DeGoogle Yourself @lemmy.ml joelvdc @lemmy.world 1d ago

Another deGoogled iPhone

A process that started roughly a year ago with just changing browser and search engine, now feeling that I got somewhere. The journey ended up being more than just degoogle, but also demetaing and taking more control over my data and privacy.

Before and after picture with notes:

Chrome -> Zen browser (Firefox on iOS)

Google -> Qwant

Gmail -> Proton Mail

NordVPN -> Proton VPN (I don’t use VPN very often, but have NordVPN through another subscription, now replaced with Proton across my devices)

Google Drive / Photos -> Proton Drive

Google Password Manager -> Proton Pass

Google Authenticator -> Proton Pass / Ente (Ente Auth is only used to store my 2FA keys for the Proton account, other keys are stored in Proton Pass)

Google Translator -> DeepL

YouTube -> FreeTube (Unwatched on iOS)

Google Maps -> Magic Earth (OSM on desktop)

WhatsApp -> Signal

Notion -> Anytype

Keep / Notes -> Notesnook

X -> Mastodon / Bluesky

Reddit -> Lemmy (Voyager on iOS, dreaming of an eventual complete migration)

Instagram -> Pixelfed

Facebook -> stopped using

Windows 11 -> Ubuntu (Only personal laptop, work laptop still windows)

69 comments

Isnt iPhone already degoogled?
I feel like my story is a lot similar to yours almost a year ago now I saw a YouTube video about degoogling. It caused me to switch to Firefox with betterfox on the betterfox github pages there was a new oil link which I read and followed ultimately leading me to all of this and so much more.
- Wow, thenewoil website is great. Thanks for sharing.
Try Impressia for PixelFed
Saving this post. I have been deGoogling as much as I can but havent done the research to find some of these options. Thanks
I want to use Signal but can’t convince everyone to get on it
- The US DoD uses it
  
  Is that a good or bad? Could go both ways 🤭
  
  And they hand out invitations to group chats
- Matrix/element doesn't make you give out a phone #
  
  That's not why most people aren't on Signal.
As predicted, here come all the purity tests.

I know there's no way to definitively prove it, but in my mind Apple is the safer alternative vs. anything Google. I know you can do custom roms and all that, but let's face it: It's a huge pain in the ass. I know, I know, "It's not really"... I beg to differ. I went through my purity phase with degoogled roms and all that. Due to driver inconsistencies, updates breaking things (even the phone part), and the inability to use a lot of "normal" apps, I gave up and went with an iPhone. Apple's business model is to sell you the thing at a higher price, thus reducing the incentive to sell your data or enshittify. Yes, that will degrade over time and I'll reach a threshold at which I'll reevaluate my options. Given the two major choices, I choose the less terrible ecosystem of the two.

I refuse to have any Google or Meta products on my iPhone. I know that makes me lame here, but we should also understand that any normie would never go to all the trouble of OS tinkering. The are a lot more people who want to degoogle vs. the people who understand how to do rom flashing. Criticizing a person's degoogle effort as "not good enough" does nothing but drive people directly into the arms of the very evil we wish to diminish. This is a community to banish Google, not everything backed by a for-profit corporation.
- I don't know about the ROMs being a pain in the ass. I did a test run of putting LineageOS on my old Motorola and using adb sucked a little, but once I got it working, it had no issues. I did that so I would know what I was doing for the real purpose of putting GrapheneOS on my Pixel 8a, and they literally had a button on the website that worked like a dream (but only on chromium browser...) and did the process in about 20 mins top. Been using it for almost a year now.
  
  The only issue I've had was Google Messages RCS and banking apps. I can live without the wallet and banking apps, and even then, some banking apps work anyway lol (super long GitHub report list about them). RCS was frustrating, but I think it was caused by not deregistering my number from my old iPhone, as it hasn't conked out again.
  
  I really don't get what wouldn't work outside of that. Maybe it's been a while since you tried android ROMS. Wish I had one as good and debated as GrapheneOS for my Galaxy Tab I just got, but it's so new that there's nothing but a GSI for it...
  
  I think your whole post supported my point….
- Apple already proved they'll roll over for the EU on encryption backdoors.
  
  If it comes down to them selling in the US or not selling in the US, they're going to roll over and do whatever the government demands.
  
  They're all so holding all of your data, metrics, and browsing habits securely in their hands.
  
  When the government demands baggacips data, they're going to hand it over, the same as Google would.
  
  And none of this is ever a problem until the government goes kind of fascist. When browsing privacy subs on Lemmy becomes an act of treason...
  
  Even if I'm not doing anything wrong or illegal, I sure as hell I'm not going to send my data through a VPN that logs and is known to comply with foreign court requests.
  
  You can in fact drive yourself insane trying to stay private and secure, But I do know that trusting a single gigantic monolithic company that operates in a questionable regime to protect you from government entities is a losing battle.
  
  Apple already proved they'll roll over for the EU on encryption backdoors.
  
  Did they? They explicitly made a big deal about not doing that for the UK government's request.
- Apple is the safer alternative vs. anything Google
  
  Not really. Research has demonstrated that iOS and Android send very similar types of data even when users explicitly request to opt out. Apple was even so arrogant as to not bother responding to the authors of this paper when they reached out for comment (unlike Google which did reply).
  
  https://www.scss.tcd.ie/doug.leith/apple_google.pdf
  
  iOS is also much more hostile towards 3rd party apps than Android, greatly limiting what they can do. This makes moving to FOSS options harder.
  
  Due to driver inconsistencies, updates breaking things (even the phone part), and the inability to use a lot of "normal" apps
  
  Sounds like you haven't tried modern GrapheneOS with sandboxed Google Play Services. Neither of these are issues for me and I've been using it for years after switching from iOS.
  
  The are a lot more people who want to degoogle vs. the people who understand how to do rom flashing
  
  Flashing GrapheneOS takes like 2 seconds and requires nothing but a desktop/laptop and a browser. If you can read, you can install GrapheneOS with minimal effort.
- You know our lawmakers have failed when you have to be this concerned about privacy on your own behalf.
  
  it's really shouldn't be this much effort in order to retain your data and I know the argument can be made that you just use services that respect it but without legislation it's incentivized to monetize data which makes it extremely hard to find alternatives that don't.
  
  Agreed; unfortunately, this will always happen as long as money is allowed in politics.
- My personal choices are slightly different than yours, but I appreciate your comment. You’re clearly an ally while not being a clone. I often tire of discussions about security and privacy—mainly because I am very pragmatic.
  
  Unlike OP I don’t use Proton’s suite, but considered it. Most of what I want Apple provides (Advanced Data Protection, Private Relay, etc) in a form that meets my minimum requirements. Other things that I use (Signal especially) are well-supported on iPhone.
  
  I’ll talk down Apple all day long in the correct context, but I still believe it is a good choice today. I may re-evaluate at some point in the future when the landscape or my needs change. For now I am very happy.
- I'll just leave this here.
  
  https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cn8g540wz3jo
  
  Well pick it back up and take it with you, because this issue has nothing to do with privacy. All major vendors take advantage of evil shit to produce their goods.
Don't put all your eggs in one basket (dont use proton for everything)
- esp since we now know the owner is a fascist
- I usually tell people the same, this is a decision I will have to live with. I am happy with Proton and also happy to support their growth, hopefully it will go well for a long time.
  
  From the other services I tried, Filen and Ente deserve an honorable mention. I was close to just go Mail Plus + Filen + Ente. But as soon as you do Proton Mail + VPN, you then go with Proton Unlimited and that is what makes the most sense financially.
  
  I recommed Tuta for mails. May be not good as Proton but not American, not from Google and most important, private as Proton.
  
  But as soon as you do Proton Mail + VPN, you then go with Proton Unlimited and that is what makes the most sense financially.
  
  That's how they get you! ;)
  
  Mail and VPN are something I would never want to cross associate, though. After all, any mail provider can see the full contents of any unencrypted email at some point (including Proton), and any VPN provider can see as much as your ISP used to see about your internet activity.
So you start with an iPhone....
Why don't you put an edgy sticker on it?
- Gotta start with what you have 🤷
  
  Somehow I think you may have had a choice about what phone you buy.
Very good. Next step should be the iPhone
- A linux phone is on my list, Jolla or similar. One battle at a time.
  
  I recommed Pixel phones with GrapheneOS or any Lineage OS supporting device. Linux phones are good but I dont personally think they are reliable as smartphone.
- Apple is a horrible company, for privacy and otherwise, and should be avoided at all costs. And their OS isn't open source, why trust it?
  
  I might be expressed myself wrong. Because of my poor English😅 I mean, the last step to change is the iPhone. To the Android alternatives with custom OS. Especially Google Pixel phones with GrapheneOS.
fuck yeah mate
How you liking Voyager? I’m bouncing between Arctic and Thunder atm, one day I’ll find the perfect lemmy client.

Mlem is competent, but isn’t especially good at anything, and lacks some features the others offer
- (Not OP)
  
  At the moment I use both mlem and voyager. Personally I find that everyday browsing is a nicer experience using mlem, especially since their recent-ish 2.0 update. Though it's missing many of the fancier features that voyager has (eg drafting posts). The user tagging voyager has is super useful too.
- After coming from Apollo and Reddit, at first I was just unhappy that the clients were not great. Once I moved past my grief state I realized Voyager was good enough. I’ve stopped re-evaluating (though I’m sure I will again at some point) and just appreciate what I have.
- I have not tried other clients. I am quite happy with Voyager, but maybe I will give the others a shot :)
What's unwatched?
- YouTube player app. Open source, no ads, no login, just import your subscriptions and playlists and you're ready to go.
- YouTube -> FreeTube (Unwatched on iOS)
Consider using libretranslate, imo deepl isn’t privacy friendly
- DeepL with PWA or browser shortcut is the way for me. LibreTranslate keeps bugging.
Voyager is great but you should give Mlem a shot!
I see Proton and Bluesky. Appreciable effort, but it can be done better.
- I mean, it the end it’s all up to personal preferences. I’m strongly considering to delete Bluesky due to the latest controversy. But would you care to elaborate?
Check out kagi translate
Is there anything particular about Notesnook that Anytype doesn’t offer?
- Probably not, but I really like Notesnook for its simplicity and just organize notes in folders. Anytype is awesome for more complex stuff, I usually use it for work, kanban boards and such.
  
  That’s fair, I guess there can be a little extra effort in folder/grouping in Anytype and having certain apps that are built for a purpose à la The Fediverse 😄
- or Joplin?

69 comments