GoogleAlternatives

From FuckOffGoogle
Revision as of 12:15, 18 December 2017 by Fog (talk | contribs) (Browser)
Jump to: navigation, search

Alternative Services for google services

Foreword

What do we want to promote here? other centralized/proprietary services and tools to just replace the ones of Google?

Or document only the pieces of common infrastructure comprised of Free/libre softwareeeeeee, decentralized and distributed services and end-to-end encryption? (for instance self-hosting of data and services as more than an "alternative" but also a different way to think of the politics, therefore the infrastructure of data&communications..?)

(Maybe using the "discussion" tab or other channel for that purpose?)


Existing resources and guides

https://raventools.com/blog/google-alternatives/

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/may/02/how-stop-using-google-search-services

https://impossiblehq.com/complete-guide-leaving-google/

https://lifehacker.com/5876794/going-google-free-the-best-alternatives-to-google-services-on-the-web

A more generic guide about privacy and tools: https://www.privacytools.io/

Search Engines

https://searx.info (meta-search engine, free/libre software. just one instance of many: https://searx.dk https://searx.disroot.org etc. full list of instances on http://stats.searx.oe5tpo.com/)

https://www.duckduckgo.com (centralized, US company)

https://www.metager.de ()

Arguments

The search engine from google collects personal data and connects this data with other data generated from other google services (aggregation of data in profiles). Permanent analysis of personal+behavioural data enables google to serve "personnalized" results, more likely to contain advertisement one may click.

This "filter bubble" not only exploits our tastes, experiences, behaviours, biases and turn them into revenue, it also blocks everyone from having some "neutral" (or common) vision of what exists over the internet, therefore reinforcing biases and polarizations.

This opaque capacity to influence what people may or may not see (besides the anti-competitive behaviour it represents when the same company owns the advertisement market) is overall an immense political power we cannot tolerate nor let unaccounted for, in the hands of these law-less creeps.

Email provider

posteo.de

Very good email provider. 1 Euro per month, no spam, no bullshit, just email. Posteo is based in Berlin and has a political agenda in reagards to privacy protection. So they have encrypted servers and so on. Also see: https://posteo.de/en/site/features

mailbox.org

Very good email provider. 1 Euro per month, no spam, no bullshit, just email. Mailbox is based in Germany and has a political agenda in reagards to privacy protection. So they have encrypted servers and so on. Also see: https://mailbox.org/sichere-email/

protonmail.ch?

Arguments

maps and navigation

OpenStreetmap! - It's just so much better than google maps! You can edit the map yourself and add roads, houses or stores. Whatever you find relevant. Have a look at:

The map itself: https://www.openstreetmap.org

For comparison to Google maps: http://tools.geofabrik.de/mc/

For routing: https://graphhopper.com/maps/

Download OpenStreetmap-Data: http://download.geofabrik.de/

Integrate OpenStreetmap in your website (wordpress): https://wordpress.org/plugins/osm/


Arguments

Giving Google a list of all the places you go not only help them profile your income and your habits, but it also enables them to target advertisement to you (according to where you may go) or predict your next moves. These data are invaluable for instance for insurance or transport companies to whom google may sell them. Geolocation data stored in Google servers, could potentially be used to incriminate people (you *were* at this protest, weren't you? You were not sick at home that day? etc.)

OpenStreetMap is entirely non-profit and contributive. With it people can (re)appropriate the map and the territory, and invent new uses for it (like disaster recovery in Haïti that abundantly used OSM). Inhabitants of small, isolated places can together get to much better cartography than what is of Google's financial interests. Data from OSM can be reused in each and every possible way, with no licensing conditions subjected to further changes.

Docs and Sheets

-Etherpad For collaborative text editing

-Mailbox Office If you have your email account at mailbox you also have a browser based office suite included: https://mailbox.org/ihr-office/

-LibreOffice Online Use libreoffice on the website directly: https://www.rollapp.com/libreoffice

-LibreOffice (offline) The installed program libreoffice can open and save documents directly from servers (ssh, ftp), WebDAV ans so on Also see: https://help.libreoffice.org/Common/Using_Remote_Files_1/pl

-Collabora Online Run an online office suite on your own server Also see: https://www.collaboraoffice.com/code/

Arguments

Using google's sheets and docs for your organizing is literally storing all your data with them complete with edit history of all collaborators.

Browser

Use Firefox for example to avoid worst Google-Spying on you. The Chrome Browser has several tracking functionalities, that spy on user browsing behaviour: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Chrome#User_tracking

Google also connects data generated from the google browser with other personal data it has gathered with other google services.

Helpful Browser-Plugins for Firefox

-Privacy Badger: It prevents cookies and trackers to spy on your browsing behaviour. You can choose, which trackers are alowed to track you and which ones are not. For example it is recommended do de-activate all Trackers by Google (e.G. google Analytics) and by Facebook (share buttons and so on) https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/privacy-badger17/

-User Agent Switcher: This Addon will fake your browser randomly. So after a few minutes it switches browser and operating system. At least it seams like that for websites you are presently surfing on. This makes it very hard for websites to track you according the information you give them in connection to your browser and your operating system. https://addons.mozilla.org/de/firefox/addon/user-agent-switcher/

Arguments

Google's business model is based on selling YOUR personal and private data. It's called data mining and is a malicious business model!

Yet, Firefox is *far* from being perfect: Firefox without extensions is as vulnerable to data-harvesting as any other browser. Management of cookies is really cumbersome, and they are accepted by default. Also by default are accepted ads, cross-site scripting and all these features of "modern" web that makes tracking easy. + Mozilla boasts about defending people's privacy when in reality they didn't do much to change anything about this (Isn't Google even still their default search engine, after years of collecting their money?), as for their implicit acceptance of DRM in HTML5...

Google earth

Marble - It's a globe like google earth but with multiple maps you can choose from. For example historic maps, OpenStreetmap. You can even change the globe to moon or venus or other planets. Great peace of software! Also see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marble_(software)

Arguments