I’m working on degoogling and moving away from major tech companies. I’m really curious what others here are using instead — especially for everyday tools and services.
What do you use for things like:
1.Email
2.Cloud storage / file sync
3.Maps & navigation
4.Search engine
5.Web browser
6.Calendar
7.Contacts management
8.Notes / to-do lists
9.Office suite (docs, spreadsheets, etc.)
10.Messaging / chat
11.Video calling
12.Social media / microblogging RSS reader / news
13.Music streaming / podcast app
14.Video streaming / YouTube alternative
15.Password manager
16.VPN / DNS / Firewall
17.Launcher / Android OS (if you use custom ROMs)
18.App store / APKs
19.Photo backup / gallery
20.Weather
21.Smart assistant (if any)
22.Anything else you’ve replaced?
Would love to hear about your setup — both what works well and any trade-offs you’ve had to make. Always looking for better FOSS or privacy-friendly alternatives
1.Email
KolabNow (Switzerland) + Thunderbird
2.Cloud storage / file sync
Syncthing locally with NAS
3.Maps & navigation
Magic Earth (it’s amazing, you should really try it)
4.Search engine
DuckDuckGo
5. Web browser
Firefox
6.Calendar
7.Contacts management
8.Notes / to-do lists
14.Video streaming / YouTube alternative
15.Password manager
17.Launcher / Android OS (if you use custom ROMs)
18.App store / APKs
19.Photo backup / gallery
20.Weather
–
9.Office suite (docs, spreadsheets, etc.)
Libreoffice
10.Messaging / chat
SMS and Viber
11.Video calling
Viber
12.Social media / microblogging RSS reader / news
Mastodon (dosgame.club) and Blue Sky
13.Music streaming / podcast app
I have MP3s for music. Podcasts I use Podcast Addict on Android.
16.VPN / DNS / Firewall
Mulvad (Swedish company)
21.Smart assistant (if any)
Never
1.Email runbox and mail.ee - thunderbird as client
2.Cloud storage / file sync jottacloud
3.Maps & navigation magic earth
4.Search engine ddg or qwant
5.Web browser brave
6.Calendar thunderbird
7.Contacts management thunderbird
8.Notes / to-do lists crypt.ee
9.Office suite (docs, spreadsheets, etc.) jottacloud
10.Messaging / chat signal
11.Video calling signal
12.Social media / microblogging RSS reader / news mastodon, lemmy, thunderbird for rss
13.Music streaming / podcast app
14.Video streaming / YouTube alternative invidious
15.Password manager bitwarden
16.VPN / DNS / Firewall mullvad
17.Launcher / Android OS (if you use custom ROMs)
18.App store / APKs
19.Photo backup / gallery immich/jottacloud
20.Weather shadow weather
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Tuta
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Self-hosted Nextcloud
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Organic Maps for lookups, Magic Earth for navigation
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Self-hosted SearXNG
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LibreWolf on desktop, Fennec on mobile
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Tuta or Nextcloud, haven’t really settled yet and I barely use a calendar as-is
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Android built-in with Nextcloud sync
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Nextcloud
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Nextcloud (Collabora) and LibreOffice
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Trying to get my family on Signal, but due to some holdouts and RCS not being available on anything but Google’s messenger, I still keep their SMS app around. Mostly use Discord though realistically, likely soon to be Matrix.
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N/A
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Bluesky mostly. Not ideal but keeping up with active blocklists to shut out anyone right of center makes it much more usable.
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Navidrome with Feishin (desktop, also have a self-hosted web player just because) and Symfonium (mobile). Beets for metadata management
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Jellyfin for streaming, still use the “official” youtube app but Revanced really helps with it
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Self-hosted Vaultwarden + Bitwarden
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PiHole for DNS (need to set up Unbound still, maybe a weekend project). Mullvad VPN on everything. My Wireguard connection to my homelab actually routes out through Mullvad, so one VPN connection lets me access my LAN while protecting my outbound traffic.
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GrapheneOS, Nova launcher
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Split between F-droid, Aurora, and the Play Store for when the other two don’t work. I try to use it as little as possible
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Self-hosted Immich. Aves Libre for local image management.
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I swear everything I use just has its own weather integration with a random site I’ve never heard of LMAO. GrapheneOS recommends BreezyWeather for widgets which works pretty well.
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None, never, fuck that shit.
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Aegis for 2FA, Heliboard for a mobile keyboard. Set up a whole bunch of self-hosted tools which don’t replace anything for me but help me manage things I’ve been slacking on: ActualBudget, Paperless (digital file cabinet), Mealie (cookbook app), just to name a few.
I’m about 80% of the way there. I’ve been slacking on migrating things over to my Tuta email since I set up forwarding from my old Gmail accounts.
My last major holdouts are Fi (nothing else remotely compares price-wise in this area), Google’s phone and messenger, and the pixel camera. The very second third party apps start using RCS, messenger is out (or if I can get the rest of my family on to Signal). The screening features of the phone app are too good to give up just yet, and the same goes for the quality of the Pixel camera - nothing comes close to those just yet.
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- email: i dont have the time and/or possibility to change from google. some forums only allow registering from well known domained emails, and ive heard horrible things about the free tier proton and tuta users (also im currently on the proton translation team and they send me these horrible mid management fucktard emails every week like im a corporate slave. sorry for doin free work fuckhats)…also their app is crap. i use fairmail on droid, and postbox on win. i do have a secondary disroot email account.
- cloud: i was fast enough to secure myself a lifetime 200gb filen.io package. weird ui, but works.
- maps: as a cyclist, organic maps is the best thing ever. wouldnt recommend it for cars tho, cause big tech is required for live traffic stats.
- search: still google. most search engines only tag NA and west EU sites, so youve got qwant or ddg which are slow as hell. mullvad has no picture search which i often use (and no wide mode for some reason?).
- ironfox and librewolf. extensions: ublock, consentomatic, clearurls. chromium browsers tend to run in the background, so they can suck my salami.
- calendar etar, but barely use it
- quillpad for notes but i dont use it much
- office: ms on the work lappy, nothing on my private rig. nothing beats readera on android.
- msg: molly as a degoogled signal, a modded discord with revenge for less tracking and more customisability, and nekogram
- i dont videocall
- social: nothing really. mastodon, reddit, lemmy, some imgur…but i wouldnt consider these a social media, more like getting rid of the bordom on the toilet.
- music: for streaming a modded spotify and murglar, for local gramophone. gramophone rocks.
- i dont stream video, they all suck
- password: good old bitwarden. works on any device, syncs for free, but 1 dollar per month isnt a big deal either. aegis or stratum for 2fa, cause i aint gonna sync those.
- firewall: blokada, and pihole at home
- launcher: squarehome. the metro design is perfect on a mobile, a pain on pc. paid for it, cause its super awsome. dev deserves the money.
- appstore: currently play store and droidify, bank and government apps require google
- i just simply manually backup my photos like a caveman
- weather: wöw. literally everything else sucks. not even funny at this point.
- i also chose algernon’s wife as my smart assistant
- extra: bcr for call recording, birday for birthday notifications, catima for clubcards, fitotrack for running, iconify for system customisation, heliboard for keyboard, parcel for tracking packages, z- lib for downloading books, nitterify to read twitter links which happens rather rare nowdays.
This is using a combo of a phone running GrapheneOS, and Linux on desktop. It’s an ongoing process.
- Infomaniak KMail for anything that matters. I do still have a couple of Gmail accounts, and have continued to use one of them to give out publicly and catch spam. FairEmail as a mobile client for them all. Infomaniak’s webmail is decent, and I just use it on desktop.
- Infomaniak KDrive / just physical backups. Considering self-hosting Nextcloud for some of it. KDE Connect helps with syncing across devices.
- OsmAnd~ / OpenStreetMap where practical. I do occasionally resort to Google Maps on an old Android phone for navigation.
- Mostly been using my distros instance of SearX on desktop, DuckDuckGo elsewhere.
- Firefox still on mobile / preferably FireDragon on desktop / Vanadium is also good on mobile, but I missed the easy cross-device syncing.
- Strictly local data Fossify Calendar on mobile, importing and sending .ics events as need be.
- Don’t really have a need for contacts management outside of phone contacts and e-mail.
- My own ad hoc ADHD Brain workaround setup that probably wouldn’t transfer well. Quillpad looks good on mobile though, with Nextcloud sync to take it across platforms.
- LibreOffice whenever I do need anything like that these days, with KDrive sharing as required.
- Matrix. Using a public homeserver that runs a bridge to Google Chat (among other services), with my partner still using GChat exclusively.
- Rarely comes up, but probably also Matrix with the bridges.
- Mastodon, Bluesky, Reddit, besides obviously Lemmy. I don’t really do social media these days.
- Spotify. Prefer downloading/ripping and keeping MP3s locally.
- Mainly still YouTube, but through Revanced where possible. One of the biggest gaps in other viable services right now.
- AuthPass cross platform. Using the same format as KeePass, but I prefer their client.
- Mullvad /AdGuard DNS on my phone, Cloudflare on desktop / Whatever my partner currently has set up on the network now plus my own firewalld configuration at home
- Mostly stock GrapheneOS
- F-Droid / Aurora / (Sandboxed) Play Store only where the others won’t do it.
- Still need to get the archive away from Google. Considering just organizing locally with Immich, just doing local backups for a couple years now.
- DMI / Vädret apps (more useful locally), KDE’s built-in weather widget on desktop.
- We avoid “smart” anything in this house. The closest is Xiaomi’s (Graphene sandboxes) app handling the robovac.
- It’s not Google specific, but I have personally been leaning toward FOSS software storing data locally wherever I reasonably can.
I think you got your answer.
- Proton Mail
- Proton Drive
- Organic Maps
- Startpage/DuckDuckGo
- Zen browser on my Desktop/Vanadium on my Phone
- Proton Calendar
- I just export it to .vcf
- Standard Notes
- Libreoffice, Cryptpad for cloud
- Signal
- Signal
- Mastodon, Lemmy, Reddit
- Spotify
- Peertube, Newpipe if I need Youtube
- Bitwarden
- Proton VPN
- GrapheneOS
- Unfortunately Google Play mainly, F-Droid
- GrapheneOS gallery
- Apple maps (integrated in DDG)
- None
- Aegis for 2FA
I use iPhone, Windows (work laptop) and Linux (personal laptop), so keep that in mind when looking at my suggestions. I have also a Proton unlimited subscription.
- Email: Proton Mail + Simplelogin aliases / Tuta as backup
- Cloud storage: Proton Drive / Filen
- Maps: Magic Earth / OpenStreetMap
- Search engine: Qwant
- Web browser: Zen browser (Firefox fork) / Quiche browser (iOS)
- Calendar: Apple Calendar (our family calendar is here, hard to use something else) / Thunderbird (apple calendar caldav imported)
- Contacts management: Proton / iOS
- Notes / to-do lists: Notesnook / iOS
- Office suite (docs, spreadsheets, etc.): MS Office (work) / Libreoffice (personal)
- Messaging / chat: Signal / SimpleX
- Video calling: Signal
- Social media / microblogging RSS reader / news: Mastodon / Bluesky / Reddit / Lemmy
- Music streaming / podcast app: Tidal (pays artists more and Spotify donated to Trump) / Pocket Casts
- Video streaming / YouTube alternative: Grayjay (Windows/Linux) / Unwatched (iOS)
- Password manager: Proton Pass
- VPN / DNS / Firewall: Proton VPN
- Launcher / Android OS (if you use custom ROMs): iOS
- App store / APKs: iOS
- Photo backup / gallery: Proton Drive
- Weather: iOS
- Smart assistant (if any): Nope
- Anything else you’ve replaced? MS authenticator -> Ente Auth Reddit iOS app -> Hydra Notion -> Anytype
I know that some of my solutions are bonded to Apple, but I am also regularly searching for Apple alternatives and focus on apps that are cross platform to make a possible deApple process smoother in the future.
- Fastmail
- My Nas and Syncthing/rsync
- Osm throught Osmand and a cheap Garmin Navi I got from a flea market
- Duckduckgo
- Librewolf/Firefox
- Etar Synced via CalDAV
- Contacts on my Sim card
- A mix of etar and Fossify Notes
- Libreoffice with Openoffice if it dosent work
- Signal, Telegram
- Signal/Zoom
- Thunderbirds RSS, Lemmy and Pixelfed, I just look on Tagesschau every other day
- Newpipe, Jellyfin, and Antennapod
- TILvids and the instance The peertube App recommends videos from
- KeePassCX, or at least im trying to make it work
- Mullvad, PiHole with Mullvad VPN, Standard NAT wall
- Kvaesito / Graphene
- F-Droid, Aurora Store, Obtainium
- My Nas, planning to switch to Nextcloud
- FOSS weather, fetches from German Wetterdienst
- None
- None
What do you use for things like: 1.Email: Protonmail
2.Cloud storage / file sync: Nextcloud/Syncthing
3.Maps & navigation: OSMAnd + Syncthing
4.Search engine: SearX (self-hosted) and Brave
5.Web browser: Brave, Libre wolf on Linux, Vanadium and Fennec on Mobile
6.Calendar: Etar (with Davx5 from Nextcloud)
7.Contacts management: Contacts in Linux and GrapheneOS (with Davx5 from Nextcloud)
8.Notes / to-do lists: Obsidian over Syncthing with a crapload of plug-ins.
9.Office suite (docs, spreadsheets, etc.): Libreoffice and Onlyoffice
10.Messaging / chat: Signal and some XMPP client (Cheogram on mobile and Dino on Linux)
11.Video calling: Signal for personal, nothing for business (or whatever was used by the person inviting, in an incognito browser tab)
12.Social media / microblogging RSS reader / news: Mastodon and Lemmy / nothing / FreshRSS (self-hosted) / FreshRSS (self-hosted)
13.Music streaming / podcast app: Don’t stream music / AntennaPod
14.Video streaming / YouTube alternative: NewPipe, Smarttube (on TV) and Grayjay
15.Password manager: ProronPass, KeepassXC for secrets
16.VPN / DNS / Firewall: Nord VPN, Tailscale and Teleport (Unifi) / AdguardHome / Unifi UCG-Ultra
17.Launcher / Android OS (if you use custom ROMs): GrapheneOS stock launcher
18.App store / APKs: Neo Store and Obtainium (for everything I can get from git instead of f-droid and similar. Sometimes Aurora if I want to try something commonplace
19.Photo backup / gallery: Nextcloud
20.Weather: Breeze weather on mobile, Gnome weather on Linux
21.Smart assistant (if any): None (yet, still researching options on Home Assistant)
22.Anything else you’ve replaced?: I’ve been able to replace everything that matters to me, but that’s a wiki-like long list.
email, calendar, contacts
Fastmail. Migration to some European provider is planned. K-9 for email on phone. For email/calendar/contacts Thunderbird on desktop. Contact and calendar sync Davx5 on phone. Fossify for contacts and etar for calendar on phone.
cloud storage
Filen. Zero knowledge e2ee service from Germany
maps & navigation
OSM-AND+
search
qwant (from France) and sometimes DDG or startpage
browser
LibreWolf + uBlock origin
notes
just a text editor (Pluma)
office
Latex & LibreOffice when needed
messaging
Signal, some contacts are still in TG
video calling
Don’t use
social media
Lemmy & Mastodon
music streaming
Don’t use. I get mine either on physical media if possible (cd) or in flac format (Bandcamp)
video streamming
Nebula, Odysee and FreeTube for youtube content
password manager
keepassXC. DB is synced via cloud to other devices
vpn & dns
Mullvad
firewall
Linux built-in (netfilter) configured thru Yast
android os
Graphene OS
app store
F-droid and some via Aurora store
photo gallery
Digikam locally on desktop. Fossify gallery on phone.
weather
Finnish meteorological institution
smart assistant
Don’t use
anything else
I ditched google mostly years ago. Graphene OS is the latest one and that was only this year. FreeTube is also fairly recent (sometime last year). Before that I used piped but that was nuked by google. More precisely they made it impossible to use. On software I’ve been FOSS first for over 10 years. Using OpenSuse Tumbleweed on my desktop and laptop (Thinkpad L580).
CloudBeats
First post on Lemmy but not new to degoogling.
Phone is a Pixel 6a running GrapheneOS for about 2.5 years.
Laptop is a used Lenovo T470s with Linux, Fedora Workstation. Total noob.
1.Email - Proton Unlimited
2.Cloud storage / file sync - Proton Drive / Syncthing
3.Maps & navigation - OSMAnd
4.Search engine - varies but right now it’s Brave
- Web browser - On my phone I use Ironfox with UBlock Origins on expert mode (deletes all browsing data) and Brave for logins.
On my laptop, LibreWolf with UBlock Origins on expert mode (deletes browsing data) and Firefox for logins.
Ironfox and LibreWolf are sync through Mozilla.
6.Calendar - Fossify Calendar, phone.
7.Contacts management - whatever is stock on GOS
8.Notes / to-do lists - Fossify Notes for reusable checklists. Joplin on both laptop and phone for markdown notes. I used to use Quillpad when I used an android tablet and phone.
9.Office suite (docs, spreadsheets, etc.) LibreOffice on Linux. LibreOffice viewer on my phone.
10.Messaging / chat - Signal
11.Video calling - I don’t do video calling but if I did, Signal
12.Social media - Firefox on my Laptop, Brave on my phone. I’m planning on ditching Reddit. RedReader is the app I use on that site.
12b. microblogging - I can’t stand microblogging (Twitter, Mastodon, Bluesky)
12c. RSS reader / news - Feeder on my phone
13.Music streaming - I play music stored on my phone with Vanilla.
13b. podcast app - Antenna Pod on my phone. I like CPod on my laptop but it’s no longer being updated. I’ve looked but can’t find one I like for Linux that is being updated.
14.Video streaming / YouTube alternative - Freetube on Linux and PipePipe on my phone
15.Password manager - Proton Pass.
16.VPN / DNS / Firewall - ProtonVPN but their Linux app is barebones. Doesn’t even have split tunneling.
17.Launcher / Android OS (if you use custom ROMs) - Stock launcher on phone. Extension Manager on my laptop to tweak the desktop for more usability.
18.App store / APKs - From most to least apps installed from that store - Obtainium (usually Github) 22, F-Droid 15, Aurora Store 3, and Accrescent 3.
19.Photo backup / gallery - Photos sync to my laptop with Syncthing, from there I upload to ProtonDrive.
20.Weather - I open Environment Canada local forecast with a browser
21.Smart assistant (if any) - Nope
22.Anything else you’ve replaced? - I use mostly cash in stores. My keyboard is Futo on my phone.
I plan on moving away from Proton if they don’t start supporting Linux more. Addy for email aliases, Tuta for mail, and Mullvad for VPN. Not sure about cloud, or if I need it, at the moment.
Never used googol. It was garbage from the get go.
1.Email
FastMail, IceDove (GNU debranded ThunderBird), FairEmail
2.Cloud storage / file sync
Syncthing, Nextcloud for sharing and browsing files, I store my files using TrueNAS and a RAID Z2 configuration with Backblaze B2 for backup
3.Maps & navigation
OsmAnd with Brouter (FastBike-VeryLowTraffic profile) for ebike, my local transit app for public transit, Magic Earth the rare occasion I use a car, Uber rarely, I still use Google Maps for searching because everything else sucks
4.Search engine
Kagi, nowadays I usually use Deepseek R1 model with either Kagi Assistant or OpenRouter but might self-host LibreChat
5.Web browser
LibreWolf for searches, FireFox and FireFox PWAs for sites I regularly visit but planning to switch to Floorp. On Android, Cromite for random sites, Vanadium for sides I stay logged in to, IronFox with extensions for searches.
6.Calendar
Etar synced with Nextcloud using DAVx5
7.Contacts management
GrapheneOS contacts app synced with Nextcloud, the Fossify app has given me problems
8.Notes / to-do lists
Tasks.org synced with Nextcloud, Logseq for random notes, Markdown or comments in Typst documents in certain contexts
9.Office suite (docs, spreadsheets, etc.)
Typst or LaTeX for documents I make myself. LibreOffice or Collabora app for MS office documents.
10.Messaging / chat
Signal (Molly) and Discord (Vesktop, Revenge) most of the time
11.Video calling
Signal or Discord for personal, Teams for business stuff
12.Social media / microblogging RSS reader / news
Lemmy, Reddit, Instagram
13.Music streaming / podcast app
Tidal for my own playlists, Spotify for playlists from other people, YouTube when I want to randomly listen to something, ListenBrainz and Last.fm for scribbling. I want to set up Navidrome again but last time I did it was a disaster.
15.Password manager
Bitwarden/Vaultwarden
16.VPN / DNS / Firewall
InviZible Pro and Privoxy (uses Tor and I2P). I should probably get Mullvad or AirVPN.
17.Launcher / Android OS (if you use custom ROMs)
Kvaesitso
18.App store / APKs
Obtainium for FOSS, Google Play for proprietary
19.Photo backup / gallery
Syncthing-Fork, Aves Libre
20.Weather
Weather.gov, Windy which tends to be more accurate for more specific locations
- Proton
- Proton (Sync leave a lot to be desired)
- Organic Maps
- Kagi
- Firefox (LibreWolf)
- Proton
- Contacts are kind of a mess. A combination of Proton & my phones Google Contacts library. Though I use the Fossify app
- Standard Notes / Tasks.org
- LibreOffice
- Had to go back to Google Messenger when my new phone wasn’t receiving work MMS and group messages.
I use Signal with my closest friends and family - Signal / Zoom
- Fediverse almost exclusively (~90% Lemmy)
- AntennaPod for podcasts
- I still use Youtube for videos and streaming since I’m still grandfathered into the $8 original Google Play Music All Access intro offer. They are contractually obligated to never increase the price on me.
- BitWarden (Not a fan of the updated interface, may switch to Proton)
- Proton
- Lawnchair
- Droid-ify with Play Store as fallback
- Proton
- Breezy Weather
- Too picky for an assistant, AI or otherwise
Currently, Proton Pass’s sync has to be forced manually on Android. Proton told me a few weeks ago they are working on a fix.
I find you can get close to the old Bitwarden extension functionality with changing the appearance settings. I agree though, the interface change was definitely a step backward.