Honestly, even as an American (from California - a rare state of sanity in this damn country), I’ve been moving to de-google and move away from stuff like reddit for months now at this point. Especially since user data requests by our federal government (and likely other world governments) are an open secret that these companies can’t really refuse.
I deleted my google account and moved all of my youtube activity onto Grayjay (since it doesn’t require any account and any saved “subscriptions” are stored on your device locally), maybe that could be an option for you? They even have a desktop client now :)
I use FreeTube on my computer. I also have some YouTube channels that I download to my computer and host there to download / watch on my phone through Jellyfin (and use Patreon to give money to those channels). I I still end up on YouTube from my phone.
I still have a few issues with apps like Freetube / Grayjay though:
It’s still YouTube. So it’s still a monopoly when it comes to many signals that indicate the platform is doing something inappropriate and it is an arms race with YouTube allowing these UIs to keep working. I suspect YouTube has enough lock in that they would invest in breaking these UIs over changing many issues users have. I think that only changes when creators cross post to other platforms and then they need to be able to make enough money for that to be worth it.
I also, for now, still use an iPhone and most of these apps aren’t in the app store. (I have Invidious as a quick search in the browser but it frequently doesn’t work.) I’m toying with switching next time I buy and then my main focuses would probably be the camera and security.
Honestly, even as an American (from California - a rare state of sanity in this damn country), I’ve been moving to de-google and move away from stuff like reddit for months now at this point. Especially since user data requests by our federal government (and likely other world governments) are an open secret that these companies can’t really refuse.
Glad to see y’all on the same path :)
Yeah, YouTube and Google Earth are my main holdouts. I use PeerTube and OSM but there are still gaps
I deleted my google account and moved all of my youtube activity onto Grayjay (since it doesn’t require any account and any saved “subscriptions” are stored on your device locally), maybe that could be an option for you? They even have a desktop client now :)
I use FreeTube on my computer. I also have some YouTube channels that I download to my computer and host there to download / watch on my phone through Jellyfin (and use Patreon to give money to those channels). I I still end up on YouTube from my phone.
I still have a few issues with apps like Freetube / Grayjay though: