Credit to https://www.reddit.com/user/lukakopajtic/
There might be some changes that could improve it further:
Remove BraveMaybe add Signal; It’s easier than Element, but it’s also centralized- Stop suggesting Linux Mint specifically
- Recommend Hosted Nextcloud
Add GrapheneOS- Maybe add Delta chat
Maybe remove BlueskyRemove Stremio and add Jellfyin (even though it’s selfhosted and not a direct equivalent)Add ente because Immich is selfhostedAdd auroraAdd SearxNG- Add SimpleX
- Add lichess
- Add pCloud
Any other suggestions?
Temporary improved version:
| From | To | Compromise |
|---|---|---|
| X, Threads | Mastodon | Bluesky |
| Pixelfed | ||
| YouTube | PeerTube | ReVanced (just blocks adds) |
| Lemmy | ||
| Netlix, Disney+ | 🔨 Jellyfin | |
| Google Meet, Zoom | Jitsi Meet | |
| Google Docs | Etherpad | |
| Google Search | 🔨 SearxNG | Kagi, Ecosia |
| Google Drive | Nextcloud | pCloud, filen, Proton Drive |
| Google Photos, iCloud | Immich | Ente |
| Google Chrome | Librewolf, Firefox | Ungoogled-chromium |
| All messaging apps | Element (matrix) | Signal |
| Google Home, Amazon Alexa | Home Assistant | |
| Play Store | F-droid, Aurora | |
| Google Android, iOS | LineageOS, GrapheneOS | |
| Windows, MacOS | Linux Mint |
🔨 = Self-Hosted only (requires running a server)
Bluesky absolutely belongs in the left column.
It’s not Transparent, Decentralized or Open Source.
It is a centralized social media network exactly like Twitter. The only ‘open’ part is a protocol that lets you interact with their, private, service.
The fact that it is ‘open source’ is largely a red herring, if Bluesky decides to no longer support their protocol then it is worthless. It cannot simply be forked and remain useful.
Bluesky is simply engaging in a PR campaign to steal customers from Twitter. It is exactly the same as Twitter in all of the ways that matter. It can be purchased by Musk or manipulated by the existing owner in the same way as Twitter.
Making a Bluesky account is simply trusting a new corporation to not act like a corporation in the future… which is a pretty naive position.
Ecosia is not open source, or decentralized. It is a private search engine based in Germany that provides search results from the major search engines and sells advertisements via Yahoo and Microsoft ad networks. These ad networks are part of Surveillance Capitalism and earn their money primarily by spying on you, collating your data and selling it/using it to place ads.
Stremio is largely a piece of software used to funnel people into paying for monthly for pirate streaming services. It’s not getting rid of Netflix or Disney+, it’s giving you the option of paying Russian or North Korean supported cybergangs instead of Netflix for access to streaming content.
The real open source alternative is Jellyfin. Then using qBittorrent along with Sonarr and Radarr to self-host your own media server.
The other suggestions are mostly okay with minor gripes.
- They could add GrapheneOS as an Android alternative.
- Linux Mint is not a bad option but ‘What Linux Distro should we recommend to new people’ is a contentious topic in the community, Mint is fine but there are other options (EndeavourOS is Arch Linux installed with the Calamares graphical installer and some sane options for a desktop PC, btw)
- While Signal isn’t ‘open source’. It is, for the moment, a secure option that doesn’t require a lot of user knowledge to setup. It is a vastly superior choice than using social media for messaging without requiring a lot of technical knowledge on the user’s part.
Lots of these are still American, and Bluesky isnt any-less of a walled garden, they just haven’t reached enshitification-critical-mass yet.
OP, quite a few of these are still American, some open source, some not. It’s more like a generic list of alternatives to mainstream.
Maybe add Signal; It’s easier than Element, but it’s also centralized
signal runs on amazon servers. Anything that can’t self host and isn’t federate isn’t worth it. Matrix (and element) fill this requirement. But IMHO, the best is XMPP where you can self-host or use federated servers located in other countries.
Maybe add Delta chat
Delta chat is basically email.
Remove Stremio
Why? Because it’s torrents?
Other alternatives would be viaplay or britbox. Unfortunately there’s no legal alternative that’s available in all europe.
Add aurora
Aurora is just a front-end for google playstore. You should add f-droid
If everything is e2e encrypted do servers actually matter?
yes. Metadata. some protocols leak more info than the others.
Also servers in only one place (institution), only makes it easier for the government to go to that place and seize them.
And what metadata is Signal leaking? As far as I know even their notifications are not sending the message.
The government seizing an entire batch of amazon servers seems unrealistic, but the data would be encrypted anyway. Do they even store messages on servers, anyway?
And what metadata is Signal leaking?
We don’t know. We don’t have access to what’s running on their servers. (yes i know that the source code is available, but there’s no way to check if that’s the same thing running on the servers). And this is a problem for me: i have to trust a walled garden.
The government seizing an entire batch of amazon servers seems unrealistic
Usually the government goes there a just takes whatever is in the rack they want. Screw the legal business that are there. That’s what happened with the pirate bay raid. If the US government wants to shut it down. It just needs to knock on the amazon door.
the data would be encrypted anyway. Do they even store messages on servers, anyway?
The problem is that you have to trust them. You have to trust a chain of organizations based in the US. Signal pays millions (who pays for this? i have my doubts that monthly donations will pay for this forever) to amazon for the servers. So using them and sending them money is the same as giving money to amazon.
If you are fine with these risks, then use it. Better using signal than using messenger and whatsapp.
Fucking brave shows it’s ugly head again. The only thing worse than a browser owned by a greedy corpo is a browser that is owned by two greedy corpos, one of which is mostly a crypto scam corpo.
