How to stay away from Google and other evil tech giants: Difference between revisions

* <img src="https://web.archive.org/web/20200111075555im_/http://auroraoss.com/logo.webp" height="16"/> **[Aurora](https://f-droid.org/packages/com.aurora.store/)** is a fork of Yalp, so it does the same, but with a different, more fancy design.

- <img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/83/The_GNU_logo.png" height="16"/> **[GNU/Linux](https://www.gnu.org/)** is the 3rd big operating system that everybody knows besides Windows and Mac OS and of those 3 it's the only free OS. There is not one GNU/Linux though that you can download and install, but there are very many distributions. This is not the place to get into [all of them](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Linux_Distribution_Timeline.svg). Also choosing a distro is a very personal process, so you will have to do your own research.  

Otherwise just manually install apps from developers you trust by following the install instructions on their websites.

- <img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/67/Firefox_Logo%2C_2017.svg/64px-Firefox_Logo%2C_2017.svg.png" height="16"/> **[Firefox](https://www.mozilla.org/firefox/)** (**Beginner Tip**) is the gold standard in free web browsing and even when considering proprietary apps probably only Chrome comes near performance-wise. With many built in features and a huge set of available addons (see [below](#BrowserAddons)) you can turn Firefox into a very privacy friendly browser, but still many groups don't recommend it because it doesn't go far enough.

❗️This browser comes with Google as the standard search engine.

- <img src="https://addons.cdn.mozilla.net/user-media/addon_icons/607/607454-64.png" height="16"/> **[uBlock Origin](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin/)** is the only ad blocker you need, but it's more than that. You can block all kinds of stuff. E.g. you can get blocklists from [Stephen Black](https://github.com/StevenBlack/hosts/) to block fake news, porn, social media or gambling sites. You can also block individual elements that you don't like on sites to give them a more clear appearance.

- Notable mentions: **[Location Guard](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/location-guard/)**, **[Terms of Service; Didn't Read](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/terms-of-service-didnt-read/)**, **[Privacy Settings](https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/privacy-settings/)**

- <img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/48/Cyberduck_icon.png/1024px-Cyberduck_icon.png" height="16"/> **[DuckDuckGo](https://duckduckgo.com/)** (**Beginner Tip**) is probably the most well known and feature-rich privacy-friendly web search engine.

- Notable mentions: **[Searx](https://www.searx.me/)**, **[Qwant Lite](https://lite.qwant.com/)**, **[Startpage](https://www.startpage.com/)**...

- <img src="https://riseup.net/assets/images/favicon.png" height="16"/> **[Riseup](https://riseup.net/)** is a anarcho-communist mail provider created especially for activists. To create an account you need invite codes by other users. I am using Riseup for many years now for my private emails and am very happy with it.

- Mailbox[.]org was also suggested to me, but it is not free software, so I explicitely don't recommend it. Don't trust companies' unverifiable claims that they care about your privacy.

- <img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4a/K-9_Mail_512x512.png" height="16"/> **[K-9 Mail](https://f-droid.org/packages/com.fsck.k9/)** is a feature rich mobile Mail app with multi-account support. It has everything you are looking for. If you don't like it's design try **[K9 Material](https://f-droid.org/packages/com.fsck.k9.material)**. Use **[Open Keychain](https://f-droid.org/packages/org.sufficientlysecure.keychain/)** to encrypt your mails with K-9 Mail.

- Notable mobile mail apps: **[Fair Email](https://f-droid.org/packages/eu.faircode.email/)** and its fork **[Simple Email](https://f-droid.org/packages/org.dystopia.email/)**, **[p≡p](https://f-droid.org/packages/security.pEp/)**

Instant Messaging is a very difficult topic. There is not a single messenger that can be recommended by all privacy advocates. Whenever someone tells me I should switch to messenger XY someone else shows me a list of privacy flaws of messenger XY. See [this image](https://media.kuketz.de/blog/messenger-matrix.png) to see how complicated this topic is.

This section moved to separate articles about Mastodon and the Fediverse. See:

- [Part 2](https://write.privacytools.io/paulakreuzer/the-fediverse-for-the-advanced)

-  <img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/b/b0/Openstreetmap_logo.svg/110px-Openstreetmap_logo.svg.png" height="16"/> **[OpenStreetMap](https://www.openstreetmap.org/)** (OSM) is a free collaborative maps project with all functions you expect.

- <img src="https://f-droid.org/repo/icons-640/com.google.android.gms.20187.png" height="16"/>  **[MicroG Unified NLP](https://f-droid.org/packages/com.google.android.gms)** is your friend if your mobile OS doesn't come with any network location service and GPS is not enough for you. It helps your device get your approximate location via near mobile and wifi networks. To use it you'll also need at least one backend. I recommend the **[Mozilla backend](https://f-droid.org/packages/org.microg.nlp.backend.ichnaea)**. This project too depends on contributions. For that use **[Mozilla Stumbler](https://f-droid.org/packages/org.mozilla.mozstumbler)**.

- <img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/25/Kodi-logo-Thumbnail-light-transparent.png" height="16"/> **[Kodi](https://kodi.tv/)** is a great universal media player for desktop and [mobile](https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.xbmc.kodi/). Play music, movies, TV shows, podcasts etc from your own Kodi database or stream them.

- <img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/e/e6/VLC_Icon.svg/106px-VLC_Icon.svg.png" height="16"/> **[VLC](https://www.videolan.org/vlc/)** is another great universal media player for desktop and [mobile](https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.videolan.vlc/), only not with such a fancy design.

- <img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/2b/Logo_de_PeerTube.svg/800px-Logo_de_PeerTube.svg.png"  height="16"/> **[Peertube](https://joinpeertube.org/en/)** is a video streaming service that is part of the [fediverse](#Social-Media). There is not a lot of quality content there yet, but quite a lot of videos that look like clear cases of copyright infringement. Of course one is only allowed to upload their own or freely licensed videos. In theory Peertube is great and I hope a lot of creators join and make it big.

- <img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/2/22/NewPipelogo.svg/205px-NewPipelogo.svg.png" height="16"/> **[Newpipe](https://f-droid.org/en/packages/org.schabi.newpipe/)** is one of many mobile apps that also lets you watch Youtube videos without sending too much data to Google.

- ❔ I never used Netflix or any other similar streaming service for TV shows or movies and I never missed it. So I probably never will test an alternative thoroughly either. But since I mentioned FAANG in the beginning of the article and Netflix is the "N" in FAANG I'd really like an alternative here. Please send me your suggestions.

- You'll find some sources for <abbr title="Digital Restrictions Management">DRM</abbr>-free content at  [DefectiveByDesign](https://www.defectivebydesign.org/guide/video).

- The before mentioned Kodi and VLC are great for audio too.

   - It uses the <img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/9/91/MusicBrainz_Logo_2016.svg/110px-MusicBrainz_Logo_2016.svg.png" height="16"/> **[MusicBrainz](https://musicbrainz.org/)** database that I contribute to. If you want to contribute too, watch out ❗️logging in depends on Google reCaptcha (for now) and the forum is stored on the Google cloud.  

- <img src="https://dev.funkwhale.audio/uploads/-/system/project/avatar/17/logo.png?width=40" height="16"/> **[Funkwhale](https://funkwhale.audio/)** is a great music streaming service that is part of the [fediverse](#Social-Media). Anyone can upload music if it is under a license that allows sharing or the uploader owns the copyright. I love the idea and design, but like Peertube it just doesn't have a lot of content yet.  

- For more sources that might not care about licensing, but at least avoid DRM check out the list at [DefectiveByDesign](https://www.defectivebydesign.org/guide/audio).

  - <img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/72/Shotwell_logo.svg/120px-Shotwell_logo.svg.png" height="16"/> **[Shotwell](https://wiki.gnome.org/Apps/Shotwell/)** is a simple, yet versatile desktop photo library.

- <img src="https://www.simplemobiletools.com/assets/images/gallery_icon.png" height="16"/> **[Simple Gallery](https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.simplemobiletools.gallery.pro/)** is my recommendation for mobile, but once again any gallery app from F-Droid will do.

- <img src="https://opencamera.sourceforge.io/ic_launcher.png" height="16"/> **[Open Camera](https://f-droid.org/en/packages/net.sourceforge.opencamera/)** is a mobile camera app I'd even recommend if I didn't care about privacy at all. There is simply nothing missing in this app.

- <img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/45/The_GIMP_icon_-_gnome.svg/128px-The_GIMP_icon_-_gnome.svg.png" height="16"/> **[Gimp](https://www.gimp.org/)** is a powerful and yet simple raster graphics editor. For vector graphics <img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/0/0d/Inkscape_Logo.svg/1024px-Inkscape_Logo.svg.png" height="16"/> **[Inkscape](https://inkscape.org/de/)** is probably the first choice.

- <img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/4/4a/Commons-logo.svg/36px-Commons-logo.svg.png" height="16"/> **[Wikimedia Commons](https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Audiobooks)** is a great source for freely licensed images. Most of the icons I'm using in this article link to Wikimedia.

- <img src="https://ia800306.us.archive.org/11/items/image/image.png" height="16"/> **[Internet Archive: Images](https://archive.org/details/image)** also contains lots of freely licensed, public domain or fair use images.

**Environmental Tip**: Generally prefer eBooks and Audiobooks over physical books - except second hand. Digitization - if done right - reduces used resources, used energy and waste.

- You can find more DRM-free sources listed at [DefectiveByDesign](https://www.defectivebydesign.org/guide/ebooks).

- <img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/60/Nextcloud_Logo.svg/1280px-Nextcloud_Logo.svg.png" height="16"/> **[Nextcloud](https://nextcloud.com/)** is what you use if you need a cloud. Mine is empty - I only use it in rare occasions so someone can send me a file which I delete from the cloud once I downloaded it. So I don't have much to say here.

- <img src="https://e.foundation/wp-content/uploads/logo-black-01.png" height="16"/> **[/e/ cloud](https://e.foundation/)** is the cloud that comes with the /e/ mobile operating system. You can use it to automatically sync all your important data.

- <img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/1/1e/Antu_libreoffice-main.svg/800px-Antu_libreoffice-main.svg.png" height="16"/> **[Libre Office](https://www.libreoffice.org/)** is a full office suite for desktop. I use it everyday and never missed a feature.

- <img src="https://framasoft.org/nav/img/logo.png" height="16"/> **[Framasoft](https://framasoft.org/en/)** is an awesome free software community from France that offers a lot of free online tools for collaborative work on documents among many, many other things. If you know French and another language please [help them with translations](https://trad.framasoft.org/iteration/view/framasoft/master).

  - <img src="https://fair-coin.org/sites/all/themes/bootstrap_faircoin/favicon.ico" height="16"/> **[Faircoin](https://fair-coin.org/)** is a socialist cryptocurrency. If you want privacy during online payments there is probably no way around cryptocurrencies and since this article is about avoiding surveillance capitalism, why not go with an anti-capitalistic currency? Faircoin's growth rate is controlled and steady to avoid speculations. It is not mined and energy consumption during transactions is low to minimize the ecological impact which is very high for other cryptocurrencies.

- Liberapay would be a great option for recurring payments/donations, but as it depends on Paypal and/or Stripe I can't recommend it (yet?).

- <img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0e/Basic_red_dot.png" height="16"/> **[FairMarket](https://market.fair.coop/shop)** for now is a very small online marketplace using FairCoins.

- <img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/d/d0/Logo_willhaben.png/247px-Logo_willhaben.png" height="16"/> **[Willhaben](https://www.willhaben.at/iad)** (**Austria Tip**) is an online trading and reselling marketplace that is great to get your hand on anything second hand and commission-free. It's only for Austria though.

I'm not a developer. Not even slightly. So I'll keep this short.

- <img src="https://savannah.gnu.org/images/Savannah.theme/icon.png" height="16"/> **[Savannah](https://savannah.nongnu.org/)** (**Freedom and Privacy Tip**) is the right choice for 100% free software.

- Notable mention: **[Gitea](https://gitea.io/en-us/)**

I passionately hate Google reCaptcha. There is so much tracking going on on the web that I can just block away - many sites will still work. But once a website developer chooses to use reCaptcha for a site where you need to register to use that's game over.

- Also the before mentioned [**Tutanota**](#MailProviders) and [**Invidious**](#VideoStreaming) have implemented their own Captcha solutions, but they don't seem to be publicly available yet.

- <img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/c/c9/Matomo_Logo.svg/342px-Matomo_Logo.svg.png" height="16"/> **[Matomo](https://matomo.org/)** is an open alternative to Google Analytics. Or here is a thought: Just don't analyze your customers/community at all!

- <img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/01/Exoscale_logo.gif" height="16"/> **[Exoscale](https://www.exoscale.com/)** is an open source cloud hosting platform to replace all the evil clouds that you can block with [Cloud Firewall](#BrowserAddons).

Generally: You'll want to go with hardware that runs the software we discussed before.

If you already have a device where you can flash one of the privacy friendly [operating systems](#OperatingSystems) I'd recommend you do that instead of buying a new device: Consider e-waste and resources! Also consider buying a used device and/or resell your old device.

- <img src="https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/8/8c/Replicant_logo_alpha.svg/800px-Replicant_logo_alpha.svg.png" height="16"/> **[Replicant-enabled devices](https://www.replicant.us/supported-devices.php)** (**Freedom and Privacy Tip**) are the first choice for privacy. They [recommend](https://www.replicant.us/freedom-privacy-security-issues.php#recommendations) the **[GTA04](https://redmine.replicant.us/projects/replicant/wiki/GTA04)**.

- Notable Mentions: **[Purism](https://puri.sm/)**, **[Shift](https://www.shiftphones.com/)**, **[Necunos](https://necunos.com/)**

- **Freedom Tip**: First choice for full freedom should be a device certified as **[Respects Your Freedom](https://www.fsf.org/resources/hw/endorsement/respects-your-freedom)** by the FSF. Second choice would be to get a device from **[h-node](https://h-node.org/)**

- First up: Avoid smart devices, especially home assistents like Amazon Echo, Google Home, Apple HomePod and smart watches like the Apple watch. You don't need them. You really don't, but if I can't convince you then get a <img src="https://mycroft.ai/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/mycroft-logo-transparent.png" height="16"/> **[Mycroft Mark](https://mycroft.ai/shop/)**.

- Devices - even smart ones - without any sensors, without an internet connection and that don't require you to download a proprietary app on your phone where you need to log in with your personal data should be fine.

This concludes the main body of my guide on surveillance capitalism (though updates will follow). Since I got lots of feedback on other aspects of privacy and related topics I'm adding this general section.

   - [Kuketz IT-Security](https://www.kuketz-blog.de/) ?? German-Language blog with lots of helpful guides for beginners to experts.

* 2019-04-08: Start of drafting