We all use a few basic apps during the day, so I researched what can we use instead of the well-known applications that usually track our activity. I found a few privacy-oriented alternatives for mail, blogging, search engine, browsers, and social networks.
Unfortunately, there is little to no alternatives for the most popular applications out there, being mainly the social media platforms. The ones offered rarely catch my attention. Habitual use is mainly reserved to Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and similar popular applications...
But, if you are really hot about your social networking, and you do not wish to change that, you wish to keep your Twitter, your favorite video app or what-not, you can still improve your privacy within some other activities.
EMAILS
Some would say that Tutanota, Disroot or Protonmail are a good solution, but personally, I like the Criptext - https://www.criptext.com the best, because they could possibly be the most private email provider. There are a few other private self-hosted solutions, but if you are not tech endowed, it would be too much to ask.
NOTES
Usually, writers and bloggers use a few writing/note-taking apps at the time, depending on how many backups they wish to keep or what their writing habits are like. You can use Evernote, Google Keep or Drive, but while they are probably very safe if used with authentication - hardly will anyone be able to steal your account - they are not private or immune on track. Instead, you can use Joplin, Turtl or Standard Notes.
I tried later two, in Turtl ( even being that ugly) you can add multiple folders, images, and files, while Standard Notes offers only notes and shareable notes.
Turtl - https://turtlapp.com - The secure, collaborative notebook
Joplin - https://joplinapp.org - An open source note taking and to-do application with synchronisation capabilities
Standardnotes - https://standardnotes.org - A free, open-source, and completely encrypted notes app.
OTHER PRODUCTIVITY TOOLS
https://cryptpad.fr and https://etherpad.org offer collaborative writing and editing, which is a great solution for the groups.
For other things, you might take a look at:
- https://crypt.ee - storing files
- https://ethercalc.net - shareable spreadsheet, available on a few platforms
- https://disroot.org/en - has a pretty much the whole collection of tools
Office suits - https://www.libreoffice.org/ and https://www.wps.com
Image Gallery - productivity tools
Use slider to preview images
THE WHOLE OPERATING SYSTEM...
If you care to substitute your bloated Windows for something more private and lightweight, you can try Linux distros, Tails and Qubes OS. There are a few privacy-oriented mobile alternatives, but they are usually a pain in a neck to install or crudely limited to only a few smartphone brands.
Linux distros - https://www.techradar.com/best/best-linux-distros
Tails - https://tails.boum.org/index.en.html
Qubes OS - https://www.qubes-os.org
VIDEO HOSTING
Vloggers might take a look at LBRY.TV as an alternative to popular YouTube, and in case you are a photographer a self-hosted Piwigo is a great substitute to Google Photo.
LBRY - https://lbry.com - a content platform owned by everyone (and no one).
Twitter | Reddit | Telegram | Facebook
PIWIGO - https://piwigo.org - web application to manage your collection of photos, and other medias
HOSTING AND SELF-HOSTING
In case you wish to host your blog anywhere, privacy-wise hosting providers are kind of rare. You can choose from a few such as the Orange Website. On the other hand, you can try the Beaker Browser, p2p decentralized browser which uses data and ipfs. It is still experimental, but very much fun to use.
BLOGGING
If you only want to blog, https://write.as is a cross-platform that might be a good solution. If you are looking for a more lucrative solution, join Readcash and start blogging.
Write.as - https://write.as - a place for focused writing.
Read.cash - https://read.cash - social blogging app with rewards
DELETE "EVERYTHING"... DELETE "FOREVER"
If you really want to delete yourself from the face of the internet (mission impossible), you can use this website in an attempt to do so: https://justdeleteme.xyz. Ironic or not, they also have the Google Chrome Extension. If you try to avoid Google these days, you can test the same extensions for them by using Dissenter, Brave, Chromium or Bromite.
BROWSERS
Bromite, Opera, Tor and maybe if you want to try the Snowhaze and OnionBrowser for iOS are all good options for a default browser. Opera is probably the least known browser which can easily protect you from malignant tracking extensions for example.
Bromite - https://www.bromite.org/
Opera - https://www.opera.com
Tor - https://www.torproject.org/
Snowhaze - https://snowhaze.com/en/index.html
OnionBrowser - https://onionbrowser.com/
The security over the iPhone is fairly better in comparison with the one on Android devices because not only devices are very much different but the App Shop and Playshop have completely different regulations for the apps.
If you want to see how secure your browser is at this point, you can test it over https://ipleak.net/.
SEARCH ENGINES
The thing we all use by default is a search engine, whether you are on mobile or desktop. The list of the ones that will respect your privacy is kind of scarce:
- https://searx.me and https://duckduckgo.com, or P2P
- https://yacy.net
- https://metager.org
- https://www.mojeek.com
Not really great choice, I would opt for the Tor browser and Searx.
BLAB APPS ( CHAT)
In addition, chat apps are a complete nightmare. Even if many in later years implemented encryption. Signal, Telegram, Discord, and Keybase are all very cool and inviting chat apps, they are still centralized and can be subject to any unwanted change at any given moment.
Signal - https://signal.org
Telegram - https://telegram.org
Discord - https://discordapp.com
Keybase - https://keybase.io
Federated and P2P messengers are far better, but they also have a slew of their own problems. Briar ( Android) and Matrix can be very interesting to try, and Wickr for its end to end military level encryption. StatusIM in addition to encryption is also a serverless wallet for crypto, ERC20, and some ERC721 tokens. You can also see into RetroshareCC.
Briar - https://briarproject.org
Matrix - https://matrix.org
Wickr - https://wickr.com
StatusIM - https://status.im
RetroshareCC - https://retroshare.cc
SECURE NETWORKS
Secure self-contained networks such as Tor, I2P ( and I2P-Bote mail), Freenet and Retroshare are all the secure environments that you should investigate in case you want to learn more about privacy and security online.
... AND FINALLY ... THE PLAGUE
Other things we all like to use on a daily basis are social networks. They are huge time wasters and if not used smartly can become a burden.
In social networks such as Twitter users can be banned, suspended or outright deleted for almost anything. Decentralized apps, in that case, are the BEST BUY!
In case of the bust, you can always try Memocash and MemberApp.
Memocash - https://memo.cash
Memberapp - https://memberapp.github.io/index.html
If you just must have that one extra app, regardless of the reason (news, family, local events, friends, hobby, volunteer work) but you want it all private and well-cushioned, I guess there will be a few disappointments along the way.
Aside from the Mastodon (zero-censorship Gab included), Mewe, Friendica, Movim and Pleroma there not much to name. It is disappointing because they are not attractive or inviting to be absolutely frank. Whatever looks like the privacy fiasco once known as Facebook is definitely alluding to boredom and self-loathing. This includes Mewe and Friendica, maybe somebody will find them attractive, but I am not personally interested. Mastodon, Movim, and Pleroma with multiple instances each are definitely more inviting.
Mastodon - https://joinmastodon.org
Gab - https://gab.com
Mewe - https://mewe.com
Friendica - https://friendi.ca
Movim - https://movim.eu
Pleroma - https://pleroma.social
Usually, the instances have a few users, far little to be relevant in comparison to other bigger social networks. The number of users could be a reason why the majority of the people flock to these big social networks.
If you are into Instagram you can try VeroCO, or maybe the creative hub, the Ello.
Vero.co - https://vero.co
Ello.co - https://ello.co
RESOURCES
Image sources:
The article is previously partially posted in ReadCash:
https://read.cash/@ghostoftomorrow/privacy-reinvented-better-privacy-apps-for-your-daily-online-activities-293bf8a7
More to know about privacy apps: https://www.privacytools.io
Thank you for this great compilation of suggestions! I have personally used only a few of them thus far: Linux, more recently Qubes, Tor, Telegram, Duckduckgo. None of them are the most perfect solution ever, but I definitely consider each one of them worthwhile "in this day and age."
You are very welcome.
and of course Hive for censorship resistance in replace of Fakebook, and D.Buzz (on Hive) in place of Twitter! It almost goes without saying as you're using both, but in case you're sharing this post on those platforms it could be good to add them.
I‘m using HIVE for very short time to be able to give valid recommendation.
I noticed that flagged content is partially hidden from the website. Isn’t that sort of censorship?
Well, it's kind of censorship yes, but you can still view the posts/comments if you wish. This is done (with downvotes and abuser lists) to help to prevent (yet not fully censor) abuse of the system, like plaigerism attempting to earn from the reward pool without producing original content.