this post was submitted on 27 Apr 2025
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Privacy

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I created an infographic of privacy-forward alternatives to Google products...and would love your feedback.

Is it easy to use? Enough white space? Intuitive? Sharable? Is there anything I'm missing?

The infographic image in this post is NOT clickable. The link above will give you a downloadable PDF with working hyperlinks.

Re: the legend, "easy set-up/use" means either that this is a big part of the alternative product's branding, or I've used it myself and found it easy.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 19 hours ago

It's contacts syncing that I'm stuck on. Hoping to do something with a box running OMV but I've never come across anything so simple as Google Contacts πŸ˜”

[–] [email protected] 1 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

Since you included decentralized solutions like Peertube, maybe add SearXNG instances for searches ?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 18 hours ago (2 children)

Hmm...Peertube was so easy for me to search and useβ€”I think a lot of people wouldn't even know it's decentralizedβ€”but the SearXNG website is much more complicated. I'm looking for non-Google products that are easy for the average, non-tech person. Think SearXNG would work?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 12 hours ago

All they need to know is basically "Just pick an instance close to you and be done, and if it ever stops working well just pick another", which is the same thing as when creating an account on the Fediverse except that instances come and go a lot more.

So it would depends entirely on whether they can find the list of public instances easily... which is admittedly a problem πŸ˜…

You're right about the website, there is a link to the list of public instances on https://docs.searxng.org/ but it's a bit drowned amidst all the other stuff. If I was a regular user I would take one look at the website and run away really fast.

The Wikipedia page on SearXNG does link it, in the section about instances, but I'm not sure how many people would check the wikipedia page rather than the website

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SearXNG#Instances

[–] [email protected] 1 points 18 hours ago (1 children)

As a software dev... im still too stupid to use searxng. Guess its more of a "If its not that easy I wont go further learning it".

Maybe it was a lot of features missing that I missed from Duckduckgo.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 18 hours ago

OK, I'm glad it's not just me. :D

[–] [email protected] 1 points 20 hours ago (1 children)

In the map area, I have been trying all of the proposed alternatives but ended up using Magic Earth as my main alternative on Android. For walking, I use OsmAnd+.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 18 hours ago

Thanks, I'll check out Magic Earth!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 day ago

nah With all respect, as a proton user, proton docs sucks ass. but that may change in the future

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 3 points 18 hours ago

Maybe after this!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

For news I would advice using the newstool MiniFlux.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

MiniFlux

That looks awesome...but also complicated. I'm looking for things that, say, my mom could figure out. (She can't understand how to copy/paste, but would like to leave the Google ecosystem.0 :) Maybe someone should create a similar graphic for more tech-savvy people?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 15 hours ago

Yeah, rss isn't for everyone.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

The capitalization for OsmAnd should be corrected. Please?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 19 hours ago

Of course! Thanks!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

I see Ground News recommended all the time but for some reason i cannot trust it, idk why

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

I mean it's heavily advertised by YouTubers. And basically everything that sponsors YouTube videos is a scam.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Isn't Grayjay a frontend for YouTube?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 19 hours ago (1 children)

Aha! Yes, it is. Any suggestions for non-YouTube video platforms?

[–] [email protected] 2 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

Maybe Peertube or Odyssey.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 13 hours ago
[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago

It is. Same as NewPipe but they are using different extraction methods I think.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 day ago (2 children)

Nextcloud replaces Photo's, Drive and docs.

And more

[–] [email protected] 0 points 19 hours ago

Grr, I'm trying to sign up for an account to try it out and it keeps failing! I'll try again later, it sounds even better than I thought.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 19 hours ago

Oh, perfect!

[–] [email protected] -1 points 1 day ago (4 children)

mullvad browser was discontinued but ironfox is an up to date fork

[–] [email protected] 0 points 19 hours ago

It looks like Mullvad still exists ...but last time I checked, it was free and now it's around $5/month?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 19 hours ago

Thanks for the info, I'll check it out!

[–] [email protected] 0 points 19 hours ago

Thanks for the info!

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

Are you sure it was discontinued? Mullvad is not Mull.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 21 hours ago

I get these confused all the time.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Open source licensing, offline-only usability, and self-hostable are the only important criteria to me, and they are not listed here.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 19 hours ago

Yes, I'd say this is for beginnersβ€”say, my momβ€”who are heavily in the Google ecosystem and don't know how to get out. Maybe I should change the focus away from privacy, since Google has many other issues besides privacy that made me leave.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago
[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Not listing Organic Maps is a travesty. Possibly mention Immich, though I see you're going more for SaaS and not really self hosted

[–] [email protected] 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yes, this is definitely more for beginners (like myself. :) I will check out Organic Maps and maybe add them in, thanks!

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

If you try Organic Maps yourself, try using Sherpa Onnx TTS with it. It's a great open source match and really makes the experience of navigation top tier

https://k2-fsa.github.io/sherpa/onnx/tts/apk-engine.html

[–] [email protected] 1 points 19 hours ago
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