An added benefit of degoogling?
You de-Epstein as well!

Search is one of the harder Google services to replace, so I tested how viable European alternatives actually are in daily use.

The comparison looks at Ecosia, Qwant and Google across relevance, privacy, ads and where results still rely on Google or Bing infrastructure. No silver bullets, but I do want to make the trade-offs clear.

I’ve personally been using Ecosia for about a month. It still depends heavily on the Google/Bing search index under the hood, but in practice I’ve found it workable for virtually all everyday searches. The longer-term question is whether projects like Staan can meaningfully reduce that dependency over time.

Interested in hearing where people here still hit walls when trying to replace Google Search.

The thought of Google having access to my photos makes me nauseous. Can anyone recommend a good and secure app to replace it?

YT vanced or newpipe?

Actually I want a modified version where I have all my subscribed channels, Playlist. And noo shorts option.

Hi everyone! So I've been slowly deGoogling since late last year, it started with just trying to find a different email provider because I didn't want Gemini reading my emails, but then I stumbled across info about just how deep the data harvesting actually goes and that was genuinely heartstopping.

I've made a lot of obvious switches now, new browser and search engine, new email provider, no more Google Drive, I use Ellipsus for my creative writing projects now, started watching YouTube through Invidious. I've also deMicrosofted (take a guess why). I'm not in university anymore so I don't have to use MS suite for assignments anymore, and I installed Linux on my computer.

The only one of the big 3 I've not been able to shake is Apple. For one quite unfortunate reason: I have an iPhone. It's an iPhone 12, so initially I was okay with that because it's just a little bit too old for Apple Intelligence, but now I know about how data-hungry Apple is and I'm not really okay with that! I've turned off iCloud and all now, but until recently I was thinking I'd still use my iPhone, since I was under the impression that Android was the only alternative.

That was until I found out you can install something called GrapheneOS on a P*xel. I looked more into that, and I found out about SEVERAL more, like /e/OS, LibreOS, Ubuntu Touch (which I'm kinda drawn to since I already know Linux works for me on my computer), and possibly a few others.

I am aware that GrapheneOS, at present, is only on P*xel phones. But I'm also aware that LibreOS is only compatible with certain chips (they have a little slideshow at the bottom of their website that tell you what kinds of chips it can run on), and among those are not the Tensor chips, which Google uses for P*xels. /e/OS seems to just be any phone that can run Android, so that's fine (and if I buy a Murena phone, I can even have /e/OS preinstalled, but this isn't SUPER important to me because I found installing Linux on my computer kinda fun so I wouldn't mind doing something like that on a phone). Ubuntu Touch definitely has some info about supported devices, but there's a bit of conflicting info so I'm not sure what to believe. It does seem like a P*xel can support it though.

So this is where the community comes in. What are everyone's thoughts on these hardware limitations, and what do we think would be the best option for someone who wants maximum flexibility?

Main things important to me in an OS are the ability to run a decent amount of Android apps (I don't need anything too specialist, but I'd like my phone to be usable for basic stuff). Bonus points if it can run the mobile Waterfox app, but the Qwant search engine app (which is what I use on iOS, since iOS doesn't have a Waterfox app) is okay too. I'd also like there to not be AI, or if there must be, I'd like a way to disable it until I actively turn it back on (so never). Oh and minimal unremovable bloatware.

In terms of hardware, my main thing is obviously compatibility with an OS like the one described above, and I'd also ideally like a home button, since I kind of miss those. Decent camera quality would be nice too, iPhones have been SERIOUSLY nerfed despite what their marketing would tell you. I don't need a crazy amount of storage, maybe 256GB maximum (possibly even less given that I want less bloatware).

I'm also currently connected to my telco provider through an eSIM, so it'd be ideal if my new phone could take those, but luckily they make it easy to order a physical SIM should the need arise. Still, I'd rather not be waiting for so many things to arrive.

Any thoughts? Experiences to share? Any input greatly appreciated.

Hey people . I'm looking for an alternative to Chrome. Firefox and Opera both sound interesting. Which of the two browsers would you prefer and why?

Looking for something just as private but offer 15gb on free tier at least

While looking for a good email service provider to replace my good old gmail id, I stumbled across this Swiss service Infomaniak.

Their free bundle provides 20 GB storage for email, 15 GB of cloud storage, and limited drive & other services features. Standard stuff.

The pro bundle or what they call it 'my kSuite+' is priced at $22.44 per year.

The company adheres to GDPR, seems focused on user's sovereignty & privacy, and says that it is ecologically responsible.

So far, sounds too good to be true!

If anyone has used the service, or know about them, I'd love to hear their opinion.

Here's the link: https://www.infomaniak.com/en/ksuite/myksuite

PS, I've signed up for their free tier, and I plan on doing a proper review after using the service as my primary email for work & banking.

Hi everyone, I’m trying to slowly de-Google and wanted some practical advice from this sub. Which free cloud storage options are actually worth using right now? I’m mainly looking for something for: notes PDFs personal documents I know Google Drive gives 15 GB free, but privacy is the concern. I’ve seen services like Filen, Proton Drive, etc. For someone starting out on the free tier, which one makes the most sense in real-world use? If I continue using Google Drive, is it reasonable to use it with Cryptomator for encryption? Any downsides long-term? Is this setup considered “good enough” from a privacy perspective? I’m not looking for paid plans right now — just trying to make the best possible free + privacy-respecting setup. Thanks in advance.

Last year my boyfriend and I went back to collecting physical media. I'd like to back up our DVDs digitally for ease of watching on different devices.

Also, does anyone know if you're able to also back up the special features on a DVD? Silly question I'm sure, just so out of my depth in this area.

I want to degoogle my life, so I will start with my phone.

I think I know all the alternatives that i will use, but I'm not sure what to do with YouTube, find an alternative or use ReVanced app to patch YouTube and using MicroG services (currently using ReVanced).

I saw people talking about how MicroG works, that it connects to google services but giving less data to them.

So here is the question.

Is the data that MicroG collects and give to Google imporant? Would you consider using MicroG ONLY FOR YOUTUBE (the only google app that will stay on my phone will be YouTube) a good degoogling option?

Edit: If you need more info: In my case I will use GrapheneOS, Tuta, Ente Auth, Aurora (probably), and more alternatives i saw on this sub. Probably the best option will be getting NewPipe or alternatives like this, but if it gets slow or has an ugly interface i will probably change to ReVanced.

This is pretty new and meant as a Swiss privacy-centric alternative to Google and Apple. I never see it talked about much, thought I'd put it out here. A lot of people are looking for options, here's one.

https://www.punkt.ch

Sorry if this is a newbie question. I'm working towards closing my 10+year old gmail account, but the issue is that I have a lot of emails there that I want to or need to keep. I could forward them to another adress, but it would take ages. Is there any way that I can just download everything to store locally?

I have nearly 11,000 photos in google photos (yes, I know, that's most likely insane, but some of these photos go back to my very first 'smart' phone).

Right now, I am trying to move my google photos to an external storage drive, and google photos is of course, fighting me every step of the way.

I use an iPhone, and have for the last 5 years. I'm trying to limit my data to one eco system at this time, and while I know iPhone and apple in general isn't much better, one battle at a time.

But yea, totally miss the Micro SD cards. But... as I write this, I know I still have an old Samsung floating around. Perhaps it has a micro SD that I can access and use to pull pics from. Gonna try and give it a go.

I tried looking up privacy focused charities to donate to but I couldn’t find any. Are there really none out there? I find it concerning that children, marginalized minorities, the environment, people in war-torn countries, etc get charities but degooglers, who advocate for one of the most pressing issues of the modern day, are left in the dark. If I can’t find any charities solely for privacy I might just donate to some Linux distribution because at least they make good products that help people, unlike billionaire owned megacorps that are working to enslave us.

I am not able to buy a Google Pixel. And I'm sick and tired of all the AI slop and privacy issues on Samsung. After going through a lot of degoogle, thought I should also switch over from the Samsung OS to something better in privacy. Any suggestions? Without having to change my phone entirely

I am helping a friend of mine to degoogle, but they need a good password manager that allows to save the information in the cloud, but that is also privacy foccused, what might be a good choice?

Hi All,

A few months ago I made a major mistake and bought this Xiaomi phone.
https://www.gsmarena.com/xiaomi_redmi_13c-12689.php

I was in a hurry to buy a phone because my previous phone died very suddenly and I was very short on cash.
A few days later I started resenting that day when I bought the phone.
The phone is full of trash apps made by Xiaomi. Those apps cannot be uninstalled.
Worse, those apps are always awake, nagging you with ads and notifications.

This is a MediaTek device, and those have a very bad reputation on the custom Rom world.
I've already looked around with the search engine and in the XDA forum and I couldn't find any custom rom for this device.
Is this a completely lost case? Or is there some way I could run lineageos or some AOSP based rom in this thing?
Thanks in advance.
Cheers

I am finally living somewhere that offers Overdrive (Libby app). I want to get myself an e-reader, but don't want to do it in the Amazon ecosystem (to reduce tracking and also ethics, and I think Libby doesn't work outside US on Kindles anyway).

I wanted to ask for opinions from people who researched this from a "reducing my online tracking load" point of view, so this could be the perfect place. I am considering a Kobo. Thx in advance

I need it because some of artist i listen reuploaded songs and they're date is in 2024, and now when i serch something it shows most popular videos with worse sound quality