My degoogling journey
I use tuta mail and tuta calendar for mail and calendar, Vivaldi as browser on laptop, and Firefox on android. Bitwarden as password manager and bitwarden auth as 2fa. Use obsidian for notes and appstore is aurora store and droidify, I use archlinux. And for "cloud" storage, actually a backup I use This USB drive not cloud Buf works for me. Still kinda dependent on proprietary messaging platforms, but I have 1 friend on signal. Also I am trying to replace YouTube with fmhy.net not exactly YouTube alternative, but has so many resources for free to study, educate myself, or just watch something out of amusement.
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Ah yes. Replace Chrome with Chrome with a different UI. The rest is good.
And Vivaldi is not even open source
It's just a "frontend" to let you use the official Play Store without a Google account
I reccomend you try https://librewolf.net/ as your browser
Install these extensions: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/libredirect/
I've found I like logseq over obsidian.
And do consider installing graphine or e/os so you're not subject to google services on your phone.
On the topic of Obsidian, I recommend the FOSS tool Syncthing to sync/fileshare Logseq, Obsidian or emacs org mode files between devices.
https://f-droid.org/packages/com.github.catfriend1.syncthingandroid
Note, Syncthing-fork is the actively maintained app on f-droid, not the original app called Syncthing, at least as of this comment.
Wait, is Libre wolf back? I thought it was abandoned, nit getting updates for an extremely long time, making it dangerous to use security wise?
https://codeberg.org/librewolf :)
Sick.
i second this, @[email protected] . librewolf is an excellent choice.
LibreWolf comes with ublock installed by default <3 didn't know the redirect extension!
Not sure if I would recommend LibreWolf to the average user above Firefox. Too many settings to fiddle with e.g. playing DRM material. I don't like to say it but I think most users would uninstall librewolf the moment they try to stream their favorite show and it doesn't work out of the box.
Love LibreWolf. Firefox is in a state of feature creeping. I understand the why, but don't agree with it.
you can move to signal, but can you move your friends and family with you? like they're going to listen
Just rip the bandaid off.
90% of people I speak to either already had or then installed Signal. It's just another app to them and doesn't require deleting WhatsApp to get.
If those in the know are unwilling to move off WhatsApp why would the ignorant ever do it?
Ripping the band-aid off for me would mean not connecting with 99% of the people I regularly message to.
Yeah I can't do that lol
It's not ideal but SMS still works
It’s worse than WhatsApp
Unencrypted stuff
Worse than having closed source Meta software on your phone or computer?
It's shit, yes, but it's certainly not worse than Meta.
You could use the poor experience and security as a catalyst to convince the holdouts to move to Signal or whatever as well.
Yea it’s a lot worse
Apps are really sandboxed in phones, and if you don’t give access to your contacts and stuff, it’s -relatively- fine
Poor security? WhatsApp uses the Signal protocol…
I was referring to poor SMS security, not WhatsApp. As in, SMS is a temporary measure to stay in contact, which you then use to pivot people towards Signal.
The issue with WhatsApp is it's closed source and originates from a company with a history of scandals, nefariousness, and support of MAGA.
Fuck that
Matrix is good for those situations, there are bridges to pretty much everything these days.
i got my parents on Matrix. just try and explain.
Check out SyncThing! It's a great tool for syncing files locally across multiple devices and platforms. Data is encrypted.
I went from KeePass->self-hosted bitwarden->KeePass synced with SyncThing. This is the best and easiest solution for password management, imho.
I'm currently using bitwarden with a vault warden docker backend and I'm wondering why you feel that keepass is a better setup. What made you make the switch?
It was easier for me than dealing with docker. Everything is local. I did do the same as you but I found that going P2P was easier and less expensive than running a server at home. I used to experiment slot with self hosting but now my primary use is media sharing. I only need my server to run when I'm home, as I only use this media at home. So I have a powering schedule to save power, but that also mean that I would not have access to my bitwarden server 24/7, which I need to.
Keepass runs on my phone with no network. My phone is 6 years old. I dont use docker because its concealment of installed state is a security risk, but that's just me.
This is the way 🤘🏼
Zen instead of Vivaldi, KeePass instead of Bitwarden
Aurora is just a frontend for Google play afaik so i don't know if it even counts. your best bet is fdroid obviously but in terms of apps available it's lackluster af and the UI looks like android gingerbread or something.
obsidian's cool but it's not keep-like at all. don't know what would be a good alternative off the top of my head but i bet there are tons.
I recommend Joplin. Doesn't have Obsidian's fancy UI or add-ons, but the core functionality is the same. Should be great for the vast majority of users.
They recently overhauled it and it looks mostly modern. Still not perfect, but definitely a lot better than it used to be. There are also third-party front ends. Can't really say anything about them as I haven't used any.
never knew about the frontends; thanks
I don't know why anyone would ever subject themselves to the torture of using Vivaldi. It's made by developers of Opera - the most bloated, spyware-infested web browser on the planet. Sure, it may be slightly better, but we'll never know for sure, since it's closed source. Honestly this might be a downgrade, even compared to Chrome. Anything else here would be an improvement.
Other than that, I'd replace Bitwarden with KeePassDX and Bitwarden Auth with Aegis. There's no shortage of decent password managers and 2fa apps.
What's wrong with bitwarden?
Bitwarden is a great service but with KeePass you are in total control. Made another comment here, check it out. KeePass can also save your F2A keys but I would also recommend Aegis for this. If my KeePass database is compromised, they would also get my F2A keys so I would rather have that in a separate silo.
Thanks, and good points. I'm not going to switch over soon but will definitely keep that in mind!
You can have a separate database for 2FA. I use Aegis, but have a 2FA database for keepass as backup and for use without a phone.
I think they’re more for advocating away from third-party online services, and direct control over your data. Technically Bitwarden is still trusting someone else with your data, but so is Tuta for both eMail and calendar… and Signal for messaging…
Ahh fair, didn't consider that, thanks!
From my understanding, the devs of Vivaldi actually split off from the opera team because they didn’t like the direction opera was going and made their own browser
Self-served nextcloud is a all-in-one solution for files calendar contacts and more. I am not affiliated, but use it over 10 years in a way that I would usually not have to brag about it :-)
Thanks for reminding me to finish moving away from Keep!
For me it is also difficult to get rid of Whatsapp because family and work use it. I really like YouTube and am still hoping for the great next YouTube alternative. I use Proton for mail, calendar and online Drive. I use a Chinese mobile with F-droid and Aurora Store. I also have an old Pixel phone with which I'm experimenting with GrapheneOS For my desktop I'm still experimenting with which Linux is the best fit compatibility wise.
I'm currently using Brave as browser but I'm thinking of switching to Waterfox or Vivaldi.
Edit: and my DNS is from a European server.
theres some games that i cant play, when im installed them from aurora store.. using linegae os rn after i opened it it redirect me to play store page,
Isn’t obsidian proprietary?
Frankly is there really a difference between Play Store and Aurora? Most of the tracking is done through Play Services and is bundled directly into apps anyways
Aurora sometimes break and fails to update some apps
All apps can see all apps installed on your device, wherever they come from
This privacypack thing is missing a lot of options and suggesying things that aren't private either, also i find it irinonic that i need a github account to contribute xD
Doesn't Signal need Google play services for notifications?
https://github.com/mollyim/mollyim-android
Thanks friend! I'm also looking into simplex chat. That seems great too.
oh man thanks so much for linking this! i couldn't understand why i couldn't find Molly on my fdroid. i didn't realize i needed to add a repo.