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My journey towards more European, open source, privacy-oriented, and decentralized alternatives (lemm.ee)

submitted 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago) by ceiron@lemm.ee to c/opensource@lemmy.ml

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Over the past few months, I embarked on a rewarding digital journey to move away from US big tech and towards more European [EU], open source [FOSS], privacy-oriented [P], and decentralized [D] alternatives.

I'm sharing my experience here in case it can be useful to others, as well as to gather any additional thoughts or suggestions:

Desktop OS: Microsoft Windows 11 --> OpenSUSE Tumbleweed + KDE [EU][FOSS]
Web browser: Google Chrome --> Brave --> Vivaldi --> Mozilla Firefox + Strict privacy settings, uBlock Origin, Privacy Badger, Conset-O-Matic [FOSS][P]
Email: Gmail --> Infomaniak Mail [EU][FOSS]
Calendar: Google Calendar --> Infomaniak Calendar [EU][FOSS] + OneCalendar [EU]
Files: Dropbox --> Infomaniak kDrive [EU][FOSS]
Photos: Google Photos --> Infomaniak kDrive [EU][FOSS]
Notes: Google Keep --> Notesnook [FOSS][P]
Social Media:
- Facebook --> Nothing
- Twitter/X --> Mastodon (mas.to) [EU][FOSS][D]
- Reddit --> Lemmy (lemm.ee) [EU][FOSS][D]
AI Chatbot: OpenAI ChatGPT --> Mistral AI Le Chat [EU]
Videos: Youtube --> Unwatched [EU][FOSS][P]
Podcasts: Apple Podcasts --> Spotify --> Pocket Casts [FOSS]
Translate: Google Translate --> DeepL [EU]
Maps: Google Maps --> Organic Maps [EU][FOSS][P]
Weather: Apple Weather --> YR [EU]
Online payments: PayPal --> Revolut [EU]
Password manager: LastPass --> Mozilla Firefox --> Bitwarden [FOSS][P]
Online shopping: Amazon --> Cdiscount [EU]
Travel booking: Booking.com --> Direct booking

And here's the list of things I couldn't let go of:

Mobile OS: iOS | I have a business iPhone which is also my personal phone
Messaging: WhatsApp | The network effect is too big here: family, friends, local businesses, etc
Streaming services: Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+ | These come basically for free with my ISP and are too convenient for the moment (esp. w/ kids)

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[-] PhilipTheBucket@ponder.cat 12 points 2 weeks ago

        Librewolf is also quite a good browser
Piefed seems like it’s shaping up to be better than Lemmy in a few different ways and it’s compatible with all the Lemmy people

[-] ceiron@lemm.ee 7 points 2 weeks ago

Librewolf seems to be a bit too extreme for my taste, not to mention I’d like to have the same browser on desktop and mobile. I also feel like Mozilla is a company worth supporting, despite the recent mess ups.

Very curious about piefed - looking forward to a mobile app in the near future hopefully!

[-] 37x4H0nUPx0s@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 2 weeks ago

Librewolf is a fork of Firefox. You can even still have a Mozilla account with it. Meaning, you can sync Firefox on mobile to Librewolf on PC.

I usually have a lot of tabs open on PC, at all times. I use FF for anything where they already have all, or a significant amount of, my details (full name, address, &/or credit card, etc.), like Amazon, banking, Proton & Tuta email and calendar, etc. I use Librewolf for other websites where I need to login, but I want more privacy / even less tracking than FF. I occasionally even use Mullvad browser (another FF fork) as well.

[-] JayGray91@piefed.social 2 points 2 weeks ago

Very curious about piefed - looking forward to a mobile app in the near future hopefully!

I really like it on desktop. On default front end, it clicked the easiest. Though for lemmy I still prefer Tesseract, but all the other inherent features that's not on lemmy, especially comments consolidation for same link, just trounces lemmy for me.

The android app Interstellar is testing piefed support, although currently only allows preferred.social instance IIRC. I registered on the flagship piefed.social instance, and I'm a bit too lived in on it to change instance. Maybe it's better to see if I can migrate my account.