A technology article that doesn't encourage you to buy anything, or do anything that will encourage you to buy anything.

Last updated: September 21, 2024

Too long to read? avoid Big Tech software and services, use signal, [use brave] or [use librewolf]

These are technology tools I'd recommend people look into using for their personal lives and even, when practical, professionally.

Unless otherwise indicated, these tools are free.

What I'd recommend you DON'T use:

Anything from Big Tech.

You are the product that these companies are selling. You're just renting access to their services in exchange for your privacy. You agreed to this in those privacy policies that would take way too much time to actually read and review with a lawyer so you could actually understand them.

My advice: Avoid Big Tech products and services as much as you realistically can. If you can't avoid them at work, that is fine, but avoid them in your personal life as much as possible.

Tools to Replace Big Tech

In 2024, there are a lot of great open source tools you can use to protect yourself from Big Tech!

Awesome Privacy is a great list of tools, curated by software developer Alicia Skyes, and a great place to start, but the list is long and could be a bit overwhelming at first.

Definitely make sure you have the essentials section covered. Things like secure password management and multi-factor authentication for anything remotely important, including your phone, email, internet, not just financial services. Phone, email and internet are often overlooked, but they can be used to breach MFA for other services so they really are essential to secure too.

I'll focus on some of the other Awesome Privacy recommendations and how I've been using them:

Texting

Signal is an easy replacement for texting on both Apple and Google devices. Even your parents or grandparents can easily figure it out if they can use a phone to text. It works the same way. You can also install it on your computer too and text people from there, just like iMessage and Google Messages, even if your phone is offline. It isn't perfect though, as it still has many issues, but it is probably the best option right now for phone number-based texting. Better than anything from Apple or Google at least. It works better than Apple or Google in mixed texts between their two platforms too.

Web Browsing

Using anything other than Chrome, Safari or Edge is a great start. This includes the built-in web browser on your phone that is programmed to make you not think about it.

I've personally been using Brave for years and still consider it to be the best privacy-respecting browser out there. Fans of Firefox, which I no longer recommend using, may want to give LibreWolf a try. It is a browser that is based on Firefox's code and includes many privacy and ad-blocking features that Firefox lacks.

Browser Extensions

I'd recommend at least installing uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger. Consider others on the Awesome Privacy list if they suit your needs.

Searching

Please don't GOOGLE IT! or encourage anyone else to. It was the go-to for everyone for a while, but hopefully that isn't the case for many people these days. I switched to DuckDuckGo for a minute, but I was DuckDuckGone when they announced they were reversing their previous stance and starting to censor search results. Censorship, and a lack of respect for privacy, go hand-in-hand ethically. The open source HuggingChat AI using Meta's Llama agrees: (https://hf.co/chat/r/s1emz4V)

I'm mostly using Brave Search now, although I'll still compare a result in Google or even Bing if I don't get the results I'm looking for, if I absolutely have to, but I've found that to be less and less necessary. For those more technically inclined, SearXNG is a privacy-respecting search engine you can host yourself. Many people offer public access to their own SearXNG servers here: https://searx.space/

It almost seems, like the browser-makers, that also operate search engines, might make it intentionally hard to change the default search engine, and they're also the ones that make the operating system that makes it also hard to change the default web browser. That couldn't be a coincidence, could it?

Social Media

This is where it gets a bit tougher, and I think it will take more time for technology in this space to evolve, and for people to become aware of alternative platforms and why they should want to use them instead of Big Tech's.

Avoid Big Tech's Social Media

Cobalt is an open source tool that you can use if someone sends you social media links for services you'd prefer not to use to view and download the audio or video friends send you without the ads and tracking of actually using those Big Tech services. Just paste their link in the box.

Alternatives to Big Tech Social Media

The Fediverse is a decentralized social network that allows anyone to join an existing community or start their own. These tools, based on a communication standard called ActivityPub, have the potential to replace Facebook and other services with a better-for-humanity alternative. Find a Fediverse community that aligns with the things you are interested in, and try it out.

The advantage of these Fediverse platforms is that they're all independently controlled, but linked together and decentralized, with no single entity in control of the entire network. You could start a private social media platform for your friends and family pretty easily.

Matrix is a chat platform similar to Discord, group text messages, or even IRC. Just like the Fediverse, anyone can run their own Matrix server, and link it to others, and you can talk to people on those other servers. There are even ongoing efforts to integrate Matrix with the Fediverse.

If you'd like to contact me about ideas you have for this blog, or anything else, text me on Signal or email me. My email address is my first name @halimc.com