I am a phone scroller and social media reader and a YouTube watcher. My phone and by extension my Google account are my mobile office. I regret having to buy an Apple Mac Mini but I am not giving up Logic as my DAW. I got away from overpriced Samsung devices a few years ago and have a fairly bloat-free Motorola. Now I want to dump the Google ecosystem. I intend to download all of my pics and files from Drive and the Google cloud. I am not so tech savvy that I can install APKs or switch to Linux, and I’d like to watch video streamers that aren’t saturated in developer links (seriously, why do y’all do this?..just put one simple link to “Developer Info” or something and put all the other links there). I want to use and enjoy the net like any idiot would but without being The Product. I am Lemmy over Reddit (though you both ban me from subs with equal ferver); MeWe over Facebook (though MeWe is moving towards an unprivate model now); Mastodon over Xittstain. I have a ProtonMail account, but mainly for registrations…I have had a Gmail account since Earthlink took a nosedive.
What/who else is out there for me to frequent and replace all the corporatist models?in the past I tried Minds (all Nazis all the time!) and Ello (socmed for creative types, yet still looks like a shitty 1970’s mimeographed zine). I also spent a couple of years at one called MyBetzCo that started out okay but died because none of the members would make public posts for interacting with others.
What do you recommend for private/decentralizwd clouds, socmeds or media sites?
For a Google drive alternative I’ve heard of nextcloud but haven’t looked into it. For staying in touch with news articles, etc you could look into RSS readers and subscribe to RSS feeds from publications online. For a Google alternative, duckduckgo can handle your search needs. I opted to sail the high seas rather than subscribe to multiple streaming services, but I haven’t found a YouTube replacement
I know you mentioned you weren’t super tech savvy, but check out some of the stuff on the https://awesome-selfhosted.net/ list. Not everything there actually needs to be self hosted or set up in any complex way.
Nextcloud actually has an RSS reader app
I totally agree with you and this is the opportunity to call on the tech savy who are here. There’s a lot of people like OP, like me, drenched in frustration, because we realize we are the product, but we don’t have the strength and the knowledge to emancipate ourself from this position of semilliterate. Yes, you could say: just study, but when one works the time, having some organized free time is the Neverland. I think it’d be something memorable, that will endure times if people of good fill could put together some sort of wikipedia that explains simply how to come back to be a user, or even better an explorer and not just a product.
I know there’s something like but I do not have the skills to install it. I do have a proton account, I use DDG, mozilla firefox and I tend to use f-droid for every app, before going to Google play to download what I need.
I began to pay for the Internet services or make donations (small ones) to organizations who are respectful toward the person and bring/offer interesting contents to the net (Intercept.
But what misses is the will to communicate and literate people like us that suffer the Internet without having to tools to take back our right to be just a curious person who want to wander through the world rather than into a mega mall center.alternate view - the situation of people being the product is able to exist because people don’t want to learn how to avoid it
The bad news is you’d have to learn more technology and pay more money. The good news is there are decent alternatives.
Might want to check out f droid
I got away from overpriced Samsung devices a few years ago and have a fairly bloat-free Motorola. Now I want to dump the Google ecosystem. I intend to download all of my pics and files from Drive and the Google cloud. I am not so tech savvy that I can install APKs
You don’t need to install any APKs. You can buy phones with /e/OS (a fully de-Googled Android) preloaded, such as the ones sold by Murena. Another option is to buy a cheap/used Pixel phone and flash GrapheneOS, which is another de-Googled Android, but is much more secure than /e/OS. They have a web based installer that’s pretty easy to use, you just have to follow the step-by-step instructions on that page - there’s no need to even type any commands or anything!
or switch to Linux
Depending on your software requirements and workflow, this could actually be a pretty easy switch. You said you’re not very tech savvy, and contrary to popular opinion, Linux is actually very suitable for non-techy people: because such folks have very simple requirements from a PC in general - like surfing the web, checking emails, do some light document or image editing, transferring files, ocassionally print or scan stuff. You know, all the basics. All of which Linux excels at.
Now on the other hand, if you’re a geek or a IT pro, or a professional photographer, or someone like that with very specific software requirements / workflow, it’d may a lot more difficult to switch, but for most general, non-techy home users, Linux works very very well. Case in point - both my mum and dad (60+) and many elderly relatives of mine are all happily running Linux since many years now. None of them are tech savvy (except my mum I guess, she actually learnt computers properly, going back to the DOS days), but most of them are total noobs at PCs - in fact my dad didn’t even know how to operate a PC until I taught him (which was after his retirement, for reasons…). Most of these folks have been running Linux for over a decade now and had no major issues, afterall, all they need is a web browser and some light document viewing/editing, plus the ocassional prints and scans. They have no need for proprietary apps or nVidia graphics, so Linux has been working for them very well.
If you’re in this camp as well, then Linux could be a good option for you. If you also think this is the case, let me know and I can point you in the right direction as to how to get started with this Linux stuff in the easiest way possible.
There are lots of great suggestions here
My recommendation is to go slow and go methodically. As excited as you might be, it’ll take longer if you rush into things and most likely you won’t be able to replace everything right away because of commitments and connections to your community (job, family, friends).
For example, you could start by unfollowing accounts on the social media platforms and replacing that time with other hobbies. On the other side, I’d recommend keeping your Gmail & drive until you’re comfortable with the new options. So much of modern society relies on your email and files, and it would be a pain to recover if something goes wrong
If you need Logic as your DAW you’re locked into the Mac ecosystem in that regard.
Yeah, about that…I have lots of reasons to despise Apple even after being a fanboi for a few years. Nevertheless, I can’t beat Logic and have no desire to…however, I dont do much net stuff on that computer anyway…it’s just my DAW.
I moved from Logic to Ardour and I’m pretty happy (but I understand that Logic is hard to beat).
My advice would be to look into things one at a time while also avoiding taking the sledgehammer approach. Based on what you mentioned, some things you might want to look into:
Look into some encrypted cloud storage/backup options. Filein comes to mind but there’s plenty. I’d recommend against self hosting your own cloud in most cases (like nextcloud) in most cases it is both less secure and less private especially on a VPS - and if its on a home server it makes your backups less redundant.
Try doing more stuff in web browsers, web wrappers, or front ends. Unlike an app, there’s a lot less sneaky stuff a web browser can do, even if it’s the same platform. The Brave browser does cookie isolation and progressive web apps well, it might make a good second browser dedicated to progressive web apps. Apps like newpipe are great for YouTube and piped/invidious for yt or nitter for twitter are two good examples of front ends.
Installing apks is easier than you might think, and if you install FDroid it’s three clicks (download, allow installation, install) and worth checking out. Once it’s installed you can treat it like any other app store, and in combo with Aurora (on FDroid) you can get about any app without going through a Google account.
As for email, you can forward emails from a gmail account to a proton account. And as for content, consider trying to follow via RSS (you can follow just about anything with RSS one way or another).
For social media look into activity pub and nostr. Just about any alternative social media is going to have the crazies from one or both sides of politics kicked off of mainstream platforms, but federated and decentralized platforms allow you to pick and choose a lot more.
Last, as the phone goes, whenever possible try disabling background data and setting aside pre-installed apps you don’t want to use and going from there. A step up from that would be to uninstall/disable them (either in settings or adb bridge for those you can’t disable). Custom Roms would be the biggest leap, and the most technological. If you’re going to buy a phone with the intent of installing one, Graphene beats everything else hands down while still being one of the easiest to install.
Good luck
I second the suggestion of RSS feeds (I use TheOldReader) and DuckDuckGo as search engine replacement.
Also, Mozilla’s Pocket is a useful tool for collecting articles (and having related ones recommended to you).
Regarding duckduckgo, they make it easy to redirect your search somewhere else if you don’t find what you want right away. So you can be comfortable trying it. For example to search the same in google add !g or in wikipedia !w (and more https://duckduckgo.com/bangs )
You can pay for dreamhost, namecheap or any other shared hosting plan that provides WebDAV. Some provide unlimited storage. I am not sure how realy unlimited it is.
Buy domain and host empty website. Turn on ssl using hosting tools. Dreamhost provides you with free certificate for that. Namecheap charges after 1st year.
Create directory on the website using hosting tools and turn on webdav on that directory. It can be password protected. Turn on password protection and disable public access using hosting tools.
That will give you a disk that can be mounted on Windows, Linux or mac without additional software. On iOS you will need an app like OwlFiles. You will have access to it From home or coffee shop. Anywhere. It will act as your remote storage and you can access it using Explorer or Finder. Most tools will read content of remote disk without any restrictions.
Create another directory and leave public access to have public sharing directory only you can change (keep passwords).
Create another directory or use one of your private subdirectory with application Joplin and you get free and open source notes and todo system. That system can encrypt all your notes with master password. I recommend it: https://joplinapp.org
The might be other apps…
This is pretty interesting. Although this is a pretty thorough answer, is there somewhere that I can find more deets? Or is there a term for this approach that can launchpad further research?
If you aren’t too tech savvy I would recommend against self hosted services. There are amazing solutions out there but they will cost a few bucks.
For cloud storage I use Hetzner’s https://www.your-storageshare.de. It’s a hosted Nextcloud with pretty much all the freedom you can get. Currently it costs about 5 Euros per month for 1TB of storage. You can even share it with your family and friends because you can create more users on your instance. While I self hosted Nextcloud and Syncthing in the past this is just way less work.
Your-storageshare replaced Dropbox/Google Drive, Google Calendar, Google Contacts and Google Photos for me. That’s a pretty huge chunk of the services I use passively all the time. With Nextcloud’s encryption enabled and GDPR regulations in place it is IMHO as save as you can get without self hosting.
For mails I am quite happy with https://mailbox.org - it starts at 1 Euro per month but I recommend the 3 Euros tier. It’s no Proton Mail but somehow to me it seems more trustworthy. They don’t overpromise on features but provide a solid secure service. Most of the time I send unencrypted mails (due to various reasons) but you could use SMIME with it. Since it provides IMAP you could even integrate it with your-storageshare using the Nextcloud Mail app.
Both services support your own domains so if you fancy it you could set up www.IHadTwoCows.com for cloud and mail. Hetzner has you covered for domains too. Not the cheapest but reliable.
For search I use https://startpage.com. It uses Google results but anonymized. I am very happy with it.
And that, kids, is the story of how I banned Google from my digital life. (okay, Maps is still there but all the alternatives where just not good enough with traffic jams in my city)
Yes I second all of this. If you dont want to self-host, Nextcloud hosted on some external server is the way forward. Nextcloud is incredibly versatile. It’s my music collection, photo collection, agenda, contacts, file sync, location tracker and much more.
I am kind of in the same boat as OP and I did come across Nextcloud. But how reliable is Nextcloud hosted by some other org/company/person? Aren’t we running away from a company hosting our data to another company hosting our data?
In a way yes, we are running from company to company. For myself I accepted a few compromises along the way because I don’t have the time and energy to do everything myself. So this is where I am at.
Hosting email yourself is a nightmare and is getting basically impossible more and more (see here). So I accepted my fate and looked for a solution that fits my needs.
For cloud storage I used to self host Nextcloud and / or Syncthing for years. While it was fun in the beginning I loathed it at the end. Even with good hardware and Docker and 25 years of experience there was always something that stopped to work after a while - especially with Nextcloud. For Syncthing (which I really like) there is no real client for iOS (wife’s phone). Also exposing anything to the internet can turn into a nightmare pretty quickly. But my work blocks my VPN… You see what I mean? There certainly are solutions for all that but I was tired of looking.
Hetzner is a large German hoster with a quite good reputation. They need to follow GDPR regulations and because they provide closely monitored solutions for my work I know they do as much as possible. The Nextcloud instance is super reliable ever since I started.
I use Nextcloud tools for encryption at rest which is enough for me. They even let you perform cli commands (a few from a web UI, other through support mail). Support is fast and well informed.
It is certainly not for everyone! But for my scenario it is the currently best compromise.
depending on where you are in phone replacement/upgrade cycle I would recommend Fairphone or looking into e/OS.
Like others mentioned don’t expect to do a wholesale jump. Slowly replace services with alternatives: Proton mail, NextCloud, Box, Dropbox, Lemmy, Mastodon to name a few services. There are numerous apps that can interact with those services so you’ll be spending some time going over those sorting what works for you.
To get the apps FDroid coupled with Aurora you can get most apps (that do not have explicit dependency on Googleware). Amazon App store is a possibility too for some commercial apps. For Youtube there are several alternatives like LibrePipe and NewPipe (but there are more). For existing social media site apps there are thin wrapper browsers that would “sandbox” each site allowing you to still use them while you slowly detach yourself: SlimSocial, RedReader, etc.
I’ve been Google-free for a bit now but I went with LineageOS+microG setup which may be challenging for you at this stage.
Treat it less as a crusade and more like multilevel challenge when upon completion of one challenge you get to complete another. It could be fun and liberating.
Lots of good advice in here; thanks!
I’m not going sledgehammer; I’ve been gradually stepping away for a long time. There’s a few things I can’t give up yet but I keep them to a minimum while trying to persuade others in the social mediasphere to join me in circumventing the Big Tech DataWhores. I’m still paying for YT premium (sad); I have FB only to use Messenger with a couple of people. I already use DDG, Mastodon, Lemmy, MeWe, DropBox, Protonmail. I am not going so far as to self-host…I dont have the time or money for that.
Hopefully some more ideas show up here and are helpful to others who feel the same as I do. Thanks!
