Recommendations for privacy-focused, open-source alternatives to corporate apps

Submitted ⁨⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨dparanoidandroid@lemmy.world⁩ to ⁨[deleted]⁩

As someone just starting their journey into privacy-focused, open-source software, I’d love to hear what apps the community recommends.

I’m particularly interested in:

What messaging apps you use instead of WhatsApp/Messenger
Alternatives to Google services (email, calendar, cloud storage)
Social media alternatives that respect privacy
Browsers
Password managers worth using
Any other productivity apps you’d recommend me to use

I’m using Apple devices (I know, I know), so apps that work well in this ecosystem would be ideal. Which ones have you found perform exceptionally well?

What was your experience transitioning away from corporate services? Any pitfalls to avoid or strategies that made the switch easier?

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scytale@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Have a look at www.privacyguides.org/en/. Their lists indicate OS/device compatibility and they also note any potential caveats.

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A_norny_mousse@feddit.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
What messaging apps you use instead of WhatsApp/Messenger

Signal. I actually do use WA as well (peer pressure) but it’s registered to a separate phone/SIM and I use it almost exclusively through a desktop app

Alternatives to Google services (email, calendar, cloud storage)

I use a small local email provider. If that wasn’t an option I’d probably use mailbox.org.
Calendar and contacts: self-hosted CalDAV/CardDAV application. And since I do have a server, that’s also my cloud.

Social media alternatives that respect privacy

Fediverse is private enough for me.

Browsers

Librewolf

Password managers worth using

Keepassxc

Any other productivity apps you’d recommend me to use

What are productivity apps?
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Gorgeous_Sloth@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Signal

Proton services (mail, calendar, cloud, VPN)

Mastodon, Lemmy

Firefox w/ uBlock Origin

Proton Pass or Bitwarden

That’s what I’d love to do. Sadly, it’s quite complicated to stick to those only. And I’m also a bit worried about what’s up with Proton recently.
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- juststoppingby@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  I’m out of the loop, what’s up with Proton recently?
  
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  - sem@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    Their CEO posted in support of the Republicans and then doubled down when people pushed back, until some PR people intervened and tried to get politics back out of proton.
    
    Maybe there is more, that’s what I remember.
    
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Wildfire0Straggler3@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
My recommendation for you would to be to ditch the iOS device and get a Google Pixel phone and immediately flash it to GrapheneOS which de-googles it entirely.

Regarding privacy and security it is literally the best option considering it doesn’t send any telemetry to the underlying OS host servers like Apple and Google do.

On top of that, F-Droid and Accrescent are app stores for open source software only available for the android ecosystem that has no equivalent on iOS. Accrescent is specifically aimed towards security and privacy.

First, the Google Pixel has a multi-user function that, when utilized, allows the user to create multiple profiles (I believe it’s up to 32 on GrapheneOS) on the device which ensures separation between apps that you don’t want to talk to each other.

Like if you have Telegram you can put it on its own profile so it doesn’t collect data from your other apps and send it off to data brokers. It’s like having a brand new phone for every user.

Second, Molly-Foss is a hardened fork of Signal that is specific to android and doesnt contain any of Google’s proprietary code available only in F-Droid and Accrescent. Molly has passphrase encryption (a feature that Signal removed), can be used with , and has RAM Shredding for securely deleting sensitive information.

molly.im

Secondly, F-Droid hosts apps like:

1.) Exodus: An privacy dashboard that lists all of your apps trackers and permissions so you can make informed decisions on the apps you keep on your phone. (I currently don’t have ANY apps that have trackers on my device). It also details what those trackers collect and a percentage of your apps that have that tracker.

2.) TrackerControl: Gives you granular control over all the trackers that your apps interact with (and even websites you visit which is extremely helpful in browsing the web more safely). It categorizes trackers by their function such as Advertising, Analytics, Fingerprinting, Email, Essential, Social, and Uncategorized and allows you to block each of them individually and allow certain ones that are required for the app or website to function.

3.) Privacy Browser: The name says it all but its a web browser based off of the android webview that minimizes the data that is sent to the internet and minimizes the amount of data that is stored on the device. It has built in tracker control, toggles for DOM Storage, Cookies, and JavaScript. You can also stream it through TOR, I2P, or your own proxy.

4.) Aurora Store: A private frontend for Google Play Store for apps that you can’t get on F-Droid that you feel you must have on your device. You can use the anonymous log in feature so you don’t need to have a google account to install apps. You can filter out apps that are reliant on Google Play Services as well that don’t have trackers built into them.

5.) PipePipe: A private frontend for YouTube that doesn’t allow Google to track you (unless you log in)

F-Droid has a TON of Free/Libre Open Source Software apps that aren’t creepy and respect your privacy. It includes a large selection of apps that you can self host on a server at home to replace most big tech services.

Third, you should look into self hosting your own services to replace big tech, it allows you to take control of your data and privacy

openalternative.co/self-hosted

github.com/awesome-selfhosted/awesome-selfhosted

Otherwise, all fediverse apps for services like: Reddit: Lemmy (of course) using an app like Raccoon from F-Droid that doesn’t have any trackers. Instagram: Pixelfed using an app like PixelDroid from F-Droid that also doesn’t have any trackers. TikTok: Loops from loops.video Facebook/Twitter: Mastodon

And I’d be remiss to not mention Mullvad and ProtonVPN as private choices for VPN’s. They are not based in the US and you can pay for Mullvad in cash.

Unfortunately, you don’t really have many options for iOS.

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yessikg@lemmy.blahaj.zone ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Bitwarden is a good password manager, Signal or XMPP for messaging, you may want to get a VPN app

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stringere@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Coworker shared this with me. Keeping it going.

Image

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occultist8128@infosec.pub ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
i’m on android so…

signal/telegram (still need telegram for community discussion).

i use protonmail for personal stuff and tuta for professional stuff. still using google calendar since people i work with are using that. i use mega.

lemmy?

iceraven (firefox fork), still need chromium based like vivaldi.

don’t know what to tell since i use android.
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- Wildfire0Straggler3@lemm.ee ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Telegram is not private at all. Its not even end to end encrypted unless you turn the feature on with direct messages. I would not recommend this as a private alternative especially considering they hand over messages to law enforcement after the creator was arrested and forced to.
  
  If you use telegram just be aware it is absolutely not private.
  
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  - A_norny_mousse@feddit.org ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    +1 to all of the above.
    People used to think it was because you didn’t need a phone number to register but those days are long gone.
    
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  - occultist8128@infosec.pub ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
    i know.
    
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capc8m@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
password-store is a CLI app to store passwords and even supports OTP.

Whoogle is a meta search (still uses Google search) that takes the bloat off.

Matrix is a decentralized and secure messaging platform.

For email I have a vps (costs less than protonmail) and use Maddy.

There are a few good firefox alternatives, I use waterfox on my phone and floorp on my Linux PC.

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- bonsai@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  
  password-store is a CLI app to store passwords and even supports OTP.
  
  Please do not use the same manager for your passwords and OTPs. That defeats the purpose of multi-factor.
  
  Otherwise +1 for the other services. I’m hoping to set up my matrix server soon
  
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pebble3292@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
[deleted]
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- wildbus8979@sh.itjust.works ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
  Instead of cryptomator, look at RClone, it’s cross platform including an android app called RCX.
  
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commander@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
I’d say try Linux. Ubuntu or Fedora and you’ll realize how much of your computer usage is based out a web browser and it doesn’t matter whether you have a Linux, Mac, or Windows computer

Email you’ll be stuck with some corporate entity that won’t be 100% open source. Running an email server and your emails not being filtered is a pain. I use Proton applications for email, VPN, and Dropbox type service. They have a calendar but hard to beat google calendar

Signal for pretty much texting. I actually have around a dozen people I primarily message through Signal so it’s viable for me

Matrix/Element for something like discord.

Onlyoffice, Libreoffice, or WPS Office instead of MS Office. WPS may not be open source

Browser use Firefox or Firefox forks

Krita, Darktable, GIMP for image editing

KeepassXC for my desktop password manager and whatever is available on Android

Maps you can use Organic Maps

Video editing i use kdenlive

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Cthuwu@lemmy.dbzer0.com ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
For messaging app I was recently pointed to QUIK Open source available on F-Droid

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AnAustralianPhotographer@lemmy.world ⁨3⁩ ⁨weeks⁩ ago
Edit; now I went back and reread the question, I saw opens source. I will leave the comment as it could be a turnkey solution and stepping stone option to going full open source.

Something like a server on a raspberry pi could be what your after, but I don’t have specific software recommendations for it.

…

I’ve just started dabbling, so don’t consider this an expert, but a suggestion.

Synology nas’s have a focus on data sovereignty . They have Android apps that communicate from your phone to the Nas for media.

They can also be setup as a private cloud drive initially accessible by VPN to access and a email / web interface as well as instant messager and webdrive

I gave some though to setting up a small private ‘corporate’ style server where people could access

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