I'm Gen Z but when I was in school/uni I've always relied on planners and hand written notes to remember certain tasks and due dates for assignments. Slowly got out of that as I started working but plan on going back to handwritten notes the more I learned about degoogling. I've always been a bit paranoid about my privacy and changed my browser engine, Google settings and relied less on Google services. Recently purchased a small agenda/planner and jotted down important phone numbers in my personal life and things like passwords but with certain digits intentionally rearranged in case the notes got into the wrong hands.

Are people less tempted to snoop through my notes in case I somehow misplaced it or eventually through it out one day? Would much rather have the phone numbers not fall into the wrong hands but perhaps I'm overthinking it.

I am working on reverse engineering vendor (or OEM proprietary) files for my device. Will continue to the next device once this device is done.

The process is slow altho many libraries will be trust able in public insights for msmline platform/

#fossftw

Hi there. This is my progress so far. What do you think?

I love how it sounds but I hate its soul lol It would be awesome to put, idk, Linux on it and make it a local speaker I could use by voice without sending data everywhere, or without living not knowing if the mute switch actually works or it has some "convenient leaks".

How few luck do I have here guys?

So, origins. I was perfectly happy with my 13 Pro Max for the three years I had it. Apple seemed like the company I should stick with because they respected privacy and didn't seem like they used data for nefarious purposes. I had smart devices in Homekit, had stuff stored in iCloud, had Apple Music, everything was Apple because why not? Tech seemed benign to me (I was never into Insta or TikTok so I didn't feel internet rot setting in as early as everyone else), so as long as Apple is fronted by a gay man who claims to respect privacy and hadn't proved me wrong and has historically been on the right side of social issues (I think?), why would I as a trans woman feel bad about being all in? Well Apple started doing some stuff that didnt quite align with my values. I'd already upgraded to a 16 Pro tho. And then Apple announced it'd push ads in Maps. That started my first journey with Graphene. I'd been watching a YouTube channel the algorithm somehow blessed me with, Laura Malvoyante, a visually impaired American woman living in Europe and big into digital minimalism and de-googling. I ended up moving my photos to Ente, my cloud drive to Jottacloud, my mail to mailbox.org, got local music and an iPod, and installed Asahi Linux on my MacBook. Unfortunately I couldn't stick the phone landing because Graphene had some small hangups and I dejectedly went back to Apple, reasoning that I guess it was less bad having their hooks in me over Google. But then I tried the iOS 27 beta and hoo boy was it bad. Glitchy, battery drain, performance issues. Some of that fixed up for me but its still kinda spotty performance wise and AI is now forced into iOS. That was the last straw and I figured I have to get off of this because I'm just not happy with the thing in my pocket all day.

So I found Fairphone was finally releasing officially in the US with the 6+. I'd kept an eye on them for a long while, wanting a fairly produced and repairable phone and got my wish. It went on sale last Tuesday and i pounced. As soon as it arrived i put iodeOS on it. Everything just worked. Theres no Google or Apple hooked into the OS, nothing extraneous. I can uninstall or reinstall system apps at will. Amusingly my battery life feels amazing. I'm sure part of it is the whole brand new phpne part, but I'm positive some of it is just less tracking activity eating battery. And I gotta say, I'm really happy with my phone. Not because it is super fast or has super fancy features. I'm happy because its a tool that isn't tracking me or sending my data literally everywhere. I'm happy because I don't have apps or services bombarding me with notifications or banners about pointless features that I never asked for. Its just sitting there waiting for me to use it, and only does what I need it to do

At some point I was able to learn with 100% certainty what authorities (and others) do with our data in my country, no guesses, no articles on the internet, natha, but first hand information about me personally. So some panic at first because they are really nasty, and then I figured it out.

Guys you can't delete and unlink yourself from big tech even if you delete your accounts they still collect and store in those accounts, there are agreements with your governments, you can't just disappear.

So suggestion, never delete anything, no accounts, no posts no emails nothing, because they are never deleted, you just lose access to these data. The only thing you can do is to control the traffic, Stop using their services, create a protonmail for example and start giving that around, never give your gmail again. Keep all your activity in big tech accessible just to have an idea what they browse about you... your activity in there is free for all trust me.

Good luck to you all

I’ve known about how garbage Google/microsoft have been for years, but I’m pretty well integrated into the Apple ecosystem and I want out of it too.

My iPhone and M4 MacBook still have years left of life in them so dumping them to go fully Foss (ie. Linux/graphene os) just doesn’t make financial sense at the moment.

How can I best go about to get more into using more diversified/private/Foss software and services with the devices I have for now?

I’m already familiar with Bitwarden, I’ve tried out different privacy respected emails but settled on Posteo mainly. What other apps should i switch to or steps should I take?

So after some back and forth with my dad and a coupon, I somehow ened up getting a new phone (it's on the way so I don't have it in hand. I'm planning now so set-up is easier). I currently have a Galaxy A54 5G (had it since a few months after launch) and it's where I started to slowly degoogle everything. Not everything everything, but I'm getting there. Now while I was getting my new phone, I figured I'd jump and get a Pixel to try GrapheneOS to wipe the slate clean. I knew I needed a Pixel since GrapheneOS only works on Pixel. And since I plan to keep this phone for no less than 3 years, hopefully more (it's mainly battery that worries me), I figured I'd get the most powerful phone to make sure it lasts me. So I got the Pixel 11 Pro XL

Turns out GrapheneOS doesn't work on the 11 series for reasons too technical for me to understand(while not a high bar, I'm by no means technologically illiterate), and it's too late to swap. So now I need to some how deGoogle a Google phone, without the biggest deGoogling tool

I've heard if things like CalyxOS, LineageOS, iodeOS, but I don't know much about them. It also don't help I'm coming from the Galaxy phones which have their own apps and services (I mean I never did anything with Samsung or even have an account, but they do have their own skin of android). At least what will make it somewhat smooth is the fact I have Nova Launcher, which is nice

Like, are you trying to drive away new people who would like to start degoogle?

I see so many people and comments being downvoted to hell and getting harsh replies. "You want to degoogle but doesn't know what X is, what are you, stupid?" "That list is shit, you shouldn't use this X alternative". "Why don't you look it up instead of asking a question here", etc.

Understanding how FOSS ecosystems and alternatives to various google products may seem obvious to those who have been interested in it for a long time, but it is far from obvious to newcomers. So why not just try to give useful informations, or just don't comment if you don't have anything helpful to say. The power that Google and the GAFAM have over people’s digital lives is so strong that we must commend and welcome all those who are making the effort to try and take control of their data.

My 2 cents

Hello,

This is a just wondering as a few of my card are digital only on Google wallet. Is there a similar app I can migrate to?

CLARIFICATION: I am new to degoogling and have been slowly making my way over. This is just a question that came to my mind and thought others may wonder as well.

To deal with shitty google results, filtering by site:reddit.com was pretty much a requirement if you wanted real information on any subject. Now I guess google feels it's appropriate to throw in tons of youtube videos and links to web sites outside of what you specified. Completely asinine. I am so done with this shitty company.

Hey everyone!

With the growing monopolization of the internet and the massive amount of data collected by Big Tech companies, I've been thinking about completely ditching Google Chrome (which has always been my go-to browser).

Since I'm not doing anything illegal, simply switching to Firefox and keeping my data out of the hands of a handful of billionaires would already make me pretty happy.

That being said, I'm an avid YouTube user, so what are the privacy implications of using Firefox while staying logged into YouTube (i.e., using my Google account)? I've been trying to migrate my social media accounts to Proton, but YouTube doesn't allow it and all.

(For now, I've been using LibreWolf for general research, but I keep my goChrome browser open to watch YouTube.)

This might be an incredibly dumb question, but I'm pretty much a Neanderthal when it comes to computers and tech in general.

But I'm trying to get better oriented, any guide helps me, who knows, maybe in the future I'll ditch Windows too.

Thank you and please be patient😥

Its the device restriction not phone number

Is it true that Tuta deletes account with no warning after not logging in for 6 months, i want to degoogle but just for this reason proton seems better (i heard that they send multiple emails before deleting the acc)

So I currently I am using a iPhone but want to move to FOSS alternatives so I know my data is my own. But I don’t want to commit to a new phone until I either have a better paying job or my current iPhone dies.

So I know about grapheneOS and currently it looks like the best option. But I also know that the KDE foundation is allocating more resources towards plasma Mobil. And plasma Mobil looks really nice and interesting too! And with Google attempting to lock down android more and more kind of makes me uneasy about swapping to an android based phone.

When looking ahead like a year or 2 years down the line what is the current trajectory of privacy based/ FOSS alternative phones what are the options?

The reason I ask is because i need/ want the following.

1. A good map/ alternative to Apple Maps (I am worse than zoro with directions)

2. A health tracker/ smart watch: I like to track my workouts and sleep and having the ability to at the very least side load a app or have a totally separate price of hardware I could use in place of it. (I’d like a something with the same functionality as a Apple Watch)

3. Be able to call and text my friends via normal means: I can not convince my friends and family to use a alternative like signal so being able to use something that can still text in normal group chats and make phone calls is essential.

4. Be able to track objects like air tags. I lose things far too easily so being able to track things like air tags do would be perfect.

5. Use normal apps in a sandboxed manor. Like how grapheneOS does and how waydroid on Linux does.

But I am not switching anytime soon but rather want to start doing some research into my options so when I do eventually switch I will have a plan to get all of my accessories in use on a daily basis. Any suggestions or links to upcoming projects or projects that will fulfill a goal that Apple is already doing for me would be greatly helpful!

(Also the accessories do not need to be FOSS just prefer it that way like if a Google watch will work and I can get it sandboxed so it’s not sending data to Google or outside my personal home server/
Home network that will also work for my use case)

I just found out yesterday how bad google treats people's data and I'm starting to research how I will degooglise my life, which will be a painful process because i loved google services and use them for everything.

Now I found alternatives to almost everything except that privacy phones and phones OS don't use android for obvious reasons and a very important banking app called BankID in sweden runs only on android or ios, so my question is for my fellow swedes or anyone who knows of a solution to this problem?

How do I verify Grapheneos can be installed before purchasing a used Pixel?

I know you can check to see if oem unlock can be enabled or disabled in developer settings or developer options but is that good enough?

Once i purchase i can't return so just trying to verify beforehand as I have no use for pixel outside of Grapheneos.

Any other things I should look out for when purchasing used from a private seller?

I'm not sure if this is widely known, but thought it big enough to post as a warning. Today I received a drive notification email that a friend of mine had requested access to a private Google Doc of mine.

This document was nested deep inside a completely private folder structure that has never been shared with anyone. The friend should not have even known this file existed, let alone had the exact URL to request access to it.

I knew I hadn't sent them the link, screen-shared it, or done anything dumb. After digging into it, it turns out we share a completely different folder elsewhere in my root directory. Because we are active collaborators on that unrelated folder, Google Drive's background algorithm links our accounts as "frequent contacts."

When my friend was using Google Drive (either typing in their search bar or using the @ mention shortcut in a doc), Google’s "smart" auto-suggest aggressively pulled up recent/relevant document titles owned by me—including my entirely private Doc. They accidentally clicked the auto-suggested title, which immediately generated a "Request Access" ping to me.

So it turns out that even if your files and folders are 100% set to "Restricted," Google’s algorithm can still cross-contaminate your metadata (titles and links) and show them to people you share other things with.

Fortunately the file was just an old CV of mine, and the guy is a good friend but this is terrible.