A technology article that doesn't encourage you to buy anything, or do anything that will encourage you to buy anything.

Too long to read? avoid Big Tech software and services, use signal, use brave.

These are technology tools I'd recommend people look into using for their personal lives and even, when practical, professionally.

Unless otherwise indicated, these tools are free.

What I'd recommend you DON'T use:

Anything from Big Tech.

You are the product that these companies are selling. You're just renting access to their services in exchange for your privacy. You agreed to this in those privacy policies that would take way too much time to actually read and review with a lawyer so you could actually understand them. Furthermore, Big Tech companies actively use the data they collect from you not just for advertising, but to manipulate your mind via the content they choose to display to you based on the data they've profiled on you.

My advice: Avoid Big Tech products and services as much as you realistically can. If you can't avoid them at work, that is fine, but avoid them in your personal life as much as possible.

Tools to Replace Big Tech

Use open source tools to protect yourself from Big Tech!

Awesome Privacy is a great list of tools, curated by software developer Alicia Skyes, and a great place to start, but the list is long and could be a bit overwhelming at first.

Definitely make sure you have the essentials section covered. Things like secure password management and multi-factor authentication for anything remotely important, including your phone, email, internet, not just financial services. Phone, email and internet are often overlooked, but they can be used to breach MFA for other services so they really are essential to secure too.

I'll focus on some of the other Awesome Privacy recommendations and how I've been using them:

Texting

Signal is an easy replacement for texting on both Apple and Google devices. Even your parents or grandparents can easily figure it out if they can use a phone to text. It works the same way. You can also install it on your computer too and text people from there, just like iMessage and Google Messages, even if your phone is offline. It isn't perfect though, as it still has a few issues, but it is probably the best option right now for phone number-based texting.

RCS is a proprietary protocol used by both Apple and Google. While they claim the messaging is encrypted end to end, they do not prove this by providing open source implementations of their messaging clients. These companies do not have a track record of being trustworthy, and the fact that their implementations are not open source is reason enough to not trust or use them.

Web Browsing

Using anything other than Chrome, Safari or Edge is a great start. This includes the built-in web browser on your phone that is programmed to make you not think about it.

I've personally been using Brave for years and still consider it to be the best privacy-respecting browser out there. Fans of Firefox, which I no longer recommend using, may want to give LibreWolf a try. It is a browser that is based on Firefox's code and includes many privacy and ad-blocking features that Firefox lacks.

Browser Extensions

I'd recommend at least installing uBlock Origin and Privacy Badger. Consider others on the Awesome Privacy list if they suit your needs.

Searching

Please don't GOOGLE IT! or encourage anyone else to. It was the go-to for everyone for a while, but hopefully that isn't the case for many people these days. I switched to DuckDuckGo for a minute, but I was DuckDuckGone when they announced they were reversing their previous stance and starting to censor search results. Censorship, and a lack of respect for privacy, go hand-in-hand ethically. Google, DuckDuckGo, Bing, and most other search providers will censor and manipulate your search results against your best interests.

I'm mostly using Brave Search now, although I'll still compare a result in Google or even Bing if I don't get the results I'm looking for, if I absolutely have to, but I've found that to be less and less necessary. For those more technically inclined, SearXNG is a privacy-respecting search engine you can host yourself. Many people offer public access to their own SearXNG servers here: https://searx.space/

It almost seems, like the browser-makers, that also operate search engines, might make it intentionally hard to change the default search engine, and they're also the ones that make the operating system that makes it also hard to change the default web browser. That couldn't be a coincidence, could it?

Social Media

This is where it gets a bit tougher, and I think it will take more time for technology in this space to evolve, and for people to become aware of alternative platforms and why they should want to use them instead of Big Tech's.

Avoid Big Tech's Social Media

Cobalt is an open source tool that you can use if someone sends you social media links for services you'd prefer not to use to view and download the audio or video friends send you without the ads and tracking of actually using those Big Tech services. Just paste their link in the box.

Alternatives to Big Tech Social Media

If X/Twitter is your thing, Nostr is your future. It is not controlled by a technocratic grifter. It is a decentralized platform that does not curate the selection of content to manipulate you, and it is censorship-resistant. Users can even get paid in cryptocurrency by viewers of their posts, similar to tips, with no middleman.

The Fediverse is a decentralized social network that allows anyone to join an existing community or start their own. Mastodon was one of the first, but there are other platforms you can explore at fediverse.party where each software platform tends to provide a unique user experience. Find a Fediverse community that aligns with the things you are interested in, and try it out. Encourage your friends and family to leave Big Tech social media platforms and join you there.

Peertube, Castopod, and ownCast are video and podcast focused platforms that can provide ways to share and discover audio and video content without relying on Big Tech platforms. They can also integrate with Fediverse platforms to help share your content with a wider audience.

Matrix is a chat platform similar to Discord, group chat rooms and even IRC. Just like the Fediverse, anyone can run their own Matrix server, and link it to others, and you can talk to people on those other servers. Unlike Discord, if you're running your own server, you actually have complete control over your own server. You don't have to pay a subscription fee to unlock features. You aren't subject to a company with questionable owners that could mine data from or censor your users.

The more people try out and use these alternatives, the sooner Big Tech social media will die, and that will be a great thing. The only reason people still use them today is because everyone else they know does, and they don't know there are alternatives.