this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2023
125 points (98.4% liked)

Privacy

31876 readers
428 users here now

A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.

Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.

In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.

Some Rules

Related communities

Chat rooms

much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)

founded 5 years ago
MODERATORS
 

Hello all, Looking for an alternatives to gmail and it’s apps as I’m trying to de-google from their services.

top 44 comments
sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] [email protected] 40 points 1 year ago (1 children)

ProtonMail, Tutanota, Self-hosting a mailserver... That's all that comes to mind right now...

[–] [email protected] 31 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (9 children)

Good painless alternatives:

  • Chrome -> Firefox

  • Gmail/Calendar> Proton

  • Google Search -> Feels like all search engines got SEO'd into uselessness these days, but duckduckgo maybe.

Good but somewhat painful to switch alternatives:

  • Google Drive -> Proton

  • Office -> LaTeX/LibreOffice

  • ChromeOS -> Linux, yeah technically ChromeOS is also linux but come on, you know what I mean.

Less than ideal alternatives:

  • Maps -> Idk, not really many good options, apple maps is good too, but not sure if that's what you're looking for.

  • Android -> Idk, lol iOS, or de-googled android roms. Not many great alternatives there.

Is there anything else you need an alternative to?

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago

I like OpenStreetMap more than Google Maps.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I switched to Kagi search engine about 3 weeks ago and so far I love it! I'm never going back.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Same. Love Kagi.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not really the same thing, but I switched from Google Drive to Syncthing. It's not as secure in terms of "chance of losing your data", but I'm replicating data on my main PC, on my phone and on my RPi Zero and this is good enough for me, at least for now. Ideally I would periodically encrypt and upload every synced folder to the cloud (just because it's encrypted), but that's for another day.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Syncthing is absolutely amazing, but it doesn't serve the same purpose as google drive, drive is more of a backup solution. syncthing is not that.

With your current setup if you get some ransomware that encrypts your files in any of your devices you'll lose access to your files in all of them.

Syncthing is S tier software, but it's explicitly not a backup solution.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

You gotta wait for overture maps alternatives. It is an open map project by the linux foundation, microsoft, tomtom and some other companies. Its main purpose is to provide a competent competitor to google maps since these companies don't want to pay google royalties for their map data. It can also help osm since it is under an open license i think. It is still in alpha though at the time of writing this...

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

you can switch from 365 to onlyoffice too

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I use an app called Waze for maps, but I don't know if it's dependent on Google api in the background or not.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Unfortunately Google bought Waze some years ago. The feature sets are being incorporated into Google Maps.

https://www.zdnet.com/article/google-brings-waze-and-maps-teams-together-in-cost-cutting-move/

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Dang. Was afraid of that. Wish I could say I'm surprised. :(

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

i use ecosia instead of google, i help the planet and it isn't a bad search engine, st least for my use

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Search (in order of ease):

  1. You.com
  2. Qwant.com
  3. MetaGer.org
[–] [email protected] 21 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Nextcloud could be of your interest perhaps. It has drive, calendar, contact, messages, photos, and a few things more.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Anything office related from Nextcloud isncrapcas hell though

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

OnlyOffice integration in Nextcloud is fine.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

Never used the office apps in Nextcloud but the other stuff kinda works.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

+1 for nextcloud but it does kind of point you down the whole self-hosted rabbithole, which is out of scope for most people who just want privacy

[–] [email protected] 19 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)
[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (5 children)

I'm very ensconced in Googles environment. I stopped using google for searching, and I disabled every single tracking feature I could find in Google Maps, and my Android phone.

But I rely on gmail, google docs, task, and G-Drive a ton. I see some great suggestions here for Gmail replacements, but what about replacements for Google Docs and G-Drive?

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago (1 children)

G-Drive is the easiest to replace, there are tons of storage options out there.
Google Docs is trickier, of you depend on the "office in your browser" thing. You can self host that, there are no cool options besides that imho. You can just use LibreOffice and sync via the aforementioned cloud space though

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Zoho and OnlyOffice run in the browser.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

as long as you have gms running in the background with all the permissions it needs, you can disable "every single tracking feature" in vain.

if you don't want google to track you, you have to get google off your phone

[–] [email protected] 4 points 1 year ago

I'm surprised not to see https://cryptpad.fr/ here, a FOSS, self-hostable E2EE web based office suite. Not as feature rich as GDocs but offers the basics in a more secure manner.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Proton mail have a cloud storage facility. It is limited amount without a paid subscription though.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Maybe take a look at Skiff. I’ve just started using it, but it reminds me of a combination between docs and Notion.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 1 year ago (1 children)

ProtnMail + ProtonCalendar worked for me. Doc side OnlyOffice seems solid alternative

[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 year ago

Proton is great for leaving the Google sphere of products. Such similar products. I even hooked a domain up to mine by chance i ever switch mail provider i can use the same address.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 year ago

there is a long list of alternatives on that post 👉 https://lemm.ee/post/1711966

[–] [email protected] 7 points 1 year ago

I switched to Tutanota (cheapest paid plan) and havnt looked back since.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago

Immich self-hosted home or on a VPS for Google Photos

[–] [email protected] 5 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

The proton suite or consider murena.io

Murena is the company behind e/os which is a privacy (from big tech) driven android spin. Whether or not you want to flash your phone with the os, you can use their cloud suite for a few dollars a month. It's built on nextcloud, has email, calendar, notes, picture and file backup, productivity suite.....

Murena isn't end to end encrypted like proton, so it depends on your threat model I guess

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 year ago

Try skiff.com. they're new but similar offerings

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

@kworpy @kirua duckduckgo? Wasn't this a time ago grabbing info from their search engine and providing it to Microsoft without our concent? So they are suggesting microsoft products also on that list.... Sorry but duckduck go for me its NO!!!!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 year ago

They aren't the ones hosting a majority of the Google alternatives listed in the blog...

load more comments
view more: next ›