Hey everyone,
I’ve been thinking a lot about how to help my parents reduce their reliance on American Big Tech (Google, Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Microsoft, etc.). They’re not tech-savvy, and I don’t want to overwhelm them or make them feel like I’m forcing a radical change. At the same time, I’m concerned about privacy, data collection, and the monopolistic practices of these companies.
Any ideas? First of all I thought about ecosia, I see that it returns more similar results to google than Qwant.
I want to buy them Threema licence.
I installed Le Chat as chatgpt replacement, moved some documents to Synology Nas
What’s next?
Had to look this up, but there is this saying that might help you:
“If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up the men to gather wood, divide the work, and give orders. Instead, teach them to yearn for the vast and endless sea.” – Antoine de Saint-Exupéry
This is a tricky thing to do. I’d say start with yourself. On your journey you will find what could be interesting to which family member. All of them doesn’t have to migrate at the same time with the same product.
Small steps is always easier to take.
I say Linux first.
My mom relies on office documents. We wanted replace office with libreoffice and that was painful for her :(
I gave her laptop with libreoffice and she still prefered to use old laptop with old office license
Yeah that’s tough. Libreoffice is definitely not polished. Two solutions, 1) you can fiddle with the settings to make it look and act more like MS office . With the ribbon instead of the drop-down etc. 2) You can run old office versions for free using Wine. From what I hear, haven’t done it myself.
Focus on the future, not the past.
Let your parents live like they used to, since they are probably not really impacted much anyway (until we are all impacted). Focus on teaching your kids who a) understand tech much more and b) will teach the next generations.
They are impacted more than you think. My mom uses chat gpt more often than I did.
Facebook, messenger, google as default browser and search engine. Even when she search for something she chooses „google” app instead of browser Google Chrome- so its harder to switch her to ecosia ;)
I see how much crap my dad and mom watch from facebook stories. Misinformation is on the other level there… (talking from Poland perspective, we have russian propaganda in our socials)
Switching to Signal for family group chat is an easy move, as it’s the same user experience than Whatsapp. Note: it’s american but not GAFAM (open source and non-profit).