this post was submitted on 18 Mar 2025

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166

I've updated the Digital Independence cheat sheet for leaving big tech (lemmy.world)

submitted 11 hours ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

40 comments fedilink hide all child comments

I never imagined the original post would go so viral and be seen by +6M people. But I guess it shows there’s real momentum — and the perfect time to finally escape big tech’s grip.

I went through hundreds of reposts of the image and took in feedback from community comments. I’ve replaced USA-centralized apps like Brave and Bluesky with more open alternatives, and added self-hosting indicators.

As many of you recommended, I’ve also created an online version with descriptions that we can constantly update and improve.

Drop a comment if you have suggestions for a better alternative, improved description, or a feature for the site. Let's break free together!

top 40 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 hours ago

OpenSUSE Linux from Nuremberg!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 6 hours ago* (last edited 6 hours ago) (1 children)

Session
Signal
GPG2
VLC
Tuta
OpenKeychain
KeePassXC
NetGuard
Mullvad
Ironfox
BLE Radar
Transmission
Obfuscate
Monero/Haveno

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (2 children)

Signal?

Lmao

Edit: some people don't seem to grasp the irony? Signal is a US company (and tied to the gov)

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

The app. The crypto calling & texting app. There's even a desktop/laptop side rig it can join the act for it's op to give you a solid keyboard for your chatting superior to their brain numbing thumb rhetorical mouse wheelage.

Looking kind of shady for the side rig today tho. I can't use it cuz it leaks and it don't have shit about wtf to do or just not use that aspect. Frustration. Session is getting to be my shit these days because of that.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (1 children)

What have I just read? I don't understand half of your message sorry

Also I'm not sure you know what you're saying with "crypto" since you are on a monero themed instance. Signal does have cryptography indeed but I'm not sure I understand your point. But please explain I'll try my best :)

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (1 children)

You asked what signal was, I interpreted. If you had the Q up to sign some other inquiry, it's you that needs to be a bit more verbose. If you know what signal is then damn near everything I wrote is unessesary to need to understand bar maybe the whine ass shit about signal's lacking security to function on the Desktop connection.

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

Ok thanks! You were explaining Signal

I added a precision to my original comment so it's clear for everyone

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 hour ago* (last edited 1 hour ago)

Now THAT makes perfect sense. So to that I MUST say:

Hence Session>Signal.

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

Lemmygrad user, ignore

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago)

Why are almost all your comments deleted or moderated?

Anyway, I'm a cybersecurity expert and privacy enthusiast, what does the Lemmy instance I use have to do with it, since its theme is a political and not a technology one?

[–] [email protected] 0 points 2 hours ago

Careful rabbit, you might find yourself on cliche path.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 6 hours ago

Hello, very nice guide:)

I'd just like to bring to your attention, a very thorough comparison of messengers you might want to check😄

https://eylenburg.github.io/im_comparison.htm

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 hours ago* (last edited 5 hours ago)

I don’t think piracy is a proper alternative to paying for commercial content.

Free content is.

So it shouldn’t be on this chart IMO. It’s a separate topic. It’s not a good look to lump piracy in with open/free software ideology.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 9 hours ago (2 children)

As with all impromptu lists, this one is pretty flawed. For example, as much as I love it, lineageOS is not useful for "digital independence" in any meaningful sense, since it's just a more cleaned up version of android. Or PeerTube, which can't really be considered a realistic alternative to yt. It's fine in itself, but it's so small and so hard to scale that you might just be better off giving up the yt format altogether. And then there's Thunderbird. I love it but it's a CLIENT, you'll still need a mail provider.

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

LineageOS is worse than that. You can't have it and also have local security as you cannot lock your phone bootloader with an unsigned image. You can't protect yourself from anyone with physical access to the phone.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 hours ago* (last edited 2 hours ago) (1 children)

LineageOS uses microG which does mock some GSF API and reduce metadata sent through to the rest. GrapheneOS could be a better alternative but there isn't enough second hand Pixels available for everyone.

Peertube is perfectly fine and we should start using it and encourage creators to move to an instance

[–] [email protected] 2 points 3 hours ago (1 children)

I have no idea how to use PeerTube. Installed it on my phone, found no interesting videos to watch, at all. I wonder how would it scale, like how easy/hard would it be to find videos I'm interested in.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 hours ago

Peertube is decentralized like Lemmy. I think you have to add instances you want to browse from

[–] [email protected] 12 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

It's a start, but the goal should be to have multiple options. Any monopoly can either be bought or abused and we should work towards making those as hard as possible.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 hours ago

While I’d generally agree, I don’t think fediverse platforms having a monopoly is as dangerous.

Social media requires a sort of monopoly to work well, I think federation is a good approach here.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) (1 children)

LibreWolf is not an alternative to chrome, it's a fork of FF. It won't run Chrome extensions... which chrome users would likely expect to be able to run.

For a Chrome alternative, I use Vivaldi (which is based in the EU)
As a Firefox alternative, I use Waterfox

[–] [email protected] 8 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

What separates waterfox from firefox or librewolf?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 8 hours ago

Different Dev teams

[–] [email protected] 7 points 10 hours ago

Droidify is just a bloated wrapper for F-Droid

[–] [email protected] 3 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Where can I find the best Android alternative for my old-ass devices that don't support Lineage OS?

[–] MajorHavoc 3 points 9 hours ago

For most of those devices, it depends what your goals are, but many privacy minded folks consider them unsalvageable.

If you can too that device, you could install the latest compatible version of the Android Open Source Project, and then use your newfound root powers to disable components you don't want, to the extent that the older versions of Android support doing so.

Technically, that's all LineageOS is doing for you. So if you're willing to put the effort in, the device can be salvaged. For most of us, it makes more sense to get a newer device, researching what OS-es are supported.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 9 hours ago (1 children)

Total noob here, can stremio be used to escape big tech legally?

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

Not really, but big tech breaks the laws all the time so why shouldn't you?

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

It's not a moral thing, I just don't have the luxury of evading the law like big tech

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 hours ago

VPNs make it easy and affordable but yeah, if the juice isn't worth the squeeze for you that's understandable. There is a bit of setup/maintenance as well that can get sort of complicated.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 10 hours ago (2 children)

Last time I used thunderbird was many years ago, like 10 years or so. Can you create a mail adress there? How does it compare to other providers like Tuta, Proton, Posteo and others?

[–] [email protected] 5 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago) (1 children)

It's an email client, not an email provider. It can be used to receive/send emails from almost any provider, not to create new ones.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Yeah, as Thunderbird is just a mail client, and not a provider, it’s not really an “alternative”. It should list StartMail, Mailbox.org, Tutanota, etc. Since people are used to using web clients for emails, I don’t think suggesting a desktop app that still requires an provider is necessary, just creates confusion.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 10 hours ago

Yes, there are quite a few approximations in the list ;)

in the EU/Western Europe, as an e mail provider I would suggest in no order: maibox.org, proton, tuta and owning your own domain but that one last option (teh best one, imho) may already be too technical for most users.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 10 hours ago

Yeah, I saw that one pretty quick and wondered why they did that. Mailbox.org is a better option than just putting 'thunderbird'.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 hours ago

I didn't want to mention this on Reddit because there's many more people there, but are you guys aware of P-Stream?

It actually replaces Netflix. The legality of the service is... Questionable, at best, however.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 10 hours ago* (last edited 10 hours ago)

What was the original post? I could not find anything on your profile.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 11 hours ago

Nice, thanks!

[–] [email protected] -1 points 10 hours ago (1 children)

Treema. No maytrix

[–] [email protected] 0 points 6 hours ago

Session>Threema