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

  • FrostyPolicy@suppo.fi
    5·
    2 days ago

    email, calendar, contacts

    Fastmail. Migration to some European provider is planned. K-9 for email on phone. For email/calendar/contacts Thunderbird on desktop. Contact and calendar sync Davx5 on phone. Fossify for contacts and etar for calendar on phone.

    cloud storage

    Filen. Zero knowledge e2ee service from Germany

    maps & navigation

    OSM-AND+

    search

    qwant (from France) and sometimes DDG or startpage

    browser

    LibreWolf + uBlock origin

    notes

    just a text editor (Pluma)

    office

    Latex & LibreOffice when needed

    messaging

    Signal, some contacts are still in TG

    video calling

    Don’t use

    social media

    Lemmy & Mastodon

    music streaming

    Don’t use. I get mine either on physical media if possible (cd) or in flac format (Bandcamp)

    video streamming

    Nebula, Odysee and FreeTube for youtube content

    password manager

    keepassXC. DB is synced via cloud to other devices

    vpn & dns

    Mullvad

    firewall

    Linux built-in (netfilter) configured thru Yast

    android os

    Graphene OS

    app store

    F-droid and some via Aurora store

    photo gallery

    Digikam locally on desktop. Fossify gallery on phone.

    weather

    Finnish meteorological institution

    smart assistant

    Don’t use

    anything else

    I ditched google mostly years ago. Graphene OS is the latest one and that was only this year. FreeTube is also fairly recent (sometime last year). Before that I used piped but that was nuked by google. More precisely they made it impossible to use. On software I’ve been FOSS first for over 10 years. Using OpenSuse Tumbleweed on my desktop and laptop (Thinkpad L580).