4d ago

DEGOOGLE MEGATHREAD

*� Google Search

Leta
4get
Searxng
Kagi

*� Gmail

ProtonMail
Tutanota
Mailbox

*� Chrome

Librewolf
Brave Browser
Mullvad Browser
Vivaldi - partially open source
Floorp

📱 Android Custrom ROMS

GrapheneOS
Calyx 3. /e/OS

☁️ Google Drive

Nextcloud (self hosted)
Filen
Syncthing
Proton Drive

🗺️ Google Maps

OSMAnd
Mapy
Organic Maps

*� Google Docs / Sheets / Slides

CryptPad
LibreOffice
OnlyOffice
Collabra

*� YouTube

PeerTube
Piped
Indivious

*� Google Photos

Ente photos
Nextcloud Photos
Immich

*� Google Translate

DeepL
LibreTranslate

*� Google Calendar

Proton Calendar
Nextcloud Calendar (self hosted)
Tuta Calendar

*� Google Play

F‑Droid
Aurora Store

*� Google Meet

Jitsi Meet
Nextcloud Talk
Signal

*� Google Authenticator

Ente auth
andOTP
Aegis Authenticator
Bitwarden

note: do not use the same provider for password manager and authenticator

*�️ Google Keep

Standard Notes
Joplin
Notesnook

*�Google Messages

Signal
Theerma
Session

⚙️ChromeOS

Linux mint
Debian
PopOS

*�️Google Passwords (baked into chrome)

Bitwarden
KeePass

*�Google books

Libby

*�YouTube Music

Qobuz
Tidal
Deezer

*�Gemini

Duck.ai
Le chat (opt out of data sending) - protected by eu privacy laws
Ollama (self hosted)

*�Lens Wip 🚧

*�Google pay Wip 🚧

✔️Google tasks

Tasks.org

*�Google news

Host your own rss feed reader eg Readrops

*�‍🏫Google classroom Wip 🚧

*�Google VPN

Mullvad
ProtonVPN - free plan
IVPN

I am open to any suggestions or to add an services I missed! Suggestions are especially welcome on services with less than three current options

87 comments

Is Cryptpad really the best docs alternative? I'm looking for something to replace docs, it's one of the last things I need to degoogle.
- I tried it and it’s pretty good. I don’t know about storage limits or anything like that, but it gets the job done.

Some of those suggestions are not exactly degoogling, in the strictest sense. If you're just going to keep using Google services but through a different frontend, you are not freeing yourself from Google.
That's not to say piped and invidious and Aurora and so on aren't worth using if you absolutely cannot wean yourself away from Google entirely. It's a step in the right direction, certainly.
Still, it might be nice to label those suggestions differently in a list like this, for clarity.

If you're degoogling to reduce google's influence in the world, not just in your life, you should avoid chromium based browsers entirely. Google's chromium web rendering engine dominates most web traffic, and is squeezing out all alternatives. This leaves defining web standards in the hands of google pretty much exclusively. Vivaldi and Brave should be avoided for this reason. Brave founder Brendan Eich donates to funds seeking to undo gay marriage protections in the US and other reactionary causes, if that matters to you (it should).

Wouldn't really recommend threema and would include SimpleX
- Why not?
  
  Based around a company

Everything you need and more if you have a bit of time and an old laptop or two.
https://github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted
Some of these you can use through public hosted servers too.
- Wow! These are great. I'm going to have to try out minusgames. I've just been using syncthing.
  
  I run a lot of these on the background of my desktop too and you can flip them off if they're too intensive and you want to game or something. Self hosting is a little tedious to start but it saves so much money lol.

As an email provider there is also posteo which is a nice email provider from germany that costs only 1 € a month. And with posteo and mailbox you can use 3rd party email clients which is not something you can do on proton or tuta.

For those of you who want to dump music streaming entirely and go back to audio files Symphony is an open source music player on Android.
- another option if you want a hybrid is host a jellyfin instance with your music youbcan even install a lrclib plugin and get pretty good lyrics
  
  Oh? Self hosted music streaming? Thats neat as fucc

Aren't Brave and Vivaldi supposed to have blue bullet instead of yellow?

Bitwarden also makes an OTP authenticator app.
- It has TOTP built-in for paid accounts.
  
  I'm not paying them, and I have their authenticator app. It's a free download from the app store.

Cryptpad for a Drive/Online Office Suite replacement, it's fantastic
- Just started using this. It’s free (for a small amount of storage) and super private. Like so private that if you forget your password, your data is lost forever.

I like Firefox Sync. What are my options when moving to Librewolf?
- You can continue using it.
  https://librewolf.net/docs/faq/#can-i-use-firefox-sync-with-librewolf-is-it-safe-to-do-so

Most KeePass clients have built-in OTP support too. That being said I still prefer Aegis.

Threema (not Therma)
- Thanks. It’s updated now
  
  closer
  edit: Threema started as an abbreviation: “EEEMA,” for “End-to-End Encrypted Messaging Application.” The three “E”s were a bit unwieldy, so it became “Threema.”

Do alternatives like Invidious and Piped really work? I'm skeptical because it seems like YouTube doesn't want users to have a privacy-focused viewing experience.
I think PeerTube is a great platform, but it lacks enough content to keep me engaged. Quitting YouTube is challenging, especially since I’ve become more aware of online privacy thanks to some privacy-focused YouTubers. However, many of these creators haven't transitioned to platforms like PeerTube.
For example, while some creators like The Hated One and Mental Outlaw have switched to Linux, they still primarily use YouTube.
There are many FOSS services available, but most still rely on big tech. I'm not saying that's inherently bad, but it does highlight how limited our options can be.
- I initially had problems with Piped, but I've been using PipePipe for ages and have never had an issue.

Any iOS alternative to Google Tasks?
- Maybe anytype
- After further inspection, I would recommend Joplin for most private
  
  Thanks for your tips :-) I have been trying both Anytype and Joplin, and might use either, but they seem to be primarly note apps not task/todo/reminder/list/priority apps.
  Your first links looked interesting, so I will do some research on them.
- https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/everdo-gtd-and-to-do-list/id1460386981
- https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/to-do-list-by-minimalist-task/id993066159
- Maybe omni focus?
- Maybe a Joplin? Sorry this is a kinda half arsed andwer I’ll be back with a better one in a mo

I would add
Proton Drive
Proton Pass
To the Google Drive and Google Passwords areas.
Proton Drive also has the ability to view pictures it has backed up, but because everything is encrypted, they can't really sort them into buckets like you can with Google Photos.

Vivaldi and brave are just chrome.
- While Vivaldi offers a unique browsing experience, I believe Brave provides even more features and enhancements compared to both Chrome and standard Firefox. It focuses on privacy and performance, which many users find beneficial.

Floorp mentioned!

Alternative to google search engine, Kagi
- Just a PSA about Kagi: https://snoo.habedieeh.re/r/ukraine/comments/1gvcqua/psa_the_kagi_search_engine_directly_funds_yandex/
  DuckDuckGo has suspended its partnership with Yandex in 2022. https://www.vox.com/recode/22981115/duckduckgo-free-speech-privacy-oops
  
  Why is that a problem exactly?
  Is it just because they're Russian?
  Are there some dots I'm not connecting?

Someone please help me find a browser that has the Chromium gestures.
I want o be able to pull the URL bar down to go into the tab selection screen and pull the page down to refresh, and all the Firefox based browsers are so different it drives me crazy and I go back to chrome or brave.
- Brave I think If not then ungoogled chromium

Would it be better to replace Gemini with a local model run through ollama or something?
- Yes, but unless you have god hardware it won’t be a direct replacement ):

For news/RSS feed I've been using Readrops that is available in Fdroid https://f-droid.org/packages/com.readrops.app
- I've been using Feeder for RSS and am fairly happy.
  I wish there was a way to group articles by topic. At the moment I have to scroll through pages of articles about the Pope's death.

Might also add Collabora, it's libreoffice, but allows online collaboration and has the nicest integration into nextcloud, imo.
- It is paid and/or open source
  
  It is free and open source. https://github.com/CollaboraOnline/online
  Download via F-Droid needs additional repository: https://www.collaboraoffice.com/downloads/fdroid/repo/?fingerprint=573258C84E149B5F4D9299E7434B2B69A8410372921D4AE586BA91EC767892CC
  "NOTE: main server is offline, you’ll see the message that you’ll add a mirror, that’s expected. To make it skip the main server, open repo details and toggle off first collaboraonline.com entry." (https://forum.f-droid.org/t/known-repositories/721)

I’ve been looking at https://www.openphone.com/ as an alternative to Google Voice. It’s not free (but that may be a bonus), but it does let you port your GV number into their system.
$19/mo.
It’s the closest I’ve found to a replacement. I’d love to hear anyone else who uses something similar.
- If you don't need the business features, I use jmp.chat for $5 a month.
  
  ~~Can you transfer in your Google Voice number? I don’t want to lose it.~~
  You can also port your current USA or Canada number in to JMP after signing up with a temporary number from above.
  Looks like a good alternative. Thanks for the suggestion.
- The only thing I use Google Voice for is being able to reply to text messages on a browser. Is there something I can use for that?
  
  Futo keyboard has voice to text with the ability to download more language models
  
  I guess I should have said why I’m considering them.
  https://updates.openphone.com/introducing-the-openphone-web-app-133882
  Looks like they’ve had web based messaging since 2020.
  
  \
  \
  \
  \ My main use for Google Voice is as a filter for places that need my number. Then it’s not ringing my phone (unless I want to).
  I did also make sure any alternatives I’m considering do messaging. Even better if it’s both in browser and in phone app.
- Can anyone vouch for this? Is it open source? What is it’s privacy policy
  
  https://www.openphone.com/privacy
  I’d love opinions on it, too. Or alternatives.
- Looks good! I’ll add it to the list. Google voice and google pay are by far the hardest to replace
- @Zachariah @lopar49 I used Openphone a few years ago, and it was terrible. Lots of SMS never came through, didn't work for OTPs (even though they claimed it would), terrible customer service. Despite it being more complex technically, JMP.Chat is much, much better.
  
  Thanks for the input. I’m saw it looked a bit more complex, but that shouldn’t be a problem for me. I’d much prefer something reliable.

Nice. Notesnook is great for sync between pc and phone, but I don't know the others. Thanks!

Seafile as a Google Drive/Dropbox replacement. You can self host but they also offer paid accounts I think.

Is there a graphene option for is broke folk? I'd love to move away from android but it only works on phones I can't afford.
- lineage os has a pretty extensive device support or in theroy you could compile base android with none of the spookieness or bloat.
- Pixel 7a is still supported for 3ish more years and can be had refurbished for like $200. Still a solid phone as well. My daily driver.
- I guess pixel 9a would be the best choice or a supported older model

87 comments