DeGoogle Yourself

Hi, all.

We've grown considerably since rebuilding the sub (see https://lemmy.ml/post/2262830). Active monthly users 150 -> 380. 3.5k -> 5.42k subs. It seems to be growing organically now, and the higher we go, the more people will stumble across it. There is always a need to get away from Google, and hopefully our community can help people with this.

If you'd like to join us to help moderate so we have folk in place as we need them, that would be awesome.

If you are interested. Please send a message about why you think you'd be good for the role, and also an example post/comment in this community previously.

Thanks,

CrypticCoffee

Here I will pin a list of recommendations for software. Getting started can be daunting, and it'd be great to pull that information together here for newcomers so they can take practical steps to degoogle their lives.

Disclaimer: These are recommendations by regulars here and on privacy forums. Use at own risk. We cannot due diligence on these, so if people do have issue with items in the list, please create a post and raise your concerns.

Recommendations

Browser -

• Firefox (Strongly recommend in light of WEI and Google's plan that could potentially restrict access to websites)
• Librewolf
• Brave (Not recommended, due to Google's WEI changes. Using chromium is a bad idea. I left this in case you really must)

Search

• Duck Duck Go
• Brave

Email

• Proton mail
• Tutanota

Cloud storage

• Proton mail

Productivity Suite (Alternative to google docs)

• Libre office (Maybe not cloud based)
• Only office (for MS doc compatibility)

Degoogled Android phones

Phone OS - https://lemm.ee/post/663113

• GrapheneOS

• LineageOS (wihh or without MicroG)

• /e/OS

Android app store -

• F-droid

Messaging

• Signal

• Element (Matrix)

Maps - https://lemmy.ml/post/2211048

• Organic Maps

• OsmAnd+

SMS - https://lemmy.ml/post/2256135

Organisation

Task lists - https://lemmy.ml/post/2249613

Calendar - https://lemm.ee/post/704703

• Fossify Calendar - https://github.com/FossifyOrg/Calendar

Discussion

These items are ones either recommended multiple times or seem to have some form of consensus on them being good and privacy focussed. I will link discussion topics so people can see the logic and reasoning behind recommendation. If you are not happy with anything here, please discuss here: https://lemmy.ml/post/2262409

If you would like another item in this, please create a post discussion and we can pull it in and link to it.

Today I unlocked a device I have that is not degoogled. A Play Store notification appeared about 1 update being available for an app called "Android Switch". However when I opened the Play Store to update it (I have automatic updates disabled), there were no updates (even after checking manually) and searching for the mentioned app in the settings didn't give any results.

I guess that's a yet another little reason to stay away from the Goolag ecosystem.

Hi everyone!

I’ve almost entirely degoogled my life, except for Youtube.

Here are my center of interests and some channels I follow:

• Linux: The Linux Experiment, Tech Hut
• Basketball: NBA, Andy Hoops, Heat Check, Jonny Arnett, BasketNews
• Cars: Throttle House, Everyday Driver, Car and Driver
• Console Gaming: GamingBolt, IGN
• Tech: Linus Tech Tips, Techquickie

Concerning Linux, it has been easy to find alternatives to YouTube as The Linux Experiment is on PeerTube and I can support him for 1$ a month Through Patreon.

Tech Hut is on Odysee so I could watch his videos here and support him through Buy Me A Coffee or something similar if I wanted to.

I know I could watch everything from the Linus Tech Tips on Floatplane but 5$ a month is a bit too expensive.

Do you have any suggestions about anyone producing similar content to what I’ve described above (Basketball, Console Gaming, Cars and Tech) that I could watch on a YouTube alternative?

I don’t mind paying 1-2$ a month for a channel I enjoy but I can’t pay more for now 😇

Hi guys! Recently my wife began to use my amazfit bip lite (old model). Have a lot of time without use the official application, always used gadgetbridge. Is there any way in gadgetbridge to have stats if I ride a bicycle?

Guys I don't know how Disroot"s doing, I've been using using proton and tuta for nearly 2 years, so far its good but I don't know much about disroot. So just wanna hear out some opinion.

Sorry if I'm the millionth to ask this, but what are some good trustworthy email providers? Even if paid. But if I'm paying it'd best if it's privacy focused. Thanks!

Is anyone else having problems with the Feeld app on GrapheneOS? I'm in an urban area and have set my filters wide (100 miles), but see nothing when I open the app.

Update: I think this might be the issue: https://grapheneos.org/articles/attestation-compatibility-guide I contacted Feeld support and they said they're looking into it.

It's getting annoying

hi guys!! ( privacy community pls don't jump on me) so i was noticing that my os is full with microsoft garbage that consumes my ram and network speed for nothing!! like shitty edge!! and looked for a solution and i found debloating. but i need to make a backup first in case something goes wrong . local disk is : 237gb - used 133gb = 103gb free i have a 64gb usb i want to make a high compressed backup for everything including my windows 11 is it possible with that 64gb usb? and what software to use pls? pls don’t tell using a cloud !! 😓i have a slow internet cuz i live in a rural area. thanks in advance to anyone!

Google Scholar is the one and only Google product I still use sometimes

Hi. New parent here. I'm making an honest attempt at preventing Google from building a profile about my baby.

One of the things I've changed is I no longer backup my photos to Google photos. Instead, I use an encrypted cloud storage solution. That being said, I use an android phone. A pixel phone for that matter. I'm worried that Google can still "see" the pictures I take even if I'm not backing them up to Google photos.

What is the consensus on this? Is not backing them up to Google photos making any difference or can Google scan everything on my phone anyway?

Just about an hour ago, I received an email informing me that my YouTube account was terminated for violations of their "scams, spam, and deceptive content" policy. The email was long winded about how I must've uploaded something or other, or commented spammy/scammy content.

Just one problem: I have never uploaded a video in the 10 years I've had my account. I comment maybe twice a year when I actually have an answer to a question someone asked in the comments. I even paid for Premium for me and my family.

Well, guess I'm screwed because I doubt the appeal robot or whatever actually changes its mind when you submit one.

Glad I at least started deGoogling. This is a very close-to-home reminder of how dependent I am on them for their services.

>Google's latest flagship smartphone raises concerns about user privacy and security. It frequently transmits private user data to the tech giant before any app is installed. Moreover, the Cybernews research team has discovered that it potentially has remote management capabilities without user awareness or approval.

>Cybernews researchers analyzed the new Pixel 9 Pro XL smartphone’s web traffic, focusing on what a new smartphone sends to Google.

>“Every 15 minutes, Google Pixel 9 Pro XL sends a data packet to Google. The device shares location, email address, phone number, network status, and other telemetry. Even more concerning, the phone periodically attempts to download and run new code, potentially opening up security risks,” said Aras Nazarovas, a security researcher at Cybernews...

>... “The amount of data transmitted and the potential for remote management casts doubt on who truly owns the device. Users may have paid for it, but the deep integration of surveillance systems in the ecosystem may leave users vulnerable to privacy violations,” Nazarovas said...

EDIT: For those who are too lazy to click the link, this is what it says

> Hello,

> Sad news for everyone. YouTube/Google has patched the latest workaround that we had in order to restore the video playback functionality.

> Right now we have no other solutions/fixes. You may be able to get Invidious working on residential IP addresses (like at home) but on datacenter IP addresses Invidious won't work anymore.

> If you are interested to install Invidious at home, we remind you that we have a guide for that here: https://docs.invidious.io/installation/..

> This is not the death of this project. We will still try to find new solutions, but this might take time, months probably.

> I have updated the public instance list in order to reflect on the working public instances: https://instances.invidious.io. Please don't abuse them since the number is really low.

> Feel free to discuss this politely on Matrix or IRC.

PeerTube is a decentralized and federated alternative to YouTube. The goal of PeerTube is not to replace YouTube but to offer a viable alternative using the strength of ActivityPub and P2P protocols.

Being built on ActivityPub means PeerTube is able to be part of a bigger social network, the Fediverse (the Federated Universe). On the other hand, P2P technologies help PeerTube to solve the issue of money, inbound with all streaming platform : With PeerTube, you don't need to have a lot of bandwidth available on your server to host a PeerTube platform because all users (which didn't disable the feature) watching a video on PeerTube will be able to share this same video to other viewers.

If you are curious about PeerTube, I can't recommend you enough to check the official website to learn more about the project. If after that you want to try to use PeerTube as a content creator, you can try to find a platform available there to register or host yourself your own PeerTube platform on your own server.

The development of PeerTube is actually sponsored by Framasoft, a french non-for-profit popular educational organization, a group of friends convinced that an emancipating digital world is possible, convinced that it will arise through actual actions on real world and online with and for you!

Framasoft is also involved in the development of Mobilizon, a decentralized and federated alternative to Facebook Events and Meetup.

If you want to contribute to PeerTube, feel free to:

• report bugs and give your feedback on Github or on our forums
• submit your brillant ideas on our Feedback platform
• Help to translate the software, following the contributing guide
• Make a donation to help to pay bills inbound in the development of PeerTube.

On my new phone I'm tempted to switch from LineageOS for microG to IodéOS, just for the ease of a dedicated installer. What are your experiences of pros and cons?

Bonus question, while I prefer full control of my phone, Iodé lists "uninstallable apps" as a feature(?) — what in the world are those?

Edited title for clarity

"Google uses anti-competitive practices to dominate the market for online advertising technology, a UK watchdog has provisionally found.

The potentially unlawful behaviour could be harming thousands of UK publishers and advertisers, an investigation by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) has warned.

It accuses Google of preventing rivals from "competing on a level playing field" with its own tech for the billions of pounds spent by UK businesses on online advertising.

Google said the watchdog's findings were "flawed" and said it would respond.

According to the CMA, the vast majority of businesses use Google’s services when placing digital ads on websites.

Google maintains it has a strong business incentive to help UK firms thrive, and argues that advertisers choose to use Google because its products work well and help their businesses grow.

The watchdog will now consider representations from Google before deciding what action to take..."

Greetings! I have recently ditched google and went with privacy focused alternatives. Such as SearXNG, Invidious, Lemmy etc.

However, while i was using degoogled chromium, i cant install extensions.

Is there any way i can install extensions on Degoogled Chromium? (ik this isnt the right place to ask but eh)

Thanks a lot!

I use Google Shopping (the “Shopping” tab on Google) to see if local stores carry certain products, what they cost, how far away each store is, etc. It seems to mostly search national or large regional chains, but it was still pretty useful.

Is there any alternative to this (in the US)? The “nearby” function has unfortunately got shittier and shittier over the past year or so. It's gotten less “deterministic," just mixing results from local stores with e-commerce stores, further reducing usefulness.

Hello everyone!

Recently, I saw so many posts about this and I started to think about degoogling (degoogleing?) my life.

I've started with fdroid and found some nice apps in there and I'm curious to know some alternatives I may or may not know

• Youtube: Currently, I use ReVanced and even though is just the default app with something in it, I want an alternative with background listening, import my subscriptions w/ notifications and if possible with sponsorblock
• Mail: Using a combo or Gmail + proton. I started to use proton recently and I want to move everything there when I have time. Suggestions here?
• Cloud storage: Self hosted/proton? Alternatives
• Gallery app: Stock
• Video player: Stock
• Music player: Stock
• 2FA app: I have Authy and I tried to install aegis. I also have Ente but I've never used both
• Mail app: Using K9 and the app is awesome compared to google or Samsung Mail
• Password Manager: Bitwarden
• Weather app: Currently, using Breezy weather

If possible, apps with a nice looking UI, modern with/without Material You

I'm using a Samsung S23 and I would like to know how bad it is to change ROM with something better and if it's really worth Pixel + GrapheneOS. Thanks

Edit: I forgot the most important one with probably no alternatives (?) Thanks to @JustMarkov@lemmy.ml (idk how to mention)

• Samsung pay

So I finally came across a proprietary app that has broken notification support on my degoogled phone and there don't seem to be any alternative ways (like what Telegram FOSS or Signal do) to get it working. I tried a solution called ntfy but it didn't work. So is there a way to get it working now (preferably without utilizing Firebase because Google can read it all you know)?

"Google will have to face a class action lawsuit that accuses it of collecting users’ data through Chrome without their consent. In a decision on Tuesday, a federal appeals court reversed a December 2022 ruling that dismissed the case, saying the lower court should’ve reviewed Google’s disclosures and determined “whether a reasonable user reading them would think that he or she was consenting to the data collection.”...

I'm looking for an alternative Youtube front-end for Linux Desktop but FreeTube for example doesn't support resolutions higher than 1080p. Is there an easy to use client, that supports 1440p and higher out-of-the-box?

do they have like a Discord server, or a subreddit, or any presence on the fediverse?

EDIT: Added soft- to the title, since it was pissing people off. Maybe I'm still wrong. Idk, it's just a meme.

I'm about to degoogle my stock Android phone. For the past few years, I've used it to handle the non-open source apps that I don't want running on my main phone. As I've finally weaned off GApps, I realize that I might as well go degoogle the rom as well.

edit: to be clear, I'll be using sandboxed Play services on GOS

But since that phone is my compatibility guinea pig, is it likely I'll still run into an app that demands unmodded Android with no alternatives? In your experience, has any bank or other service required the app on regular Android, with no alternative for the desktop, browser, etc?

I'm having issues and I think it's because I ran out of credit, but for the life of me I cannot figure out where to go to pay them. I'm using cheogram

I have my respect for GrapheneOS for addressing the Play Integrity API issue.

I get spammed by them all the time but have so far resisted and stayed with my crappy, slow, and expensive ADSL provider out of principle. But the ADSL provider just raised prices on me AGAIN and it's ridiculous.

What do I do? Is Google Fiber as invasive as other Google stuff? What if I just use it to tunnel a VPN to a non-Google endpoint?

This is sure annoying. It occurs to me that Comcrap might be available here as an alternative, but that must be as evil as Google. At least the ADSL company is reasonable about privacy, as such companies go.

Thanks for any thoughts.

Hi everyone,

First of all, I know WhatsApp doesn’t belong to Google so I’m technically in the wrong community.

Still I think getting rid of Facebook is part of the same movement.

I’ve been using Threema (and Signal/SMS a little bit) for years with all my close contacts, but I can’t fully get rid of WhatsApp as I’m part of some groups where I can’t convince/force everyone to move to Threema.

Because I was still on WhatsApp, a lot of people outside of the necessary groups thought it was okay to contact me on WhatsApp.

I had looked into ways of blocking everyone except these essential groups, but I couldn’t find anything on the web.

Now I think I’ve found the solution to prevent people outside of these necessary WhatsApp groups to write to me on WhatsApp. I had never heard of it before yesterday, but you can download a WhatsApp Business app which lets you send automated answers when people are writing to you.

So I basically just created an automated answer telling people that I’m using Threema/Signal/Sms and that I won’t answer on WhatsApp. Now I don’t have to write long messages telling people to please write to me on another app (and then these people keep writing on WhatsApp of course). So now it’s make the effort or leave me alone 😅

I still plan in ditching WhatsApp for good at one point, but it seems like a good temporary solution and, since I hadn’t found anyone suggesting this idea, I thought I would share it here to help people who have the same problem.

edit 2 - READ THIS BEFORE DECIDING: https://blog.jmp.chat/b/sms-censorship edit - which client do you all prefer? I'm just using cheogram atm

I asked you all what to use to replace Google Voice, and this was the most highly recommended, and you guys were absolutely right.

it's $5 a month for unlimited text and media messaging plus 120 minutes of calls to US&CA.

the main reason I was finally jumping ship is because of how atrocious Google Voice support is. I'm a little tech naïve when it comes to things that I've never encountered before, and the jmp.chat support guys were immediately responsive, polite, and actually helpful. there was a bug where I couldn't import my contacts, and the update had been pushed to the Play Store within 4 hours.

Cross-posted from : https://lemmy.pierre-couy.fr/post/581642

Context : Immich default map tile provider (which gets sent a bunch of PII every time you use the map feature) is a company that I see no reason to trust. This is a follow-up to this post, with the permanent temporary fix I came up with. I will also summarize the general opinion from the comments, as well as some interesting piece of knowledge that commenters shared.

Hacky fix

This will use Nginx proxy module to build a caching proxy in front of Open Street Map's tileserver and to serve a custom style.json for the maps.

This works well for me, since I already proxy all my services behind a single Nginx instance. It is probably possible to achieve similar results with other reverse proxies, but this would obviously need to be adapted.

Caching proxy

Inside Nginx's http config block (usually in /etc/nginx/nginx.conf), create a cache zone (a directory that will hold cached responses from OSM) :

nginx http { # You should not need to edit existing lines in the http block, only add the line below proxy_cache_path /var/cache/nginx/osm levels=1:2 keys_zone=osm:100m max_size=5g inactive=180d; }

You may need to manually create the /var/cache/nginx/osm directory and set its owner to Nginx's user (typically www-data on Debian based distros).

Customize the max_size parameter to change the maximum amount of cached data you want to store on your server. The inactive parameter will cause Nginx to discard cached data that's not been accessed in this duration (180d ~ 6months).

Then, inside the server block that serves your Immich instance, create a new location block :

```nginx server { listen 443 ssl; server_name immich.your-domain.tld;

# You should not need to change your existing config, only add the location block below

location /map_proxy/ { proxy_pass https://tile.openstreetmap.org/; proxy_cache osm; proxy_cache_valid 180d; proxy_ignore_headers Cache-Control Expires; proxy_ssl_server_name on; proxy_ssl_name tile.openstreetmap.org; proxy_set_header Host tile.openstreetmap.org; proxy_set_header User-Agent "Nginx Caching Tile Proxy for self-hosters"; proxy_set_header Cookie ""; proxy_set_header Referer ""; } } ```

Reload Nginx (sudo systemctl reload nginx). Confirm this works by visiting https://immich.your-domain.tld/map_proxy/0/0/0.png, which should now return a world map PNG (the one from https://tile.openstreetmap.org/0/0/0.png )

This config ignores cache control headers from OSM and sets its own cache validity duration (proxy_cache_valid parameter). After the specified duration, the proxy will re-fetch the tiles. 6 months seem reasonable to me for the use case, and it can probably be set to a few years without it causing issues.

Besides being lighter on OSM's servers, the caching proxy will improve privacy by only requesting tiles from upstream when loaded for the first time. This config also strips cookies and referrer before forwarding the queries to OSM, as well as set a user agent for the proxy following OSM foundation's guidelines (according to these guidelines, you should add a contact information to this user agent)

This can probably be made to work on a different domain than the one serving your Immich instance, but this probably requires to add the appropriate headers for CORS.

Custom style.json

I came up with the following mapstyle :

json { "version": 8, "name": "Immich Map", "sources": { "immich-map": { "type": "raster", "tileSize": 256, "tiles": [ "https://immich.your-domain.tld/map_proxy/{z}/{x}/{y}.png" ] } }, "sprite": "https://maputnik.github.io/osm-liberty/sprites/osm-liberty", "glyphs": "https://fonts.openmaptiles.org/{fontstack}/{range}.pbf", "layers": [ { "id": "raster-tiles", "type": "raster", "source": "immich-map", "minzoom": 0, "maxzoom": 22 } ], "id": "immich-map-dark" }

Replace immich.your-domain.tld with your actual Immich domain, and remember the absolute path you save this at.

One last update to nginx's config

Since Immich currently does not provide a way to manually edit style.json, we need to serve it from http(s). Add one more location block below the previous one :

nginx location /map_style.json { alias /srv/immich/mapstyle.json; }

Replace the alias parameter with the location where you saved the json mapstyle. After reloading nginx, your json style will be available at https://immich.your-domain.tld/map_style.json

Configure Immich to use this

For this last part, follow steps 8, 9, 10 from this guide (use the link to map_style.json for both light and dark themes). After clearing the browser or app's cache, the map should now be loaded from your caching proxy. You can confirm this by tailing Nginx's logs while you zoom and move around the map in Immich

Summary of comments from previous post

Self-hosting a tile server is not realistic in most cases

People who have previously worked with maps seem to confirm that there are no tile server solution lightweight enough to be self hosted by hobbyists. There is maybe some hope with generating tiles on demand, but someone with deep knowledge of the file formats involved in the process should confirm this.

Some interesting links were shared, which seem to confirm this is not realistically self-hostable with the available software :

• OSM Foundation's policy on using their tile server
• Switch2OSM
• https://wiki.openstreetmap.org/wiki/Sequentially-generate-planet-mbtiles

General sentiment about this issue

In all this part, I want to emphasize that while there seems to be a consensus, this is only based on the few comments from the previous post and may be biased by the fact that we're discussing it on a non-mainstream platform. If you disagree with anything below, please comment this post and explain your point of view.

• Nobody declared that they had noticed the requests to a third-party server before
• A non-negligible fraction of Immich users are interested in the privacy benefits over other solutions such as Google photos. These users do not like their self-hosted services to send requests to third-party servers without warning them first
• The fix should consist of the following :
  • Clearly document the implications of enabling the map, and any feature that sends requests to third parties
  • Disable by default features that send requests to third parties (especially if it contains any form of geolocated data)
  • Provide a way to easily change the tile provider. A select menu with a few pre-configured style.json would be nice, along with a way to manually edit style.json (or at least some of its fields) directly from the Immich config page

Hi folks,

I recently migrated to GrapheneOS and am happy with all the open-source, privacy centric apps except for navigation. In my region, OSM has limited mapping data for places, businesses, and landmarks. I contribute whenever I can, but often I can't find the place I need and have to rely on someone else using Google Maps for navigation.

I tried using Google Maps in the browser, but live navigation isn't available. I used to pre-plan routes on Google Maps on my PC, get the coordinates, and input them into OSM. However, that process was very tedious.

Today, I learned that I can use the "Share Place" feature of Google Maps Web. Among the share options - I can use OsmAnd~ to directly open that place in the OsmAnd~ navigation app.

I was about to give in and install the Google Maps app, but then I stumbled upon this feature. Many of you might already know of this feature, but I didn't, and I'm really happy that such feature exists.

Nevertheless, I'd still request OSM users to keep contributing places. So that we would not even have to rely on the browser based Google Maps.

Not exactly a DeGoogle guide, but I believe it might help transitioning.

https://beta.maps.apple.com/

It doesn’t seem to support Firefox or mobile browsers, at least not.

Maps on the web is compatible with these web browsers >On your Mac or iPad >- Safari >- Edge >- Chrome > >On your Windows PC >- Edge >- Chrome

fuck these guys

As if you need any more reason to degoogle, consider what would happen if Google removed you from their platform tomorrow. This article some of the problems with putting all your eggs in one basket.