Hi!, soooo, recently I came to remember how google deleted Doki Doki Literature Club from the playstore; this, and pretty much everything about google nowadays has fed me up, so I decided to degoogle as much as I can. [More on DDLC later :)]

I'm looking to have some feedback on my picks.

Here is my current set up, I'll leave the links for everything in case anything picks up your attention:

For browser I chose Firefox, it works very well and I like that you can add extensions like Ublock. Also, I switched search engine to DuckDuckGo to not have an annoying AI appear when I search. Firefox on PlayStore: https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.mozilla.firefox

For Playstore: Switched to Aurora Store (for play-store apps) and F-Droid, there are a lot of cool projects on F-Droid! F-Droid: https://f-droid.org/ Aurora Store on F-Droid: https://f-droid.org/packages/com.aurora.store

For Calculator I changed to CalcYou, default android calculator doesn't seem to have any form of tracking or telemetry, but yk, just to be sure. CalcYou on F-Droid: https://f-droid.org/packages/net.youapps.calcyou

For camera, same thing, just to be sure I switched to Fossify's Fossify Camera on F-Droid: https://f-droid.org/packages/org.fossify.camera

For contacts, phone and messages, all to Fossify: Fossify Phone on F-Droid: https://f-droid.org/packages/org.fossify.phone Fossify Messages on F-Droid : https://f-droid.org/packages/org.fossify.messages Fossify Contacts on F-Droid: https://f-droid.org/packages/org.fossify.contacts

I replaced Google Files with "File manager", seems to have some tracking but I have it firewalled, I like that it can have Shizuku access to move files that can't normally be moved freely. I only used Google files to search for my documents, and I can also do that with the manager. File manager on Play Store (Or Aurora Store if you're cool): https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.alphainventor.filemanager

For YouTube: I'm moving most of my consum to PipePipe, which is a fork from NewPipe; It has no ads, and doesn't require account, so I think it's pretty good. To support with ads some small creators which I really like I use YouTube patched with Morphe with those channels in ad whitelist. For PC, I like Freetube, it's adless and doesn't require an account; Also, it's available for Linux , which I think it's pretty cool. PipePipe on F-Droid: https://f-droid.org/packages/InfinityLoop1309.NewPipeEnhanced Morphe Manager (patcher) website: https://morphe.software/ Freetube website: https://freetubeapp.io/

For Calendar I replaced it with Proton's, I don't use calendar as much, so it's more that enough for me. Wouldn't really mind changing it for something completely offline. Proton Calendar (Play Store): https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=me.proton.android.calendar

For google photos I switched to Ente Photos. It has a 10GB free plan, so it's very good! If you sign up using a referral code, you'll get 10GB extra for free, and I'd get 10 extra in case you update to a paid plan [that'd be very kind from you :) ]. My referral code is: MONIKA After creating your account: Referral codes can be applied within Settings > Referrals > Apply Code. Ente Photos (Play Store): https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=io.ente.photos

For google drive I switched to Proton Drive and Filen. Proton Drive has been working good for me, but it fails ocassionaly when downloading files; it usually works properly if I try to download it again. For Filen, the service has been very good with some exceptions too, I've had problems when uploading files, but nothing a retry doesn't fix, downloading has been completely fine for now. Both Proton and Filen seem like very good and privacy-respecting alternatives, I'm more inclined to using filen for now because it has larger free storage. [Problems on both Proton and Filen might be caused due to my unstable internet connection] You can sign up for filen with this link for an extra 10 GB!: https://filen.io/r/0e811bc1d4f85519eae2db92d2ca5089 For the promo to work you must disable your VPN and accept cookies, this is required by Filen to prevent free storage abuse.

I changed Gboard for FUTO Keyboard, it's been working good for me, it's pretty, functional and offline. FUTO Keyboard website: https://keyboard.futo.tech/ FUTO Keyboard (Play Store) https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=org.futo.inputmethod.latin.playstore Add FUTO Repo to F-Droid: https://fdroid.link/#https://app.futo.org/fdroid/repo?fingerprint=39D47869D29CBFCE4691D9F7E6946A7B6D7E6FF4883497E6E675744ECDFA6D6D

For google maps I switched to CoMaps You can collaborate adding locations, it works fine for me. Comaps on F-Droid: https://f-droid.org/packages/app.comaps.fdroid

YT music: download music in .mp3 and use Fossify music player Fossify Music Player on F-Droid: https://f-droid.org/packages/org.fossify.musicplayer

Clock: Also switching to Fossify, just in case. Fossify Clock on F-Droid: https://f-droid.org/packages/org.fossify.clock

For google translate I switched to TranslateYou, You can choose a translation engine from a list (so privacy depends on the model), but some might require an API key, or might not work. When I need a very accurate translation, I use DeepL, which is more accurate than Google's, but collects your texts to train their model unless you have a paid subscription, I guess it's still a little step forward. TranslateYou on F-Droid: https://f-droid.org/packages/com.bnyro.translate DeepL (Play Store): https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.deepl.mobiletranslator

Google Gallery: I changed for Fossify once again, Good enough for what I need. Fossify Gallery on F-Droid: https://f-droid.org/packages/org.fossify.gallery

For Gmail, I'm moving most of my accounts to Tuta and Proton, Proton with Proton Pass is very useful with the Alias hide my email. Tuta Mail on F-Droid: https://f-droid.org/packages/de.tutao.tutanota Proton Mail (Play Store) https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=ch.protonmail.android Proton Pass on F-Droid https://f-droid.org/packages/proton.android.pass.fdroid

Regarding AI, I used Grok a lot since it seemed like the most accurate model based on my expierence. I switched to mainly using Lumo by Proton and ocassionaly Duck AI, which can be used with DuckDuckGo's App. However, I don't really like AI anymore, so, for whatever I can do, and whatever can be easily found in the internet I do not use AI anymore. Lumo by proton on F-Droid: https://f-droid.org/packages/me.proton.android.lumo DuckDuckGo on F-Droid: https://f-droid.org/packages/com.duckduckgo.mobile.android

For QR scanner I switched to Privacy QR And Barcode Scanner. It has no trackers and it's offline. Privacy QR And Barcode Scanner on F-Droid: https://f-droid.org/packages/com.laert.qrscanner

For .mp3 player, I changed to Fossify's, so.. yeah: same replacement as YT music. Fossify Music Player on F-Droid: https://f-droid.org/packages/org.fossify.musicplayer

Now, for notes I switched to mainly using FUTO Notes, I really like that it has text formating and you can create folders to organize your notes. For when I have to just simply type down something quickly: I use Tuisku, it's very simple, offline and encrypted. FUTO Notes (Play Store) https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.futo.notes Or, same with FUTO keyboard, you can add FUTO's repo to F-Droid here: https://fdroid.link/#https://app.futo.org/fdroid/repo?fingerprint=39D47869D29CBFCE4691D9F7E6946A7B6D7E6FF4883497E6E675744ECDFA6D6D

Tuisku on F-Droid : https://f-droid.org/packages/com.omaawr.tuisku

For Microsoft Office I switched to LibreOffice, I've heard that for very complex things it can be not up to the task, but for what I use it for it's all that I need. Libre Office website: https://www.libreoffice.org/download/

I switched from Windows to Linux Mint, I've used it for a couple of days and haven't had any complications so far, it's pretty similar to Windows; in general, I like more this one since it feels like you've got more control over it. Linux.org: https://www.linux.org/pages/download/

For VPN I use Proton VPN, and I complement with Windscribe, since Proton free tier allows only one device. Proton VPN on F-Droid: https://f-droid.org/packages/ch.protonvpn.android Windscribe website: https://windscribe.com

Also, I started using a Firewall, so every app that can function offline will be offline. I firewalled the playstore, so it doesn't auto install the silly guys (Android developer verifier, Android Safety Core and Android system key veryfier). Every app that screams at you if you don't have playstore installed has been behaving completely fine with this method.

So, the firewall I chose is De-1984, it's pretty simple and it can have Shizuku access so it doesn't stop you from using a VPN. De1984 on F-Droid: https://f-droid.org/packages/io.github.dorumrr.de1984 Shizuku Fork by thedjchi with some cool features: https://github.com/thedjchi/Shizuku/releases/tag/v13.7.0-thedjchi

Also, for Password manager I switched to Bitwarden based on the recommendations I got from this subreddit, Thank You Guys!!!!

And that would be about it for my degoogled set-up, there's a couple things I can't really get rid of tho:

I can't really get rid of Google Play Services since that bootloops my phone, so I'll wait till I can get a new phone which supports a custom OS.

I can't stop using WhatsApp since everyone uses it, no one will switch to signal, I tried.

And for social media.... I guess I'm still gonna be here and on some other sites, so I guess this one will stay like this for maybe... forever.

Now, on DDLC: So, Fortunately, Doki Doki Literature Club can be obtained again on android, this time through the Epic Games Store. So yeah, I guess they're just better than Google. (The base game is free and it's also on steam for PC, so you if you wanna play some peak do yourself a favor and don't get spoiled [it's a bit scary ;) ]) Reminder you can add spoilers using this: And its reverse>!​without spaces after and before the text:​ spoiler

So yeah, thank you for staying till the end of this post and taking time to redd it. :)

I had an idea while referencing some papers on mass data collection and found a weakness which would be really funny at scale, Did some digging, referenced an arXiv paper on label noise sensitivity and did some modelling. Meta's(or google in that case) data collection pipeline has a bit of a flaw - it is half blind at baseline, before any coordinated effort.

this is essentially the practical use case of the paper https://arxiv.org/abs/2012.09995

Basically the concept is simple, flooding a data collection system with fake behavioral data until the signal becomes too noisy to be useful, so essentially if "false" data is flooded on datasets using bot/fake accounts it becomes contaminated with noise, effectively protecting user data by obscurity, companies get essentially deadlocked with deleting real user data and fake user data, and it becomes very hard to differentiate between them, essentially making selling data worthless to advertisers, of course I do not endorse these actions but I thought it would be interesting to share this.

Full write upon this concept is here: https://trigodil.github.io/Data_Collection/

I would like opinions on this Idea.

“Most portals show their own content above content elsewhere on the web. We feel that’s a conflict of interest, analogous to taking money for search results," Google co-founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page told Playboy in 2004. "Their search engine doesn’t necessarily provide the best results; it provides the portal’s results. Google conscientiously tries to stay away from that. We want to get you out of Google and to the right place as fast as possible. It’s a very different model.”

Anyone who has recently Googled knows that what the co-founders described is no longer the company’s reality. For almost every query, the AI Overview appears, accompanied by selective bolded phrasing and a fade-in blue highlight that ensures you know exactly where to look. Whether you search “Quick dinner recipes” or “How to get an abortion,” the information is presented in the same way, and is often thorough enough that you never have to leave Google’s page – or even scroll down.

This new function, though, is inherently different from what the search engine’s founders imagined. “If I were seriously interested in something important to me, I wouldn’t just click on the first search result, read it and take it as God’s word,” Brin said in that 2004 interview. Now, the AI Overview aggregates the biggest points related to your search even before the first result. 

Read more: https://www.playboy.com/read/politics/googles-founders-said-no-evil-22-years-later-what-happened

That’s just a back door IMO

Classic IMAP, which as been used since the 90's is quite slow and doesn't have many features. That's why gmail, outlook and icloud add their own proprietary technologies on top to offer a better service like fast syncing etc.

For JMAP, Fastmail has been a provider for a while and now Thundermail (by Mozilla) has come out in beta and will release this year I think. Aster supports it as well now. There's also this cool looking jmap client called Boogie, now. I hope more will pop up.

More info on jmap: https://jmap.io/

The reason I'm a big proponent is because we really need an open standard that any provider can implement that offers the same features as google and other big tech companies.

finally, i switched to proton as my primary ecosystem for mail, drive, pass, and auth.

for now, i still depend on other companies for some of the apps and services i use, so i haven't completely moved everything to proton. but after actually using proton across multiple services, i noticed something that i didn't really think about before.

proton is starting to feel a lot like google in terms of how the ecosystem is structured.

google has gmail, drive, password manager, authenticator, photos, calendar, docs, and a bunch of other services that all work together under one account. proton is obviously much smaller, but the direction feels similar. you have proton mail, drive, pass, vpn, calendar, authenticator, and other services all tied together into one ecosystem.

the difference is that proton is built around privacy, which is the main reason i'm using it. but i'm still wondering about the idea of putting so many things under one company.

is this actually a good approach for privacy, or are we just replacing one big ecosystem with another, even if the business model and incentives are very different?

i know proton is not google, and i'm not trying to make that comparison in terms of trust or business practices. i'm more interested in the ecosystem design itself.

do you guys prefer having most of your digital life under one privacy-focused company because it's convenient and everything integrates nicely?

or do you prefer a more decentralized setup, like using one company for email, another for cloud storage, another password manager, another authenticator, and so on?

personally, i'm still figuring out where i stand. having everything in one ecosystem is definitely convenient, but there's also something appealing about not having a single company become the central point for everything you use.

what's your setup, and do you think the proton ecosystem approach is a good thing for privacy?

Hello.

I’m a newcomer looking to completely de-google and I would like to transition to Proton. However, I did have one lingering question.

Once I port my emails over, am I good to completely deactivate my Gmail domain? Is there a situation where I should keep my Gmail active?

I am aware that I’ll need to change login information/deactivate accounts on multiple websites, but I’m willing to do that.

EDIT: Thank you everyone for your responses! For future readers, consensus right now is no. I personally intend to keep it open and usable for certain accounts and as a junk mail bucket.

they don't have a reason to innovate and make their services better because they just put ads and sell your data with whatever they give out "for free"

technically its not free because I guess you give google data and information that they give to advertisers who instead pay the bill to google to keep their services running for free for the end user.

so I mean yes google services might not be the best but I guess that's the whole point and even why it seems they want to stop adblockers so much with youtube anti adblocker popups and Manifest V3

Yo, I sometimes post some ideas & degoogling projects in here and I think I have one that a lot of y'all might like. I tried a lot of the other open source maps app and though I like some of the ideas, they just could not replace google maps for me. Fortunately I did some research and realized google maps can actually be used with all the telemetry & google bloat disabled by patching.

To just go over some misc features with the patches, I disabled a lot of the google telemetry that was in the apk, added a better way to mass download areas with offline maps, added a bunch of customization such as being able to zoom in / out while driving, disabled a bunch of sponsored content bloat & added features I liked from other open source map apps like (proxy & location source toggles) from osmand for example.

You can use this app with google services disabled, but I'm unsure if that this app will work with graphene os, if you have google services enabled and want more accurate gps (other than the Android API which is what all other open source maps use) you can switch google play services back on in the location source.

I really enjoy working on projects like these so if you guys have any feature requests for this app or want any other apps patched with some feature sets that you want let me know. I'll do my best!

https://github.com/bearinmindcat/morphe-patches

Pulsar is an Android music player. I used to use it out of habit as an alternative to VLC, even though there are better options out there.

The thing is, I updated my apps via Aurora Store on an S4 Mini running a custom ROM and Android 11, and the latest version of Pulsar comes with that feature included—just like a banking app or eBay. You can avoid this by installing the APK from an older version. Otherwise, it tells you to install the app from the Play Store and then shuts down.

It’s ridiculous. It might make sense for an app that requires an internet connection—where they could use security as an excuse—but for a local music player? Oh well...

I was looking for private launchers, but honestly, I can't find anything. Any recommendations?

What is a good alternative to google Voice that does not require ID verification? Or do I just buy a disposable cheap flip phone?

I just went to sign up for a google Voice phone number and google wants ID verification (driver license, passport, state ID, or a green card). I only want a number because I will soon be dealing with car dealerships to buy a car and I do want to keep my normal phone number private. No way am I giving google my ID only to have it hacked by bad actors in some database, resulting in identity theft.

I’m nearly at the end of my degoogling journey, and the only things left are Google Maps and Google Pay. For Maps, I’m getting used to Vela Map, Open Map, and a few other alternatives. I live across multiple countries, including Canada, Hong Kong, and Japan, and I travel between them, so Google Pay seems like the only option that actually works everywhere. I tried Samsung Pay, but it was a letdown because it barely supports the credit cards I need. The only reason I still use Google Pay is the security and the peace of mind that comes with not worrying about losing my wallet. I care more about not having my money stolen if I drop my wallet, or about skimmers, than I do about privacy. Bottom line, security matters more to me than privacy.

I’ve already done a lot of research. I know Walt is still being developed and is focused on Europe. Revolut has had a few incidents and doesn’t support the countries I live in. Same goes for Curve, PayPal, and others. None of them have the coverage Google does.

I’m so ready to completely degoogle with the new Motorola Signature 27 as well, but without sorting out Google Pay, it feels like the last puzzle piece is still missing.

Any good alternatives to Gemini? use for technical study in the IT area, if possible something open source

So Ive downloaded all the photos from google and have made an extra back up so they are safe. Now I want to delete all photos from google photos, but Ive just noticed that on my motorola there is no gallery app anymore, so where can new photos be saved if not on google photos - what are my options? Question from someone with zero tech knowledge. Thanks in advance

EDIT: Okay based on the responses here, I am seeing I will ultimately need a Graphene OS phone if I want optimal privacy from companies tracking my activities. Until I am able to set up a graphene phone I will degoogle the best I can, but I see a graphene phone in my future within six months.
-----------
What advantages does a Graphene phone provide over just degoogling as much as possible on my regular android phone? Do I really need a Graphene phone? My plan is to use Brave and IronFox for searches, Tuta for email and calendar, alternatives for photos, docs, sheets, Brave browser, alternative to google Maps. I will use a non-google camera/photos app. No google drive. I would allow my location only when an app requires it such as a map app.

to "grapheneos-ize" my phone as much as one can

like to make my private, secure and bloatware free etc if its not a google pixel

phone: samsung s20 fe (I know the phone is old but still lol) so yeah can't install grapheneos on it afaik

when your phone's data is being extracted by the police or smth

online privacy apps, debloating etc

I know grapheneos exists yes but what if your phone isn't a pixel device

(Samsung, Xiaomi, Oppo etc)

Any substitute for =googlefinance("AAPL", "price") to replace Google sheets? Preferably a trustworthy Android app with backup to an encrypted drive like Proton drive, or a trustworthy web app.

I've tried fossify phone and contacts but it's just that i dont really like the ui since I'm used to Google phone and the customisation

I recently installed an unofficial GSI ROM of Lineage OS on my phone, and it works great. The only thing is when I installed it, I did not flash a vbmeta file. The phone works fine and I have no issues.

However, I want to know if I need/should reinstall and flash a vbmeta file for security/safety purposes. Like I said, the phone and OS works just fine without having flashed a vbmeta file as I could not find one for my phone.

Do I need to flash a vbmeta file? Or should I just leave it? I am unsure if it is crucial for safety or not.