Digital Independence

This is a great list and thanks for posting it.
Also, the pixelfed guy needs to give up full control of his project (no matter how nicely or reasonably he argues "not yet"). I have asked on mastodon and nobody seems to know of anyone else who truly understands the project so if he dies or gets disappeared the project... Dies? Maybe? More concerningly, it isn't open source. He cotes good reasons for this (the massive labor to refactor and whatever else goes into open sourcing a functioning project), but he also occasionally humblebrags about being offered huge sums of money to sell it to corporations. I suspect it will become corporate at some point if he doesn't open source it soon.

I keep seeing different versions of this and instead of posting spinoffs of it, why don't we have one central repository that we keep promoting and improving. This would make it easier and easier for normal people to adopt new and privacy conscious solutions.

Nice to see Matrix's Element client on there. Has definitely become my go-to and even managed to get friends, family, and my gaming community on there, replacing Discord entirely
Don't get the EU flag though, we should be pushing for global sovereign alternatives. Thos could indicate the inverse in that these applications/platforms are not useable outside EU which is incorrect, and unfortunate.
- Oh very cool! I whish my board game community would move from discord too, but for now it seems too much to ask.

I really appreciate this list and use lots of applications like this but I would find it impossible to complety replace YouTube with PeerTube.
- I understand that and agree with you, but I still post on it and try to watch it to some degree just to help build up some momentum.

I really don't like charts with one option. Digital independence is about choice. Linux Mint or Debian? Matrix or Signal?
I use most of the things on this list, but the key is to not bias. It's like those Lemmy app lists where the author features the one they use at the top.

https://lukakopajtic.com/independence/

Thunderbird is just a mail app, not a mail provider.
- Gmail is a mail app, not only a mail provider ^^
  
  While true in a technical sense, you're gonna confuse everyone with this....
  
  Sure, but I mean if we're going there, it's not a very popular mail app by comparison to Apple and Window's default built-in mail clients/they should be in the graphic alongside Gmail.

I don’t think Thunderbird is a direct alternative to Gmail. The best alternative is to own your own domain name and use your own email server, but that’s really impractical for most people. At the very least, owning your own domain name that you use for your email is way better than relying on a service that locks you in with their own domain name.
It’s not super easy to set that up, but it’s easier than most people probably think it is. A service with imap support will let you take all your old email with you if you switch providers.
My own email service, Port87, doesn’t have custom domain support or imap, but I’m working to add both of those features. Any service you use should have both of those if you want to be independent.
- Having your own Domain with Email is the hardest thing you can do.
  Literally all Email Services will literally block you except you somehow manage a good Domain. No, I am not talking about the Spam folder. They will not even let that Email in.
  
  Yep. You are 100% right about that. It’s the best thing to be independent, but it’s so fucking hard because we’ve all just let these big email providers take away this wonderful system from us.
  That’s why I’m super picky about which blocklists I use for my own email service. If a blocklist charges for removing your IP, or even if they make you jump through unreasonable hoops, I refuse to use them.
  I also have to check regularly to make sure my own IPs aren’t on any lists. Apple is the worst, because they use a blocklist provider that has terrible communication and service unless you pay a huge subscription fee.
  (One point though, it’s not the domain that goes on the blocklist, it’s the IP address of the SMTP server. You can use a custom domain name with most providers, then you’re using their SMTP servers, so their IP addresses. If you’re unhappy with them, it’s pretty easy to switch providers for your domain, then you get to keep the same email addresses.)
- I've never hosted anything outside my home. Aren't there services that are basically 3rd party Docker hosts for which you could run some kind of email container? Preferably not one of the big three, otherwise why leave Gmail?
  
  Specifically email is not difficult to host because of the technical burdens but because of the black and whitelisting of the big players. Often your server IP address happens to be put on a black list without your fault and then you can write an email to Microsoft or Google and say 'pretty please remove my IP address from your blacklist' and they just don't answer because they're swamped with requests like that and they need to check each one manually or something and then suddenly you can't email to 80% of the email addresses in the world for months.
  
  Yeah, you can rent a virtual host and set up an email server on it. You gotta make sure port 25 is unblocked, which sometimes requires payment (Azure charges for it). Otherwise, you’d wanna look for a specific email hosting provider. You also would need to make sure the public IP you get isn’t on any spam lists, which can be a huge pain in the butt.
  On my service, I specifically don’t use any spam lists that you have to pay to get off of, but a lot of places do (like Apple iCloud).

KeepassXC for password management.
- Or BitWarden, or... Many others. Single selection lists are tough.
- Good point, using that too and syncing my database with syncthing between all the devices.
  
  Worth noting that with KeePassDX, there's a compatible mobile app.

Here is my list, 15 out of 17 (while 2 are not applicable because I don't use anything like that):

I'm not sure if DuckDuckGo and TMap count because they're both just alternatives but still from big tech.
- Hmm, I wonder...does "my favourite pirate streaming service" count as avoiding big tech?
  
  yes.
  
  I just tried Stremio and found it to be hot garbage. I'll stick with torrents/Jellyfin.
- Which mail provider are you using?
  
  https://mxroute.com/
- Droid-fy is a material F-Droid client though. And it is better. DuckDuckGo is USA using Bing engine, i am still using it when unhappy with Qwant results though. They need to add more time filters.
  
  Droid-fy is a material F-Droid client though. And it is better.
  Completely agree, but I just swapped over to Obtainium and getting releases directly from Github. Highly recommend.
  
  Never heard of Droid-fy, will check it out.
- Actually this might make for a fun propaganda game: Set up a website where every person can mark, for each item on the list, whether they made the switch, so that in the end they receive a picture they can share on social media so as to engage in a low-key "competition" with their friends.

Osmand is awesome, but Organic Maps is more GMaps like.

Just for the record, Immich is made by futo, an American organization.
You can self host it on your own hardware for free to keep your files being on American servers, but it IS an American product.
This isn't to shit on futo or immich btw, immich is amazing software and futo is a great org headed by Louis Rossman, the spearhead of the American side of the right to repair movement.
Edit for clarity: I mention this because of the EU flag in the image, not because this specific post is calling it that away from American products.
- Yo I didn't know that was Louis Rossman!
- Haha, whoops, I've been using Futo Keyboard for month, (it's amazing!) not realizing that it's sponsored by the same company that also gives money to Immich, nice!
  
  Hard agree on futo keyboard. The switch is a bit rough until it learns how you type but after it's had a chance to learn it's GOOD shit

Why Linux Mint specifically, why not just Linux? Or if they want to pick a specific distro, why not Trisquel or another FSF-endorsed distro?
- why not just Linux?
  Choice paralysis is a real obstacle for casual users who don't have specific needs (e.g. anti-proprietary values) and don't want to know what a kernel or a binary blob is, we've even seen this with Lemmy and other Fediverse options. So giving a specific distro suggestion is effective for this, and then later enabling them to move to other distros if there's one more suited to them.
  Linux Mint is generally well-received by beginner users, especially those moving from Windows which is similar enough to Cinnamon. Even if it's not the ideal distro, it's one which I believe casual users are less likely to reject. Hardware is more likely to 'just work', including graphics cards and non-free codecs. Non-free software readily appears in the app store, which is important if users are still dependent on them (e.g. their hobby group only uses Discord). While I personally believe in, support and create FOSS software, I don't see how FSF-endorsement is important to the target audience, and if it risks them complaining that their NVIDIA GPU is acting weird or they're having trouble installing proprietary tools they need for work, then I'd compromise and give them the smoothest reasonably-free option possible and allow them to decide to move to another distro later when they're more familiar with Linux and how easy it is to try out distros.

Librewolf is not European at all. It's just some custom configuration of FF, which is eminently from an USA Corp. If FF dies, Librewolf dies as well. That's anything but "independence". Same goes for Vivaldi (Chromium) and any other usable browser you may think.
- Sure, that's technically true, but I think it's acceptable for this infographic's purpose.
  I don't believe a US company profits from someone using LibreWolf (unless you want to count volunteer labor if someone upstreams their contributions, which doesn't apply to most of the target audience)
  As you said, any other usable browser is going to be based on Chrome, FF or Apple tools. So what should it say? Nothing? Even if it's not perfect, I believe LibreWolf is a far better suggestion than just leaving them with a default choice like Chrome or Edge, or something unusable on sites they want to use.
  
  Whatever. Not European, so the European flag has no reason to be there.

I was about to write a criticism of this infographic then I rechecked and its been updated and fixed my concerns since I last saw it. Good job!
Edit: Okay found some issues.
Thunderbird is american. Its run by mozilla, which is a california based non-profit. So still american not EU. But also its an email client, whereas gmail is an online email service provider. There are EU based email services that should be listed instead.

90% Whatsapp and Steam are hard to ditch
- Just become a gaming hermit that only emulates PS3 games and you'll be fine.
  
  Or migrating to GOG

Now this one I can get behind!

Is there an American version of this? Or a politically agnostic version?
- What is not politically agnostic? I'm American and the list matches my own almost.
  Only differences are that I am stuck with Android because Verizon, I have Element but no connections on it, firefox instead of librewolf (bc lazy), arch-based instead of arch and I don't use/need immich and home assistant.
  
  Start with a Signal and Discord bridge, they are very stable. Later perhaps you can get WhatsApp and Telegram working. I know it doesn't bring the other people over, but it's very convenient to have them in one app on your side.
  
  The EU flag in the title suggests that they are not looking for alternatives to Big Tech dependence but anything made in America. I am not trying to avoid American tech specifically.
  
  My condolences for being stuck with Verizon. Learned the hard way that any phone originally from their network can't have its bootloader unlocked, even if the manufacturer otherwise supports it.
- This is about as politically agnostic as it gets. I don't care for some of the eurocentrism I've seen in the ongoing conversation, but it arises from concerns that other western countries are experiencing following their reliance on the increasingly-unstable american empire.