1w ago

My degoogling journey

I use tuta mail and tuta calendar for mail and calendar, Vivaldi as browser on laptop, and Firefox on android. Bitwarden as password manager and bitwarden auth as 2fa. Use obsidian for notes and appstore is aurora store and droidify, I use archlinux. And for "cloud" storage, actually a backup I use This USB drive not cloud Buf works for me. Still kinda dependent on proprietary messaging platforms, but I have 1 friend on signal. Also I am trying to replace YouTube with fmhy.net not exactly YouTube alternative, but has so many resources for free to study, educate myself, or just watch something out of amusement.

46 comments

Ah yes. Replace Chrome with Chrome with a different UI. The rest is good.
- And Vivaldi is not even open source
- If I understand correctly, the aurora store is not great because the apps it offers are android native and often closed source.
  
  It's just a "frontend" to let you use the official Play Store without a Google account
I reccomend you try https://librewolf.net/ as your browser
Install these extensions: https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/ublock-origin
https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/libredirect/
I've found I like logseq over obsidian.
And do consider installing graphine or e/os so you're not subject to google services on your phone.
- On the topic of Obsidian, I recommend the FOSS tool Syncthing to sync/fileshare Logseq, Obsidian or emacs org mode files between devices.
  https://f-droid.org/packages/com.github.catfriend1.syncthingandroid
  Note, Syncthing-fork is the actively maintained app on f-droid, not the original app called Syncthing, at least as of this comment.
- Wait, is Libre wolf back? I thought it was abandoned, nit getting updates for an extremely long time, making it dangerous to use security wise?
  
  https://codeberg.org/librewolf :)
- i second this, @Una@europe.pub . librewolf is an excellent choice.
- LibreWolf comes with ublock installed by default <3 didn't know the redirect extension!
  Not sure if I would recommend LibreWolf to the average user above Firefox. Too many settings to fiddle with e.g. playing DRM material. I don't like to say it but I think most users would uninstall librewolf the moment they try to stream their favorite show and it doesn't work out of the box.
  Love LibreWolf. Firefox is in a state of feature creeping. I understand the why, but don't agree with it.
  
  at this point in my life, I'd uninstall it too if I couldn't just sit down and get on with my workflow.
you can move to signal, but can you move your friends and family with you? like they're going to listen
- Just rip the bandaid off.
  90% of people I speak to either already had or then installed Signal. It's just another app to them and doesn't require deleting WhatsApp to get.
  If those in the know are unwilling to move off WhatsApp why would the ignorant ever do it?
  
  Ripping the band-aid off for me would mean not connecting with 99% of the people I regularly message to.
  Yeah I can't do that lol
- Matrix is good for those situations, there are bridges to pretty much everything these days.
- if an app is the difference between someone keeping in touch with you or not, then you just aren't that important to them. that's the real issue here, everyone's too afraid to find out how many of their "friends" and family members actually don't give a fuck to include them in their lives when it's going to involve a bare minimum of effort to do so. grow a backbone, stand up for what you supposedly believe in, and find out what you actually mean to people, instead of cravenly whimpering about how little value you think your supposed "loved ones" place on communicating with you. the implicit cowardice and self-hatred in this logic are disgusting.
  
  I agree that everyone should use signal, but do you not see how this argument works better in other people's favor? Youre the one demanding that people change their habits and their app of choice in order to stay in communication with you. "I wont use facebook messenger or google messages" 'well i guess an app is more important to you than staying in contact with your friends and family'
- i got my parents on Matrix. just try and explain.
Check out SyncThing! It's a great tool for syncing files locally across multiple devices and platforms. Data is encrypted.
I went from KeePass->self-hosted bitwarden->KeePass synced with SyncThing. This is the best and easiest solution for password management, imho.
- I'm currently using bitwarden with a vault warden docker backend and I'm wondering why you feel that keepass is a better setup. What made you make the switch?
  
  It was easier for me than dealing with docker. Everything is local. I did do the same as you but I found that going P2P was easier and less expensive than running a server at home. I used to experiment slot with self hosting but now my primary use is media sharing. I only need my server to run when I'm home, as I only use this media at home. So I have a powering schedule to save power, but that also mean that I would not have access to my bitwarden server 24/7, which I need to.
I don't know why anyone would ever subject themselves to the torture of using Vivaldi. It's made by developers of Opera - the most bloated, spyware-infested web browser on the planet. Sure, it may be slightly better, but we'll never know for sure, since it's closed source. Honestly this might be a downgrade, even compared to Chrome. Anything else here would be an improvement.
Other than that, I'd replace Bitwarden with KeePassDX and Bitwarden Auth with Aegis. There's no shortage of decent password managers and 2fa apps.
- What's wrong with bitwarden?
  
  Bitwarden is a great service but with KeePass you are in total control. Made another comment here, check it out. KeePass can also save your F2A keys but I would also recommend Aegis for this. If my KeePass database is compromised, they would also get my F2A keys so I would rather have that in a separate silo.
- From my understanding, the devs of Vivaldi actually split off from the opera team because they didn’t like the direction opera was going and made their own browser
Zen instead of Vivaldi, KeePass instead of Bitwarden
Aurora is just a frontend for Google play afaik so i don't know if it even counts. your best bet is fdroid obviously but in terms of apps available it's lackluster af and the UI looks like android gingerbread or something.
obsidian's cool but it's not keep-like at all. don't know what would be a good alternative off the top of my head but i bet there are tons.
- obsidian's cool but it's not keep-like at all. don't know what would be a good alternative off the top of my head but i bet there are tons.
  I recommend Joplin. Doesn't have Obsidian's fancy UI or add-ons, but the core functionality is the same. Should be great for the vast majority of users.
  your best bet is fdroid obviously but in terms of apps available it's lackluster af and the UI looks like android gingerbread or something.
  They recently overhauled it and it looks mostly modern. Still not perfect, but definitely a lot better than it used to be. There are also third-party front ends. Can't really say anything about them as I haven't used any.
  
  never knew about the frontends; thanks
- you're likely not going to be able to use f-droid or aurora much longer. Well, the apps they host anyway.
Thanks for reminding me to finish moving away from Keep!
Self-served nextcloud is a all-in-one solution for files calendar contacts and more. I am not affiliated, but use it over 10 years in a way that I would usually not have to brag about it :-)
theres some games that i cant play, when im installed them from aurora store.. using linegae os rn after i opened it it redirect me to play store page,
Doesn't Signal need Google play services for notifications?
- https://github.com/mollyim/mollyim-android
  
  Thanks friend! I'm also looking into simplex chat. That seems great too.
  
  oh man thanks so much for linking this! i couldn't understand why i couldn't find Molly on my fdroid. i didn't realize i needed to add a repo.

46 comments