October 2nd, 2024
In my never-ending quest to have more privacy and not have all my things controlled by companies, the biggest annoyance with this is Google.
In this I am going to go over the process on how I did it and whether or not this is worth doing.
Mostly due to disliking Google's data collection or not wanting to rely on their products (since they do kill a lot of their products).
They are a huge monoply who have done many shady things
Google Admits That Chrome’s Incognito Mode Doesn’t Truly Camouflage Users Data
Google’s Scans of Private Photos Led to False Accusations of Child Abuse
It is a bit complicted to setup but it is very worth it and in my opinion is cheaper and better than using something like Google Drive or Photos
You can pretty much use any laptop or desktop to make a server with. I would recommend making a linux server using a Debian/Ubuntu or Fedora server. I personally used a Fedora server and it hasn't been too difficult to setup so far.
I have been using it for my RSS reading using FreshRSS, backing up whatever I want, and for watching videos/shows I have saved using JellyPhin (You can also use Plex).
You can do so many things with your own server I will link the full list from the r/selfhosted wiki here
Hopefully I can save up enough money to afford a better server setup since atm I am using a cheap HDD from ebay and a random USB wifi adapter I found on ebay for $5 since I don't have a wifi card in the PC I am using.
This sounds very ironic to do considering its a google phone. The best way to do this is with GrapheneOS. I would love to be able to get it but I am locked out from using the OEM Unlock setting since I have a carrier phone so I can't currently install it.
My only solution is to disable as many google apps and disable as many data collection settings as possible for the time being until I get around to unlocking it. I do plan to write about my experience with GrapheneOS at some point. If you have any other solutions in the meantime please let me know on Mastodon or Bluesky.
I have been slowly trying to switch over to alternatives to many of Google's services like GMail, Google Search, Chrome, and Play Store!
I am going to start off with the simpliest one and that is...
Your only option for an alternative browser that isn't based on chromium is FireFox and its forks. You can use something like LibreWolf which is designed to be more private and disable certain settings by default. There is also the Zen browser which seems to be much easier to customize but personally I think I will just stick to regular FireFox.
One of my biggest reasons for switching over to Firefox is due to Manifest V3 making ad-blockers like UBlock Origin (The only ad-blocker you should be really using) from working. I also like how much better the customization is on Firefox.
If you want to get some nice themes I use the Firefox CSS store
I am excited for the LadyBird project that has its own engine but the Alpha is going to be in around summer 2026 and using it now isn't very good now but they are making good progress.
There's quite a few options for this. I personally decided to go with Proton Mail.
I don't care about my email privacy that much due to the fact I don't do very important things or share anything personal that I would care about. I mostly subscribed to Proton mail's Mail+ Tier for about $5 a month. I mostly did this to have 10 email alias (Sort of like having 10 different emails but all emails go to one) for extra secruity and the privacy is a nice touch. It is really annoying having to switch between 5 different G-Mail accounts for verification codes or having to find what email I used for an account somewhere.
Proton Mail does have a free tier giving 1GB of storage. As well as other services like Proton Drive, calendar, VPN, and password manager.
You can also try selfhosting your own email, but I have heard that is it very difficult. A lot of the time the emails you send will be marked as spam and just takes a lot of time to get going but if you are willing to do it then it could be worth doing. I plan to give it a shot at some point when I have the time.
If you would like to see other alternatives to Gmail check out Eric Murphy's video reviewing a lot of alternatives.
Google Search has recently became more annoying to use. A lot of the time the ADs on the search results are just fake websites of already existing ones filled with viruses. I also really dislike the AI results that keep appearing and have almost either never helped or were incorrect.
I am currently using StartPage as my search engine. It does use Google's index but it sends nothing to Google which is pretty nice. I almost see no difference in search results compared to StartPage and Google search. Now StartPage is owned by System1 (A advertising company) which may concern you but so far I haven't seen many issues.
My problem with DuckDuckGo is that it did make a deal with Microsoft to not block its trackers. Is it better than using Google probably? Is this good though absolutely not.
If you want to see someone go more in-depth into this you can also check out another Eric Murphy video reviewing a ton of them.
The only two options I know of are F-Droid and Aurora store.
F-Droid is a playstore designed to get FOSS (Free and Open Source) apps.
Aurora store is a FOSS client to get apps from the Google playstore without having GSF (Google Services Framework) on your phone. You can use it to download any Google play store app and so far it has worked fine.
Update: New Android changes may not allow you to sideload certain apps. This should only affect Aurora store from what ive tried.
Since I am still a student my school uses Google Drive and I of course still use Youtube (Alternatives like Peertube and Odyessy are great and all but the backlog of videos Youtube has in comparison to anything else is way better and I can find a lot of information compared to other platforms. I don't really see anything in the next 10 years taking over Youtube.
This really depends on what things you do on your devices and what kind of person you are. If you upload really important data that you would not like stored or do you despise advertisements? Then yeah I would say this is worth it. Everything that I have done here hasn't really been a downside and has either been a benefit like using Firefox or switching to an alternative thats just as good like startpage or different play stores. If you don't really use the internet for anything too important and don't care then maybe not but even with that.
If you see and mistakes or have any questions please try to contact me on Mastodon or BlueSky.