Mastodawn

Steffen Voß 3d ago

@parismarx When people asked me, how to get off big tech, I realized that it's far easier not to use big tech if you never used big tech. 😄

Stay strong!

Mark Burton 3d ago

@parismarx
You seem to be making a bit of a meal of this. A few notes:
Cryptpad instead of Google docs.
LibreOffice for all MS Office functions.
Qwant isn't just Bing and I find it much better than either Google or Start Page (Google without tracking).
Try Framasoft for a range of options.
Self-host wordpress.
WhatsApp remains difficult to replace as family and friends won't move en masse.
Mastodon isn't just German: there are instances in many places. Bsky is arid and laggy in comparison.

Oregon Wine Woman 3d ago

@markhburton @parismarx
I use Mastodon and BlueSky for different reasons/audiences.

Maxi 11x 💉3d ago

@markhburton I’m sure he meant "Mastodon (DE)" as its origin, like with the other projects mentioned.

Josh 🐧2d ago

@markhburton @parismarx

> Qwant isn't just Bing

very little evidence to support outside of the French language

Seirdy is good for this: https://seirdy.one/posts/2021/03/10/search-engines-with-own-indexes/

A look at search engines with their own indexes

A cursory review of all the non-metasearch, indexing search engines I have been able to find.

Seirdy’s Home

jandi 2d ago

@privacydingus @markhburton @parismarx Thanks, superb link.

I came to post about Mojeek as a far better alternative for web search to those mentioned, and I see this article covers it (and much more).

Try Mojeek here: https://www.mojeek.com/

Mojeek

Mojeek is a web search engine that provides unbiased, fast, and relevant search results combined with a no tracking privacy policy.

Davva 3d ago

@parismarx
I have used this to collaborate on docs.
https://cryptpad.fr/
It works pretty well.

CryptPad: end-to-end encrypted collaboration suite

Oliver Knabe 3d ago

@parismarx For me, https://www.optoutproject.net/ from @cyberlyra was very helpful to make my way out of the net of #bigtech I found myself in.

The Opt Out Project

🇨🇦🇩🇪🇨🇳张殿李🇨🇳🇩🇪🇨🇦3d ago

@parismarx I'm down to one last piece of American tech I can't ditch: the Android in my phone.

This is because I'm not about to drop a month's salary on a phone replacement when the one I've got works fine.

When it comes time to replace my phone, my next phone will be running HarmonyOS.

mr_harm 3d ago

@ZDL @parismarx replacing US SW with Chinese does not make it any better (in my books). At least for now, the US is still a democracy.

I’d propably go with something un-googled. Or graphene - which would still require american HW

🇨🇦🇩🇪🇨🇳张殿李🇨🇳🇩🇪🇨🇦2d ago

@mr_harm @parismarx Makes it far better in my books. I mean it's not as if I can avoid Chinese government surveillance anyway, so I might as well cut out American corporate surveillance at least.

Peter 3d ago

@parismarx Wanting to reduce reliance on US tech and using Substack, US company which supports Nazis, goes hand in hand.

Peter 2d ago

@parismarx He blocked me. I guess I struck a nerve.

Josh 🐧2d ago

@peterp @parismarx unfortunately, especially with critical tech coverage, you need to be able to reach more people, as outlined: https://www.disconnect.blog/p/new-year-new-disconnect

New year, new Disconnect

Rejuvenated, refreshed, and ready for whatever new nightmares tech has in store

Disconnect

Peter 1d ago

@privacydingus @parismarx Say it anyway you like. It is still a Nazi bar. And you are defending drinking in it.

Josh 🐧1d ago

@peterp @parismarx the application of the Nazi bar problem to an email newsletter is a bit strained, to be honest. Most of these people are having their drinks delivered to a separate location.

zetabeta 3d ago

@parismarx
you didn't mention a smartphone, which i think is a big issue.

i have ditched almost all u.s. big tech, including android, google, facebook, apple, amazon, aws and microsoft.

most difficult to replace is android. second best is to use un-googled android image.

i am not strict. if software is properly open source and transparent, it could be based from u.s..

@zetabeta there're many #libre options based on Android's Open Source Project (AOSP). https://lineageos.org is great, been running it on all my phones for a decade. But it does require some tech nous to make the transition in some cases. Others I know are running phones with /e/ preinstalled (see e.foundation).

LineageOS – LineageOS Android Distribution

LineageOS Android Distribution

Snippety Snap (she/her)3d ago

@parismarx
I am currently migrating away from Gmail. I don't find it easy at all. So many logins use email addresses and I have hundreds in my password vault.

I have been gradually updating my email address in my online accounts for over six months now, and I estimate that I may be about halfway through. It takes diligence.

Some accounts won't let me change my username, which unfortunately is my Gmail address.

I feel trapped, but I persevere.

AskPippa🇨🇦3d ago

@shansterable @parismarx Try changing your mobile number. It took me nearly a month to change every single account that it was listed on (internet services, store accounts, etc. It took so long because part of that month included closing accounts (like Amazon, Facebook, etc.), migrating to non-US services, requesting codes be sent to an email instead, etc. And during that time had to keep the old number because some accounts couldn't be accessed w/o a phone code.
I hate having a mobile phone, but it's hard to get away from having one. I may revert back to a no-data plan.

Snippety Snap (she/her)3d ago

@AskPippa
I changed numbers long ago when I wasn't so entrenched online. I hope I never have to do it again.

theDLCguy 2d ago

@shansterable @parismarx A partial transfer is better than nothing. One thing I like about protonmail is that it forwards emails sent towards your old Gmail account to your new protonmail account. That makes things easier.

Snippety Snap (she/her)2d ago

@the1dlcguy
I have all my Gmail forwarded to my new email as well, but I used the functionality in Gmail.

I periodically check my Gmail inbox to find out which accounts I still need to update, and sometimes there's no email there. Success! Feels good.

AmbianceAsunder 3d ago

@parismarx I always found this topic interesting - how does a functioning security service (physical, law enforcement/govt, software block) take reliable action on anonymous, dynamic identities and telemetry?

bewilderbeast23 3d ago

@parismarx I'm enjoying using organicmaps.app.org

derekheld 3d ago

@parismarx I’ve also struggled trying to find a replacement for Google Maps and for often the same reasons. Incomplete directories for business/places has been the biggest for me - nobody seems to have invested as much in crowd sourcing or automated pulling of that information (or getting businesses to manage their own pages).

navigator 3d ago

@parismarx Excelent choice

nikolasdi 3d ago

@parismarx There are no alternatives to whatsapp and googlemaps. If you want out, you need to get rid of them along with the convenience they offer.

@nikolasdi @parismarx I've had excellent success convincing people to move from WhatsApp to Signal, simply by refusing to use WhatsApp. Once people have it on their phones (and computers) they find that lots of other people prefer it, too...

nikolasdi 3d ago

@lightweight @parismarx I agree, but that is what I mean by "getting rid of the convenience". You have to inconvienience yourself by going through this phase of refusing to use whatsapp, as people slowly adapt to your ways. Still, many do not and will not adapt. In whatsapp-heavy countries even schools and public services use it and you will be left out.

@nikolasdi @parismarx we've got to start somewhere. Sometimes doing the right thing is inconvenient. Those of us with privilege should accept that inconvenience on behalf of those who have less privilege. I've even held schools and sports teams to account. Institutional selling-out of our kids (and our) data is morally reprehensible. Those of us who 'get this' should all become activists in this area. We need to use our own political/social capital to initiate positive change.

@nikolasdi @parismarx we also need to promote this narrative: the only 'easy' technologies to adopt are those that have had massive marketing & $millions/billions invested in their user interfaces. They only get that investment because they have *exploitative business models* that guarantee huge returns to investors to the detriment of users. Naturally, those platforms have no easy *exit* options. If it's 'easy' to get on board but not easy to get off, it's a trap. That simple.

nikolasdi 2d ago

@lightweight @parismarx You are absolutely right. That is why I use the word "convenience". People should understand that there are things in this situation that have no alternatives, cannot be replaced, exactly because of the way they have come to exist and function. You cannot have available bigtech-scale data on restaurants, supermarkets and traffic without bigtech-scale data harvesting.

@nikolasdi @parismarx yes, that's true. Maybe we have to go 'old school' on finding restaurants. Or help, for example, OpenStreetMaps develop such a crowd-sourced capability... I suspect it would work.

Alessandro Corazza 🇨🇦2d ago

@lightweight

Signal is still sadly American though, and I haven't seen any mention of them intending to change that. It's frankly a huge detriment for the rest of us.

@nikolasdi @parismarx

ebrum 3d ago

@nikolasdi @parismarx

Comaps (previously organic maps) is also quite good

nikolasdi 3d ago

@ebrum @parismarx It is very good indeed, as is osmand which I currently use. But it does not offer the wealth of info on stores and bussinesses googlemaps does, nor will it ever. For many people that is a big convenience to let go of, so they won't.

Demian 2d ago

@nikolasdi @parismarx funny, these were two of the easiest for me. Helps that I was never very active Whatsapp user. For maps, organic maps and apple maps have largely sufficed tho I still occasionally use google maps in the browser. I know apple is a us big tech company too and also caved on the gulf of mexico thing but haven’t yet found a fully adequate alternative

@parismarx if you want a Google Docs replacement, get a hosted NextCloud instance and add OnlyOffice - our organisation (the https://oerfoundation.org) has been running it for 4-5 as a full collaborative environment, including writing this relevant journal article with it: https://www.irrodl.org/index.php/irrodl/article/view/5763/5600 We have replacements for *all* #USbigtech, as we don't use any.

@parismarx if you decide, for some reason, that OnlyOffice (Russian) doesn't work for you (I find it excellent), you can also swap in Collabora Office, a separate project (DE-led) which provides a collaborative browser-based front-end for a headless LibreOffice running on the server. I currently prefer OnlyOffice, but the competition between them is useful.

deasún 🇮🇪🇵🇸2d ago

@lightweight @parismarx our coop was using the community document server for OnlyOffice in Nextcloud until it was shut down.

Tried to work with various markdown based collaborative tools which were excellent for our coop members but just too "strange" for non-techies used to GoogleDrive tech.

Ended up hosting our own doc server with docker to support Collabora in Nextcloud. Was surprisingly straightforward & haven't looked back. Currently using it to support 2 other organisations as well

@deasun @parismarx here's my comprehensive copy-and-paste howto for hosting your own: https://tech.oeru.org/install-nextcloud-hub-and-onlyoffice-ubuntu-2404-docker-compose - set aside a couple hours to procure a VPS and to set this up. Then enjoy a insignificant cost. Only complexity is periodic updates to NextCloud and OO. But they're pretty straightforward.

Install NextCloud Hub and OnlyOffice on Ubuntu 24.04 with Docker Compose | OERu Technology Blog

This is yet another update of my previous posts (installing NextCloud with Collabora Office Online on Ubuntu 16.04 and then NextCloud with OnlyOffice on Ubuntu 18.04 and Install NextCloud Hub and OnlyOffice on Ubuntu 22.04 with Docker Compose). NextCloud continues to develop at a blistering rate, and as of this writing, it's at version 30.0.5.

deasún 🇮🇪🇵🇸2d ago

@lightweight @parismarx really enjoyed that article - thanks for sharing. We've been discussing how we could self-host a range of FOSS tech for some of our core partners and this hits many of the challenges & benefits we've envisaged - and some we hadn't thought of. Its great that you documented it

@deasun @parismarx thanks - let me know if you'd like to discuss anything further. Also, I provide a lot of howtos for self-hosting through my OER Foundation role - see https://tech.oeru.org

| OERu Technology Blog

Al ⁂3d ago

@parismarx I found Organic maps built@with OpenStreetMap data works fine for me. It works on CarPlay gives decent directions (no issues yet) and also allows outdoor and contour line layers.

ROLLER 2d ago

@parismarx #organicMaps is great choice for a google maps alternative. I use in the UK and it seems to work well.

Walt Baldwin 2d ago

@parismarx

self hosted zulip, joplin, immich, and jitsi are great.

Ben Harris-Roxas 2d ago

@parismarx I've also been trying to find non-U.S. search and it's bloody hard! I've ended up with Ecosia but it ain't great. I guess this is why Google become so dominant in the first place (RIP Excite search)

Meznor 🇨🇦🇮🇹🇪🇺2d ago

@parismarx Google maps is definitely the hardest for me to abandon. I haven't found a good alternative.

The only things I have left from Google are the Google phone (with disabled Google apps) and nest/wifi router (planning to replace it soon). I know I can install a better OS on my phone, but I'm not super technical and it is a big hassle for me. I did replace the Google phone app with a non-US and more privacy centred one.