I never imagined the original post would go so viral and be seen by +6M people. But I guess it shows there’s real momentum — and the perfect time to finally escape big tech’s grip.
I went through hundreds of reposts of the image and took in feedback from community comments. I’ve replaced USA-centralized apps like Brave and Bluesky with more open alternatives, and added self-hosting indicators.
As many of you recommended, I’ve also created an online version with descriptions that we can constantly update and improve.
Drop a comment if you have suggestions for a better alternative, improved description, or a feature for the site. Let’s break free together!
OpenSUSE Linux from Nuremberg!
- Session
- Signal
- GPG2
- VLC
- Tuta
- OpenKeychain
- KeePassXC
- NetGuard
- Mullvad
- Ironfox
- BLE Radar
- Transmission
- Obfuscate
- Monero/Haveno
Hello, very nice guide:)
I’d just like to bring to your attention, a very thorough comparison of messengers you might want to check😄
I don’t think piracy is a proper alternative to paying for commercial content.
Free content is.
So it shouldn’t be on this chart IMO. It’s a separate topic. It’s not a good look to lump piracy in with open/free software ideology.
As with all impromptu lists, this one is pretty flawed. For example, as much as I love it, lineageOS is not useful for “digital independence” in any meaningful sense, since it’s just a more cleaned up version of android. Or PeerTube, which can’t really be considered a realistic alternative to yt. It’s fine in itself, but it’s so small and so hard to scale that you might just be better off giving up the yt format altogether. And then there’s Thunderbird. I love it but it’s a CLIENT, you’ll still need a mail provider.
What separates waterfox from firefox or librewolf?
Different Dev teams
It’s a start, but the goal should be to have multiple options. Any monopoly can either be bought or abused and we should work towards making those as hard as possible.
While I’d generally agree, I don’t think fediverse platforms having a monopoly is as dangerous.
Social media requires a sort of monopoly to work well, I think federation is a good approach here.
Droidify is just a bloated wrapper for F-Droid
Where can I find the best Android alternative for my old-ass devices that don’t support Lineage OS?
For most of those devices, it depends what your goals are, but many privacy minded folks consider them unsalvageable.
If you can too that device, you could install the latest compatible version of the Android Open Source Project, and then use your newfound root powers to disable components you don’t want, to the extent that the older versions of Android support doing so.
Technically, that’s all LineageOS is doing for you. So if you’re willing to put the effort in, the device can be salvaged. For most of us, it makes more sense to get a newer device, researching what OS-es are supported.
Total noob here, can stremio be used to escape big tech legally?
Not really, but big tech breaks the laws all the time so why shouldn’t you?
It’s not a moral thing, I just don’t have the luxury of evading the law like big tech
VPNs make it easy and affordable but yeah, if the juice isn’t worth the squeeze for you that’s understandable. There is a bit of setup/maintenance as well that can get sort of complicated.
Last time I used thunderbird was many years ago, like 10 years or so. Can you create a mail adress there? How does it compare to other providers like Tuta, Proton, Posteo and others?
It’s an email client, not an email provider. It can be used to receive/send emails from almost any provider, not to create new ones.
Yeah, as Thunderbird is just a mail client, and not a provider, it’s not really an “alternative”. It should list StartMail, Mailbox.org, Tutanota, etc. Since people are used to using web clients for emails, I don’t think suggesting a desktop app that still requires an provider is necessary, just creates confusion.
Yes, there are quite a few approximations in the list ;)
in the EU/Western Europe, as an e mail provider I would suggest in no order: maibox.org, proton, tuta and owning your own domain but that one last option (teh best one, imho) may already be too technical for most users.
Yeah, I saw that one pretty quick and wondered why they did that. Mailbox.org is a better option than just putting ‘thunderbird’.
I didn’t want to mention this on Reddit because there’s many more people there, but are you guys aware of P-Stream?
It actually replaces Netflix. The legality of the service is… Questionable, at best, however.
What was the original post? I could not find anything on your profile.
Nice, thanks!
Treema. No maytrix
Session>Threema
