link to original reddit post by /u/Mighty-Lu-Bu
Today our freedom of speech and right to privacy is under assault by Big Tech and Government alike. Over the last decade, Big Tech has become a juggernaut of an industry with hundreds of billions of dollars in annual profit. Unfortunately, many of these companies partake in cronyism, and tech companies, such as Google, Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, etc., have been caught censoring viewpoints that they disagree with, even if these differing viewpoints are backed by scientific evidence and hard facts. Furthermore, some Big Tech companies track, collect and sell your private information for profit. Many of these Big Tech companies also have one thing in common: they predominately donate to Democratic political candidates. In the 2020 election cycle, Google's parent company Alphabet contributed $21 million to Joe Biden and Democrat super PACs. In the same election cycle, Microsoft donated $17 million to Joe Biden and Democrat super PACs. The delivery tech-giant Amazon contributed $8.9 million to Joe Biden, followed by Facebook, who contributed $6 million, followed by Apple, which had 80% of its employees contribute a total of $5.7 million, followed by Twitter, who donated 689k and lastly, Netflix, who contributed over $5.42 million to Democrat super PACs. What makes the situation even scarier is that within the last 12 years, Big Tech has been sending lobbyists to Washington DC to dictate government policy. Historically, the United States government has had a poor track record in regards to safeguarding civil liberties. The "War on terrorism" and invasive laws such as the Bush-era Patriot Act (which both the Obama administration and the Trump administration renewed) have eroded our privacy. In response, I have drafted this document to aid us in our fight against Big Tech censorship, data mining/privacy violations, cronyism, and government surveillance. Here I will list reliable and user-friendly alternatives to Big Tech's offerings, and everything listed here is security and privacy-focused. Last but not least, consider this to be an evolving list that will see additions with new versions.
First, let's start with a quick video on what Crony Capitalism is and why the Big Tech companies are partaking in it:
https://odysee.com/@johnstossel:7/enough-crony-capitalism:2
Second, let's watch another video on why privacy is so important in the first place:
https://odysee.com/@johnstossel:7/privacy-who-needs-it:9
Search Engines
Google has dominated the search engine industry for nearly a decade. Still, by using their search engine, you give them consent to harvest and sell your private information. In addition, Google uses a unique search engine algorithm that can skew search results. Bing and Yahoo, while not as popular as Google, do the same thing, so they are best to be avoided. Below are some excellent alternatives, and none of these alternatives collect or sell your information, and they are all considered ideal if you are at all worried about privacy.
DuckDuckGo – The largest of all private Google alternatives, DuckDuckGo does not keep logs; they block all trackers, all searches are confidential and encrypted, and they are based out of the US. As of 2021, DuckDuckGo is hitting over 100 million daily searches, which is pretty impressive for a search engine that is not associated with Big Tech.
**Startpage –**The private Dutch search engine company, Startpage, works similarly to DuckDuckGo: It does not track or log any user data or share data with third parties. In addition, their main servers are located in the Netherlands, which means users are protected by Dutch and EU privacy laws which are some of the most strict in the entire world. Last but not least, they offer a private browsing feature called "Anonymous View," which is a proxy feature that hides your IP address and other personally identifiable information from other sites.
Swisscows – Like the other privacy-focused search engines on this list, Swisscows does not collect any of their visitor's personal information: This includes your IP address, web browser information, or device information. In addition, search terms are not recorded or analyzed, which means there are no Big Tech search algorithms at work here. There is absolutely no third-party infrastructure since all of their servers are privately owned and located in Switzerland, a country known for its strict privacy laws.
Web Browsers
For years Google Chrome has dominated the web browser market, but Chrome is notorious for its performance impacts, insane RAM usage, and of course, they track everything that you do. Below are some excellent alternatives that all excel in regards to privacy.
Brave - Built on the same engine as Chrome, but nearly 3x as fast and wholly built for privacy. By default, Brave blocks cross-site trackers, intrusive ads, insecure HTTP connections, Malware attempts, phishing attempts, and Brave is the first web browser to accept cryptocurrency. In addition, you can do a private window within Brave that uses the TOR network to search the web autonomously, but it does come at a heavy performance cost. There is also a slew of privacy features to select, from blocking all scripts to automatically deleting your web search history upon exit. In addition, the Brave team just announced their own private search engine for a 2021 release.
https://brave.com/compare/chrome/privacy/
**Epic Privacy Browser –**A privacy browser very similar to Brave except not as good in the performance department. Like Brave, Epic has a built-in ad blocker that blocks scripts by default, but this can also mean that certain websites will not work correctly while using Epic. Also, where there is no private search window that uses the TOR network. Instead, Epic has a built-in proxy (that can be toggled on or off) that can offer an additional layer of protection and privacy while browsing the web.
https://www.epicbrowser.com/our-key-features.html
Firefox – For years, Mozilla's Firefox has been one of the most popular web browsers out there. It has the power of Google Chrome, but since Mozilla is a non-profit organization, they are much more privacy-focused than Google. While not as privacy riddled as the others on this list, Firefox remains one of the best alternatives to Google Chrome if you are worried about privacy.
https://www.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/privacy/
Social Media and Video Sharing
Google, which owns YouTube, Facebook, which owns Instagram, and Twitter, in essence, make up a great deal of our social media experiences and how we view and share content. There is just one major problem: they are very politically motivated, and they do not mind censoring opinions that either contradict or disagree with their own. Twitter has become infamous for banning its users based on their political or religious beliefs, and they have a poor track record for banning prominent conservative and libertarian figures. Google skews search results in their search engines, and YouTube bans, suspends, or demonetizes content creators with political beliefs that do not align with their own. The same can also be said for Facebook, which filters content that it does not agree with. Slowly but surely, new social media companies and video sharing platforms are being released, and below are some excellent alternatives to Big Tech's offerings.
Odysee - Formerly known as LBRY.Tv, Odysee was created by LBYR Inc., the team behind LBYR, a blockchain-based file-sharing, and payment network. Odysee represents the best YouTube alternative out there, and as of December of 2020, 400,000 people had posted 5 million videos on Odysee. This video platform is so unique that it preaches content freedom, and videos uploaded to Odysee are decentralized. Due to how blockchain is designed, there is no way for LBRY Inc. to moderate the content that their users upload, which means unlike sites like YouTube, there is little to no censorship.
https://odysee.com/@johnstossel:7/free-speech-for-all:a
**Rumble -**Another great alternative to YouTube, Rumble forbids porn, racist content, harassment, copyrighted content, and illegal content. Still, anything else is fair game, and unlike YouTube, they do not censor beliefs. At the beginning of 2021, Rumble filed an antitrust lawsuit against Google, seeking damages that exceed $2 Billion, and this lawsuit is ongoing.
Instant Messaging and Voice\Video Calls
Every time you send a text message from your phone before it goes to your desired recipient, it also has to go through a server hosted by your service provider; the same can apply to voice or video calls. This means that law enforcement and government agencies can quickly obtain this information, making some of our thought to be private conversations not very private at all. This has led to the rise of encrypted instant messaging services, and below I will give details on some of the best ones available.
Signal – An encrypted messaging service available for iOS, Android, Windows, Mac OS, and Linux. Signal never stores or collects any sensitive information by design. Signal claims that both messages and calls cannot be accessed by them or other third parties because "they are always end-to-end encrypted, private and secure." More recently, in addition to their encrypted instant messages and encrypted phone calls, Signal has introduced encrypted video calls.
Telegram – While not having end-to-end encryption by default and being overall less Secure than Signal, Telegram does offer some end-to-end encryption options, and like Signal, they do not store logs. However, unlike Signal, they collect information regarding your contacts and collect your IP address.