So, I swapped to SoundCloud from any other platform, because other platfroms suck and on SoundCloud I get more art made by humans rather than corporate slop, or at least that's my goal. I'm not big on music, so I'm fresh in the platform, but it's easier for me to find anything new than it was before, and I hate the "same old".
I also got Droidify to replace the apps I can with non-corporate, as Google started pushing their ads in all the default apps they provide (I wish that was illegal - fuck the fucking ads in the gallery app).
I wanted to delete Linkedin, but I found myself forced to use it, as I am job seeking, and it's sadly the best platform for job offers (still bad, but job websites are fucking terrible). I wish it had an option to opt out of the social media part.
I moved to Proton, but that was a while ago. Outlook and Gmail suck.
I also swapped to Firefox a while ago after using Vivaldi, because fuck Google.
I am personally not a privacy oriented person, but the way big corpos are moving to major enshittification due to acknowledging own market domination is stark. I also don't like corpo slop (e.g. music), so I appreciate being able to find man-made art.
And on that topic, I abadonned Google search for Ecosia, because fuck Google's AI bullshit.
My de-corpoing is a very loosely applied term, as you see.
Oh, and obviously I abadonned Reddit a while ago.
I wish I could switch from Gmail but I’m pretty deeply entrenched. I’ve had my account since I was like, 14 or some shit, and I’ve used it to register for just about everything, including IRL stuff. I rely on it a lot. Bleh.
Proton has linking Gmail to it as a setup step, so you could have everything seamlessly forwarded.
I'm running into an issue with proton where half of websites won't allow me to set up an account with it, presumably because it isn't tied to an actual phone number which would allow anonymity
Oh yea, it happens. I don't think it's about phone number or even security reasons, although they cite as proton getting used by scummy people. They prosecute people for not being pawns of big corpos imo.
If you're stuck using discord, you could try some FOSS frontends like Vesktop for desktop and Aliucord for android.
Phone is running GrapheneOS. I only use Droidify and Aurora Store for a few things, no Google or proprietary apps or anything with trackers.
Proton account handles my email, cloud, calendar, and VPN. VPN runs on everything with killswitch.
All my accounts are managed with Bitwarden.
Use Aegis for 2FA.
My personal computer is running PopOS.
Firefox has always been my browser. Mull on Android.
Spotube and Newpipe or Invidious for streaming things, otherwise qbitTorrent.
Searx is my default search engine on everything.
I don't have any social media at all with the exception of Lemmy/Hexbear.
But I'm not perfect.
Bought my Pixel phones through Google instead of buying it used or whatever.
I still use Amazon, only recently started during the start of the pandemic for some things but now I order everything for my older mom so she doesn't have to pay for a separate account so I'm not leaving it anytime soon.
My work computer runs Windows and, of course, everything we use is Google or some other shitty tech company so I have a huge footprint that way.
Probably other things I'm missing. It's all a journey and it takes a long time. No one wakes up into perfect digital security/privacy and it all depends on different profiles and needs. There's probably still a lot I need to do that I'll learn about later and slowly incorporate. Oh, and I have a YubiKey I've meant to start using but haven't got around to it.
Also, I installed Elon Musk's chip in my brain. Epic.
Just got an external hard drive to de-cloudify my backups
Chrome -> Firefox, Firefox also doesn’t take up half my RAM for seemingly no reason like Chrome does
I've finally figured out how to self host without fucking up bigly and have been taking advantage of that. So far I''m hosting photoprism for image and video cloud storage, vaultwarden for passwords and TOTPs, and syncthing (technically doesn't need to be self hosted as it is peer to peer, but hosting it makes it so there's a node always accessible to my other computers).
I also recently flashed CR Droid onto my phone to replace the stock android OS on there. I fucked up during the process and accidentally bricked my phone, but I figured out how to unbrick it and now it's fine.
I tried to get my friends to move from GroupMe to a matrix server I set up but they refuse.
I convinced some people to switch to matrix but it was a massive issue because the way it handles keys is insane. Now I have lost my credibility so far as suggesting software alternatives is concerned.
One thing I did recently was switch my phone keyboard to Thumb-key. When my computer's working again I'm going to switch it over to Linux Mint. I've been watching more PeerTube lately, mainly through NewPipe.
I'm a big Mint hater for no proper reason, so I'm just gonna recommend ZorinOS.
I hate Mint because imo it looks shitty to a point where if I installed it on a random non-tech's person who is used to W10/W11/Mac system, they'd get put off Linux. I am quite vain and beauty oriented though.
Can't you just... Change the icons or something? I mean, I don't have a problem with the way Mint looks out of the box, but I'd imagine that for those who do, it doesn't take much to change it to something more appealing.
They (the people being recommended to) are just coming to linux and don't think about computers being so adaptable. They want a first impression that is already superior to windows or they will dismiss it as just a toy for nerds. Zorin holds your hand a bit with several themes and ready to use layouts it specifically introduces you to.
People are visual animal. I also prefer introducing Zorin for new Linux user from Win/Mac, official supported theme so you don't have to worry about update + theme/icon mismatch or not fit as a whole.
F-Droid. Not as extensively as I want, but I've gotten a few apps off of there instead of the Play Store.
Various Linux distros. Currently using Debian as my daily driver.
GIMP and Darktable instead of photoshop. I liked photoshop for some basic photo editing, but the subscription model is scummy and as I've used GIMP and Darktable more and more over the years I decided to cancel my Adobe subscription.
Firefox as other have mentioned.
Fairmail as my email client. I use Proton for one of my email accounts, but I should really get serious about replacing outlook as its my primary email service.
Phonograph is a FOSS music player that I use for my locally stored music. Been thinking of buying more CDs to have as part of my collection. Most of my music is digital.
Have left all the big socials and use Mastodon & Hexbear only. Degoogled up to YT which I only watch in duckgoduck browser because my mind breaks from the ads. I really wish there was a real alternative for it for all the craft and politics stuff. Have switched to Firefox, DuckGoDuck and OpenStreetMap. Deleted all my fitness tracker data too and looked up an opensource tracker for my hiking. Email is now Proton. Messaging app has been Telegram for years now.
Stopped buying crap from Amazon, but fell for Temu instead, I am telling myself that is better as it doesn't fund Israel.
Tried to move away from Spotify and tried Tidal, but that didn't stick yet.
I have also stopped reading mainstream news as it is all the same warmongering and corpo crap sprinkled with social justice, I have taken my clicks to independent news sites and blogs and local newspapers. I still see all the worst takes on social media, but my mental health is better when I don't daily look at all the crap they are pushing into the world.
Took all my everyday shopping back to the only big co-operative shop we have, have also used that as my bank for years now. It's still a big corp, but it is customer owned. Been getting produce from a small local farmers market type deal for years when I can afford it and also sold stuff there myself, but when I can't we co-op shop.
Stopped paying for all the streaming services like Prime, Netflix etc. Honestly mostly because none of it is all that good anymore to me. I watch our tax paid national brodcaster stuff and read more again. I would go back to torrents if I didn't do work in a field where anything like that puts me in trouble if I get careless.
Also trying to use things and repair them as long as I can, poverty lessons I am glad I never unlearn. I fixed a broken laptop hinge that you can't get spare parts for by putting screws through it and it has worked like that for two more years now.
I wish there was a phone choice that was affordable and free from the corpo bs.
Linux I have been meaning to get into, but since my studies are all office365 shenanigans I am still procrastinating on it.
Back in the day when OpenOffice was all I ever used was a mindset I never should have left behind. Same with Firefox which is where I came to Chrome from back when all the tech bros hyped Chrome, oh boy did we listen to tech bros way too much once upon a time.
I was extremely triggered by all the enshittification the other day when a website just announced to me it will now "personalize" my experience with "AI" without real consent. I was told I can opt out whenever I want, but I sure couldn't easily find that option anywhere. This was a website that most definitely needs no "AI" nor benefits from "AI", but they are still just doing it because everyone is. It feels like a clown show that we can't opt out from.
Degoogled up to YT which I only watch in duckgoduck browser because my mind breaks from the ads
Firefox + uBlock Origin works for me on YT without ads.
Temu is cool. Amazon does shit ton of drop shipping from Asian stores at extortionate prices. Temu makes repairing my apartment affordable.
I think so too. It's the same stuff that Amazon sells literally, but a lot more affordable and also better delivery options, a lot cheaper. I also prefer the money going to the sellers who make this stuff in China rather than to Amazon, but not sure how fair Temu is to their sellers as they too aren't all that transparent about it. But looking at the moral panic it is causing in the West I will buy from there if just out of spite. Buying my plant pots straight(er) from the commies does make me feel better, misplaced as that may be.
With Amazon, even if Temu isn't fair to the sellers, Amazon is doing the same while turning profit for the western oligarchs, so I still 100% think choosing the Chinese services is the morally better choice. It never even crossed my mind to buy plant pots there. But I won't have housing for much longer, so I'm only buying cleaning and renovation supplies atm to try to get as much deposit back as possible. ^ ^'
Oh and have to say that ditching Google photos and using their totally shitty takeout system with thousands upon thousands of photos to take out was an experience I want for no-one. It also made me a lot more aware of how much data crap I have accumulated sort of mindlessly over the years.
Deleting seven million blurry images, shitty selfies and json.files and sorting the pictures that are actually worth keeping to physical drives and I am forever fixed from littering my phone with photos that just upload somewhere without me thinking about it.
Oh joy I just bought a hard drive to do exactly that
Oh my, much solidarity. But once you get it done, it's done. It really does affirm the "never again" mindset with cloud services as a bonus.
firefox lets you keep several search engines on hand
right click the toolbar and select "Customize"
if you add a designated search bar, it will let you add various search engines to the roster when you're on the webpage (the magnifying glass changes colour and gets a little plus+ symbol)
you can start typing something in it and press TAB to cycle through which search to use
I usually use https://duckduckgo.com/ or https://yandex.com/ though i also added stuff like ebay or the minecraft wiki for quick access as needed. I even keep google and bing on hand, just in case. https://www.jstor.org/ is good for academic journals, although it's paywalled (and i can't get firefox to recognize as an engine, oh well). Most schools and some library systems have contracts with it, so you may already have access.
Jumping on the search engine reccomendation train, SearXNG is really good. I use etsi.me (not to be confused with etsy) as my instance of choice as it is both close enough to keep response times low and has good uptime.
As part of weaning myself off of Spotify for good I recently tried out Soulseek on my last VPN monthly credit and it fucking rules lol
Also a bunch of indie bands I liked turned out to have flacs available for free on bandcamp, I could have been listening in HQ the whole time
Personally, I've been burned by corporate fucking around so much that using and getting in any way invested in anything that Isn't foss feels like I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop. I'd rather invest my learning "spoons" in something I can be sure will be there tomorrow.
It also takes power away from them if people have an alternative that they can bail to.
I like SoundCloud for my trap fix, but I find the ads annoying and I’m on iOS so no FOSS alternatives or reliable cracks.
I haven't had a single ad yet. I didn't even know there were any. 😅
Are you getting the thing where you can't seek around in a soundcloud file anymore? When I try it asks me to log in.
Really sucks for podcasts when you're half way through and the browser crashes or something.
I have an account with it so I never experienced that. It wouldn’t surprise me if they did demand it
