Degoogle + BuyFromEU + Privacy: I’d like to share about my smartphone apps replacement journey:
WhatsApp -> Olvid
Gmail -> Mailo
Reddit -> Lemmy
Play store -> Aurora store (no account needed)
Google (browser and search engine) -> Qwant
Google maps -> Here Wego
Gboard -> Heliboard
All trails -> Komoot
ChatGPT -> LeChat
Any recommendation to replace the following?
- Google Drive,
- Google photo,
- Apple wallet (I’d like an alternative to pay with my phone)
I switched from DuckDuckGo to Qwant a week ago and so far I’m happy with it. I’m in the US and it does a great job returning search results that are relevant to me here, even though it’s intended for people in Europe.
I also switched from Gmail to Posteo, ChatGPT to Le Chat and Firefox to Waterfox.
I plan to replace Google Drive with Nextcloud, sometime in the next few months when I have the time to set it up.
Google Maps will be the hardest to replace. I’ve tried 8 or so competitors and they all pale in comparison.
Olvid
That looks very closed-source, even though it’s French. How did you decide to pick that?
- Their encryption system user to user which is the most robust.
- Total anonymity (no phone number to give unlike all their competitors.
- I tried it with my friends and family and we likes the app.
no phone number to give unlike all their competitors.
SimpleX would like a word.
Fair enough!
Tech sovereignty is possible!
Agreed!
I’ll also share mine.
Gmail -> Tuta
Reddit -> Lemmy
Google -> SearXNG (several search engines)
Google Maps -> Organic Maps
Gboard -> FUTO Keyboard
ChatGPT -> LeChat
Google Drive -> Syncthing + Filen.io
Google Photos -> Filen.io (I’ll be switching to Immich + Syncthing soon-ish) + Fossify Gallery
Google Wallet -> MBWay (obviously this doesn’t work if you’re not in Portugal)
Uber -> Bolt
Play Store -> ObtainiumStill working on the rest.
Notes:
I’ll be switching off Filen.io soon and just use Syncthing. Nothing wrong with Filen.io (it’s really good, as a matter of fact), but I just don’t really need it with my setup. I was trying to replace Google Drive 1-to-1, but turns out Syncthing is just strictly better, for my use-case. I also created an Infomaniak Mail account, and it works great; I just prefer Tuta.Dear, thank you so much for sharing your experience! Comparing yours and mine It feels not only we have solutions but we also have choice among several options!
I’ll look at what you’re proposing for cloud service and play store replacement! Also I haven’t heard of SearXNG before…!
Magic Earth is also a nice navigation alternative.
Thanks, I’ll give it a try!
I replaced google drive with koofr. Very happy so far! Still unsure what I’m doing about Google wallet/Google pay…
How are Heliboard and Here Wego?
Heliboard is awesome. FOSS, very customizable, no telemetry, and all the keyboard tools you can think of.
Swiping is still a hard to install binary blob?
Sorry could you elaborate? Or was your comment made using the autofill functionality of heliboard?
I think they’re talking about the fact that the glide typing functionality depends on a closed-source library
That’s right. That’s the feature I’d really like to see a free as in freedom implementation for.
Ah sorry didn’t get that and didn’t know about this.
I think you’d like to take a look at Florisboard. It has an exeprimental glide typing engine that you can enable in the settings.
Did you change your OS?
Hi I did not because I have a neurological condition that make any use of regular LCD or OLED screen quite painful for me, so I need to have a special phone using Eink technology with an OS developed for that purpose.
What about OSMand as navigation? Are they based in EU?
Always missing an alternative to Slack. This is getting ridiculous.
Have you considered Zulip?
Zulip is the same as Mattermost, open source but still American. I am not able to check source code, so I need it made by people I have common incentives with.
Whaller is closed source, but it is French and aimed at institutions which require high levels of security.
I was considering my personal phone only as I don’t have the hand on what my company uses but I’m sure there are some alternatives to Slack and Microsoft Teams. I only know about https://whaller.com/en but I’m sure there are others.
I like the idea of Whaller. But I would also love to have a non-US-developed open source solution (thinking about Mattermost).
Whaller is French not american! Mattermost seems nice too indeed!
I was saying Mattermost is open source, but still American and recently they changed their homepage to appeal to the American military, so no thank you.
If tech for you means software, then yes, you can decouple from global supply chains with relative ease.
If, however, you look into some other areas of tech a different picture emerges. Global dependencies especially in semiconductors are much deeper. Products built from such components are the same. Decoupling in those domains would be significantly more difficult.
I feel you but although we’re not chip producers, we have some of the key players such as ASML in NL, clearly they’re just the main player in that field.
