextcloud ans add Collabora and you have those features in Nextcloud too. News app = Google Reader, RePod+AntennaPod = Google Podcasts, Nextcloud Talk instead of Google Meet and Zoom. (just add cloud hosted stun/tun server for performance video chat when hosting from home.)
It’s a start, but the goal should be to have multiple options. Any monopoly can either be bought or abused and we should work towards making those as hard as possible.
While I’d generally agree, I don’t think fediverse platforms having a monopoly is as dangerous.
Social media requires a sort of monopoly to work well, I think federation is a good approach here.
Perhaps. It’s still early to tell.
LibreWolf is listed as an alternative web browser; not an alternative way to run Chrome extensions.
Similarly, listing Mint as an alternative to Windows is about having an alternative computer OS. It is not about having an alternative way to run your Windows apps.
And Lemmy is an alternative ‘ranked forum’ (or whatever you want to call this). It is not an alternative way to read reddit threads.
Firefox is always & will be an alternative to chrome
As far as I’m concerned, it’s the other way around. FF was there first ;)
Any browser is an alternative to any other browser, IMO. They all have the same purpose.
Any browser is an alternative to any other browser, IMO.
But they can’t run the same extensions, hence the fact that there is store for FF browsers and another one for chromium browsers. Since people can be very picky regarding their favorite extensions. So, suggesting some FF-based browser as an alternative to a Chromium-based one is the best way to disappoint quite a few potential users… for no good reason.
They all have the same purpose.
Like all computer or phone have the same purpose, still people will prefer one brand over the others, on even in one brand, one model of the other. Despite all of them being phones (or computers). Should we forbid people any choice because you consider it’s not important in you use case?
If someone asked for EU-based alternatives to a computer or phone they already owned, I would make suggestions based on my knowledge of the quality and performance of the products without giving any special consideration to the brand. I do absolutely consider all computers to be alternatives to each other and all phones to be alternatives to each other within this context. Finding a product that meets one individual’s specific needs is outside the scope of a chart like this, I think.
Tbh people who care about their extensions is small (and loud) minority who most likely know how to search browser fitting for them without this chart.
If something works for 95% of people you dont need to cater for the rest.
What separates waterfox from firefox or librewolf?
Different Dev teams
- Session
- Signal
- GPG2
- VLC
- Tuta
- OpenKeychain
- KeePassXC
- NetGuard
- Mullvad
- Ironfox
- BLE Radar
- Transmission
- Obfuscate
- Monero/Haveno
I mean WhatsApp is already E2E encrypted. Meta doesn’t make money off WhatsApp (only WhatsApp business). Any IM service that’s big in MAU (monthly active users) costs big money in server traffic. Me using WhatsApp costs Zuck money. In return the only data he can sell is about my metadata (i.e. how often I contact someone etc). For normal usage I think WhatsApp is more than ok. However if you’re worried about govt snooping cuz you’re a journalist or some such then yeah, switch to Session.
I ain’t touching anything MZ. I don’t really care about money beyond what it says about the subject in hand but either way…
I’m paranoid by practice. I do not and should not need a reason. I personally engage in paranoia for the development of the skill. I did this way back in the day when everyone thought the act generating “fear” of “spying” was undoable anyway by “them.” Now, today, you’re either entirely ignorant or you know it’s probably doing “observation” you don’t even know about yet.
So control what they can see best or else you’re just an NPC.
Signal?
Lmao
Edit: some people don’t seem to grasp the irony? Signal is a US company (and tied to the gov)
The app. The crypto calling & texting app. There’s even a desktop/laptop side rig it can join the act for it’s op to give you a solid keyboard for your chatting superior to their brain numbing thumb rhetorical mouse wheelage.
Looking kind of shady for the side rig today tho. I can’t use it cuz it leaks and it don’t have shit about wtf to do or just not use that aspect. Frustration. Session is getting to be my shit these days because of that.
What have I just read? I don’t understand half of your message sorry
Also I’m not sure you know what you’re saying with “crypto” since you are on a monero themed instance. Signal does have cryptography indeed but I’m not sure I understand your point. But please explain I’ll try my best :)
You asked what signal was, I interpreted. If you had the Q up to sign some other inquiry, it’s you that needs to be a bit more verbose. If you know what signal is then damn near everything I wrote is unessesary to need to understand bar maybe the whine ass shit about signal’s lacking security to function on the Desktop connection.
Ok thanks! You were explaining Signal
I added a precision to my original comment so it’s clear for everyone
Now THAT makes perfect sense. So to that I MUST say:
Hence Session>Signal.
Thank you for your recommendation
Though I have to say it seems kinda very wobbly and not yet trustable. Also how does every right-wing cryptobro app have this flare to it that makes it obvious it’s built on Blockchain? (I’m talking about UI details, this is not important, just a question)
What is wrong with SimpleX? It has always been a solid choice for private chats when Matrix was not a secure enough solution
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Why are almost all your comments deleted or moderated?
Anyway, I’m a cybersecurity expert and privacy enthusiast, what does the Lemmy instance I use have to do with it, since its theme is a political and not a technology one?
Edit: yep just a troll
Careful rabbit, you might find yourself on cliche path.
I don’t think piracy is a proper alternative to paying for commercial content.
Free content is.
So it shouldn’t be on this chart IMO. It’s a separate topic. It’s not a good look to lump piracy in with open/free software ideology.
There’s no piracy as alternative in the list.
Droidify is just a bloated wrapper for F-Droid
Hello, very nice guide:)
I’d just like to bring to your attention, a very thorough comparison of messengers you might want to check😄
OpenSUSE Linux from Nuremberg!
Where can I find the best Android alternative for my old-ass devices that don’t support Lineage OS?
For most of those devices, it depends what your goals are, but many privacy minded folks consider them unsalvageable.
If you can root the device, you could install the latest compatible version of the Android Open Source Project, and then use your newfound root powers to disable components you don’t want, to the extent that the older versions of Android support doing so.
Technically, that’s all LineageOS is doing for you. So if you’re willing to put the effort in, the device can be salvaged. For most of us, it makes more sense to get a newer device, researching what OS-es are supported.
Last time I used thunderbird was many years ago, like 10 years or so. Can you create a mail adress there? How does it compare to other providers like Tuta, Proton, Posteo and others?
It’s an email client, not an email provider. It can be used to receive/send emails from almost any provider, not to create new ones.
Yeah, as Thunderbird is just a mail client, and not a provider, it’s not really an “alternative”. It should list StartMail, Mailbox.org, Tutanota, etc. Since people are used to using web clients for emails, I don’t think suggesting a desktop app that still requires an provider is necessary, just creates confusion.
Yes, there are quite a few approximations in the list ;)
in the EU/Western Europe, as an e mail provider I would suggest in no order: maibox.org, proton, tuta and owning your own domain but that one last option (teh best one, imho) may already be too technical for most users.
Yeah, I saw that one pretty quick and wondered why they did that. Mailbox.org is a better option than just putting ‘thunderbird’.
Total noob here, can stremio be used to escape big tech legally?
Not really, but big tech breaks the laws all the time so why shouldn’t you?
It’s not a moral thing, I just don’t have the luxury of evading the law like big tech
VPNs make it easy and affordable but yeah, if the juice isn’t worth the squeeze for you that’s understandable. There is a bit of setup/maintenance as well that can get sort of complicated.
