tycrek / degoogle Goto Github PK

Threema https://threema.ch/en is a "seriously secure" messaging app with servers based in Switzerland, where the company itself is based.

First, another good source site to use for alternatives is switching.software - might be worth adding to the intro as well.

As for some suggestions:

1. Photos: JottaCloud (not E2EE, but based in Norway, on green energy, and with a privacy guarantee - 5gb free tier), and Crypt.ee (relatively young, so no native apps yet, but is E2EE - tiny free tier though).
2. Drive: JottaCloud (again), and Sync.com (E2EE, with 5gb free tier). Also re NextCloud - might want to point out that there are lots of hosted NextCloud solutions available too, for those unable to self-host)
3. Search: Ekoru (much like Ecosia, but for ocean cleanup, and with a better privacy policy)
4. Map: Qwant Maps (uses OpenStreetMap data, but their geocoding seems to be slightly better subjectively - dependent on WebGL being enabled in your browser)
5. Fonts: Font Squirrel (includes some free fonts, but you can also upload fonts to generate webfonts for self-hosting)

It's not particularly secure, and not privacy-focused at all, at least not compared to the other entries in that section.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Telegram_(software)

Default Messages and media in Telegram (...) can be accessed by the Telegram service provider, who holds the encryption keys.

Service name: Nextcloud 18 with Community Document Server and OnlyOffice apps installed.

Service URL: https://www.nextcloud.com https://www.onlyoffice.com

5/9/14 eyes?: yes

Description: Nextcloud 18 now has Community Document Server and OnlyOffice apps integrated which allows self hosted instances of docs/sheets/slides. Users are able to edit documents in real time.

• postmarketOS is and runs Plasma Mobile or Phosh (or others environments)

• PureOS is Debian based mobile OS (runs Phosh)

Libre Office has a self-hosted online alternative, which might be a interesting alternative to Google Docs. More info here: https://www.libreoffice.org/download/libreoffice-online/

youtube-dl works with lots of sites, is constantly being updated when the sites change, and avoid the whole issue of browser based tracking by simply downloading the video page and then the video file itself.

How about Retroshare? A bit of do it all. email, chat, fileshare.

I am now hosting a mirror of this repository on my personal Git server:
https://git.xerbo.net/Xerbo/degoogle

Could this please be added to the MIRRORS.md list.

• Kodi - It's incredibly powerful. Backed by one of the strongest communities around. Tons of plugins to do nearly anything you want.
• OSMC - Free, open source media center. Strongest competitor to Kodi.

OSMC can't be a competitor to Kodi - OSMC is a Linux distro with Kodi pre-installed.

You state that people should not use Waze because it belongs to Google.

Then you should also state that people should not use FitBit. Alternatives to be added.

Service name: microG and LineageOS for microG

Service URL: https://microg.org/, https://lineage.microg.org/

5/9/14 eyes?: unknown

Description: microG a re-implementation of Google’s proprietary Android user space apps and libraries. It allows to use more precise navigation (which is proprietary in standard Android ROMs) and optionally receive push messages (requires connection to Google's servers, but it's the only way so uh; it also supports routing this connection through Tor I guess?).

It's briefly mentioned in Aurora Store entry (as an optional dependency, which isn't true by the way – it doesn't interact with microG at all, see Do I need Google Play Services to use Aurora Store?) but I guess it could use a bit more love <3

Service name: Infinity Search

Service URL: https://infinitysearch.co

5/9/14 eyes?: 5 eyes

Description:
Infinity Search is a privacy metasearch engine that does not log any information about its users. In terms of privacy, it works the same way as DuckDuckGo. It is free to use and is funded by non-tracking advertisements and affiliate links. It is also completely open source at https://gitlab.com/infinitysearch/infinity-search. The privacy policy can be found at https://infinitysearch.co/privacy.

Infinity Search currently has search capabilities for websites, images, news, videos, and maps.

One way that it is different from other search websites is that it has a sidebar that makes it easy to search for the same topic on several other sites if you can't initially find what you're searching for.

Hello,

I translated your collection of tools into German. This might help the Germans who don't speak English or don't speak any English to turn away from Google as well.

If you update something on your site, I will translate it into German.

I hope you like it!

Stay safe!

repo: https://github.com/arentro/degoogle_german

Vim, Emacs. Both are completely opensource; not hosted, no telemetry.

Mirror is here from BookRefine Publishing (formerly WordMean who I see is already listed in the mirror) > https://bookrefine.com/degoogle/

Toki was listed by mistake, incorrectly described. Please remove it.

Quite obviously Toki.com is an unlisted instance of Searx which is not distributed but a meta search engine. From a quick glance it have numerous problems such as lack of source (e.g. public code repository, issues management system, etc.), UI customisations to remove references to Searx (commented in HTML source), etc.

Basically Toki is a dodgy service that is not qualified (unworthy) to be listed here.

• News
  • Setup your own RSS Feed with Open Source tools like TTRSS, FreshRSS, Miniflux
• Blogger/Sites
  • Ghost Open Source, Selfhosted Blog Platform/CMS
• Hangouts
  • Conversations (Android | ca. 2$ on Google Play | free on F-Droid) (Cant look up the exact price in USD now) Jabber/XMPP Client, decentral, end to end encrypted and quite similiar to the Matrix protocol
• Keep
  • Nextcloud Notes ( Google Play | F-Droid)to write and sync Notes to an existing Nextcloud Instance
• Backup and Sync to Google Account (Contacts, Calendar, Wifi Password, Settings, Applications, etc.)
  • DAVx5 Sync Android Contacts and Calendars to an existing Nextcloud Instance
  • Titanium Backup Backup applications including data and more things like settings, wifi passwords, etc.
• Find my Device
  • Find my Phone (F-Droid) Respondes with the current GPS Postition to incoming SMS
  • Finder (F-Droid) Remote mobile phone searching via SMS-requests.
  • PhoneTrack (F-Droid) Logs positions to Nextcloud PhoneTrack app or any custom server
• Maps
  • MAPS.ME (Google Play | F-Droid) Maps Application wich is based on OpenStreetMaps with offline track recording. F-Droid Version is Open Source and has no tracker/ads.

KDE Marble is a good alternative for Google Earth. It currently only works on Linux, but KDE is trying to port a lot of their applications to Windows, so it might be there in the future.

It is not obvious as to what the implications of using the services marked with these labels actually means.

5-eyes, 9-eyes, and 14-eyes services will be listed, and marked as such. This means the company, not the server IP.
5: Australia, Canada, New Zealand, UK, USA
9: Denmark, France, Netherlands, Norway
14: Germany, Belgium, Italy, Sweden, Spain

#44

Service name: ara

Service URL: https://github.com/FultonBrowne/Ara-android https://github.com/FultonBrowne/Ara-Server

5/9/14 eyes?: unknown

Description: Ar is a voice assistant that has some very basic iot capability, full search capability, and expected voice assistant stuff. ara is free and private

Some ideas for decent news sources might be:

AllSides.com

Wikipedia (search for current year/month)

RSS (especially a source like Associated Press)

It says that it is an fork of YalpStore what it was but it isn't anymore in their readme it says

While Aurora Store was originally based on Sergei Yeriomin's Yalp store, v3.0 is a clean & complete rewrite from scratch that follows Material Design and runs on all devices running Android 5.0+.

I wanted to comment on the other post but it was closed. But when it comes to the Startpage thread, it's worth looking at the research we did at PrivacyTools.io and the questions we asked the CEO about the sale of the company.

https://github.com/privacytoolsIO/privacytools.io/issues/1562

Startpage still retains full control and decision making over the company and it's still headquartered in The Netherlands.

There is a /e/ OS based on LineageOs 16 (pie). It is clearly stated on their website that E-OS is based on Lineage OS. It has a large userbase who really do bring forth issues which are attented to. Everyone can check this personally from their issue tracker page. Issues seem to be fixed reasonably fast given smaller group of contributors. All the issues in the trashtalk link are either solved or on the table.
Eos differs from lineage os and microg for lineageos in that eos tries to remove google from AOSP-code itself, which is mandatory if one really wants to de-google a phone. That alone would make E OS more secure than any of the AOSP or OEM based custom roms.
The text in the afore mentioned link is ill-adviced, biased rant without a reasonable fact checking.

"The Attention Merchants" by Professor Tim Wu is a wonderful resource to understand Google's Business Model.

This article in the New York Times reviews the ideas in the book:

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/03/books/review-attention-merchants-tim-wu.html

Service name: LyX (and LaTeX in general)

Service URL: https://www.lyx.org/

5/9/14 eyes?: unknown

Description: It's an open-source (and offline) document processor. It's different than Docs or Word but amazing, once you get used to it.

i'd suggest that you properly say that /e/ sucks, because it does. it came bundled with pre-built apks and even some non-free apps, using google dns among other things.

Hey, why do you even recommend Zoho? It's another proprietary cloud based in India. There were controversial reports of their staff reading your emails.

They offer you 5GB for free with custom domain which is almost not different from Gmail offering (5GB for emails is quite a lot) and their web apps are quite good. Why would anybody offer you good software and cloud space absolutely free? You will have same story as with Gmail, Outlook etc.

RunBox is an email hosting service located in Norway and adheres to strict Norweigan privacy laws. The RunBox policy is stated here in explicit detail. Been using them for years, cheap too: ~$30/yr for a dozen domains I own.

For mobile mail client apps there's K9 and Fairmail, being K9 fairly used.

For calendar, besides mentioning davdroid you should also mention icsdroid both work together.

As phone OS, Something in between LineageOS and /e/, is LineageOS for microG. LineageOS for microG is in essence Lineage with necessary changes to provide microG and all of its functionality. Actually the /e/ is in essence Lineage for microG changing and adding default apps as well as its look and feel.

For mail service, calendar service, contacts service, and if you'd like also for Gogle Drive replacement, I'd also mention /e/ and nextCloud, since Nextcloud is an open source self hosted cloud providing all those services and more, and there are 3rd parties offering Nextcloud service such as /e/, thus providing those services.

You don't mention camera, but Open Camera is a good mobile app to keep in mind.

Related to mail clients, and for encryption purposes, I would also mention OpenKeychain.

Finally I don't know if popcorntime deserves being mentioned on TV and similar, since Kodi is also mentioned there... Though not sure if it would imply mentioning some VPN services as well (you do mention you use PIA though).

Gboard replacement: OpenBoard

Service URL: https://github.com/dslul/openboard

5/9/14 eyes?: unknown

Description: New 100% FOSS keyboard, based on AOSP. Similar to "Simple Keyboard".

Brave's business model is basically to block websites' native ads and replace them with their own. This isn't something that should be encouraged.

Service name: Waterfox

Error:
In December 2019, Waterfox was acquired by System1. System1 is an ad agency. Those are known to be interested in tracing and spying users. System1 is seated in the UK (5 eyes).

Proposed changes:
Note the new owner.

Source:
https://www.waterfox.net/blog/waterfox-has-joined-system1/

Startpage was recently acquired by an adtech company.
Please consider removing it from your list of google search alternatives.

https://reclaimthenet.org/startpage-buyout-ad-tech-company/
https://www.startpage.com/blog/company-updates/startpage-and-privacy-one-group/

Swisscows Translate

Looks like service does not exists anymore

Framasoft is a French non-profit that does amazing work for free software and digital freedom.
https://framasoft.org/en/

They perfectly fit this project, to "de-google-ify internet" has been one of their goals for a while.
You can read their philosophy about it here: https://degooglisons-internet.org/en/

Here's the list of web services they provide: https://degooglisons-internet.org/en/list/

Here's their own list of alternatives they suggest in general: https://degooglisons-internet.org/en/alternatives/

One very popular alternative to these services is of course iCloud.com which offers collaboration & synchronisation with Apple devices (note that an Apple device is not required to use iCloud.com)

(For reference, read Issues #6 and #27)

/e/ is an Android alternative. There seems to be a bit of controversy over whether or not it is truly privacy friendly. Read the above issues or this link for privacytools.io.

The founder of e.foundation reached out to me over email and provided me with a number of links:

• https://gitlab.e.foundation/e/management/issues?label_name%5B%5D=Infosec+Handbook+Review
• https://www.indidea.org/gael/blog/leaving-apple-google-eelo-odyssey-introduction/
• https://www.indidea.org/gael/blog/leaving-apple-google-eelo-odyssey-part1-mobile-os/
• https://www.indidea.org/gael/blog/leaving-apple-google-eelo-odyssey-part2-web-services/

Other relevant links:

• Lengthy discussion on whether Wikipedia page should be removed. Last update was December 2018. I feel the discussion and many points discussed in it are no longer relevant.
• Conflict of interest for Wikipedia user. Appears to be resolved. Original accusation only backed up by assumptions (quote: "the nature of your edits gives the impression")
• Very detailed analysis of /e/. Posted December 25/26 2019. Discusses ongoing issues with /e/ and the progress on fixing them. At least 3 analysis' have been done by this website.
• Forum thread discussing the included app store. Very lengthy post. One user finds that "most" APK files are from either F-Droid or APKpure. Thread ends with moderator linking to the wiki and closing the thread. Wiki mentions the same site that frequently appears in thread (cleanapk.org). At this time it is still unknown where APK's actually come from and who owns cleanapk.org. It appears as though the moderator kept trying to doge the questions. Many apps available also appear to violate open source licensing terms.
• Lengthy forum post of users requesting apps for built in app store. Still very unclear why /e/ doesn't just take advantage of existing, trusted sources such as F-Droid. If they wanted to use sources like APKpure, a home screen shortcut would work just fine.
• "How much of the /e/ ROM is degoogled?" Not entirely sure what the takeaway here is.

Based on the above links, it is difficult to be certain that /e/ is totally Degoogled. I do think they have privacy in their best interests. It is clear based on forum posts that transparency between the company and users is an ongoing issue. I recommend each user read through the links to determine if it is the proper solution for them.

Consider this pinned issue as a place for open discussion. Avoid starting flamewars! This is also not the place for personal opinions.

see: https://puri.sm/products/librem-5/
I'm not sure what section to put this under, but I'll make an edit and PR if someone can advise.

Service name: BlockSurvey - Privacy-focused surveys, polls & forms

Service URL: https://blocksurvey.io

5/9/14 eyes?: no

Description: * BlockSurvey enables digital rights(identity and data ownership) to users using Blockstack's blockchain. Users truly own their data with BlockSurvey. All your data collection is protected using your key and only you can access it. You have the key to it. There are no trackers or cookies or fingerprints on the forms of data providers. Yet to charge users. It is free to use.*

All in the title, no need for an extra click, you can put a link to the reddit post still at the top of the file.

Hi and thank's a lot for the Listing. I think it's important work you're doing here. I'd like to mention that Nextcloud with its intern Appstore and Clients is a quite complex Solution for some of the here mentioned tasks. NC was critical for me to degoogle myself and I think everyone interested in the topic should have a look. Contact/Calender/Task-sync, a newsapp and together with collabora a real good alternative to google docs. There's a lot of community support and it's really easy to start your own instance.
I'm totally in Love with this project and I think it's the biggest bundle of solutions as alternative to google.

best regards,
Christian

When you sign up for a mailbox.org account, it will give the IMAP settings to allow adding to any mail app. I've successfully added a mailbox.org account on iOS and Android devices using the IMAP settings provided.

It may need to be noted that iOS devices require a profile to be downloaded and installed for calendar and tasks to work properly, but I do not recall Android requiring any additional downloads in order to add the IMAP info.

Is there any such list for Safari?

Service name: Arcane Office. Blockchain-based private online office suite

Service URL: https://arcaneoffice.com

5/9/14 eyes?: unknown

Description: Arcane Office is a decentralized office suite with high-security and zero-knowledge on your data. With Arcane Office, you have maximum control on your personal stuff. Full-featured online document and spreadsheet editor. Secure storage to save your photos. All free for personal use. Arcane Office is in beta state, so we don't have a pricing structure yet. But don't worry, there will always be a free version, and we let you know before any changes happen. Arcane Office encrypts all your document and photos and then send them to a hub of your choice. The default storage provider is Gaia by Blockstack. It's decentralized storage that works by hosting data in one or more existing storage systems. Thanks to Blockstack, you have an option to choose your own storage provider if you want. There is no difference in what provider you are using; Arcane Office will encrypt all your data with the highest security standards.Arcane Office operates as a transparent and secure system based on Bitcoin blockchain. It will always encrypt everything using ECIES and AES256 encryption, and only a specific recipient key can decrypt it. Also, the protocol codebase is open-source and hosted on GitHub.

Edmodo is an educational technology company offering a communication, collaboration, and coaching platform to K-12 schools and teachers.

https://new.edmodo.com/

There are at least 2 popular public transport app on fdroid :

• Transportr (with a small 'r' after the 't') which is opensource and allow to calculate route on public transport in various countries. It is simple visually and in usage.
• Offi : Another open source app with 3 parts - one for directions (routing), one for informations about the stations (what is the next bus/train/... at the nearby stations) and one for plans (some cities have their public transport plans in the apps). It feel more complex and complete.

Both are complementary and offer services in places where the public transport companies offer open feed to get the schedule and information live. They are multi-modal so it helps when having to take multiple transport too. It works generally well in western Europe as far as i know, but i never tested in other place.

Service name: Keybase

Service URL: https://keybase.io/

5/9/14 eyes?: 5-eyes (United States)

Description: end-to-end encrypted chats, encrypted file storage (250 GB), doesn't require phone number to sign up (unlike Signal & co.), open source and free to use (unlike Threema).

My only concern is that they explicitly ask to use their binaries and not compile from source, but AFAIK it doesn't do anything nasty.