Some alternatives to the mainstream systems
I've been testing some alternatives to the mainstream applications and systems.
Everyone uses Google, Microsoft, Apple, etc etc... but, what if we can have the same benefits with other systems.
This is a list of the current applications I'm using to replace some of the applications from these mainstream systems, it may not be a full replace, but for me, they do what I need them to do.
Contacts and calendars
From Google contacts and calendar to Nextcloud
It may look simple, but it isn't... Contacts and calendars are deeply integrated into the phones.
Installing a new Dialer or Calendar application is not the solution, and most of them are just using the contacts and calendars you already have from Google, or you need to pay them to have your local data backed up.
I'm using Nextcloud as my cloud provider and I've been testing the contacts and calendar applications from it.
Using the Nextcloud Android application, you can choose from the settings to synchronize the contacts and calendars from Nextcloud and it will ask you to install an application called DavX5 on your phone.
DavX5 will keep your contacts and calendar in sync between your phone and Nextcloud.
The best thing with this, is that you keep all the functionality from the contacts and calendars applications you already have because it creates a dummy account on your phone and uses it to store the data from Nextcloud.
On the Nextcloud side you also get the possibility to have multiple address books, multiple calendars, you own your data, and you share it only with who you want.
From Gmail to Proton Mail
Proton was a very simple choice and it has a free tier that really fits for me.
With Proton I'm able to get end to end encryption (E2EE) and the email application works great on both my Android and Linux OS. In fact, that is basically what I need since I do not use any of the other services they offer.
But for those who might be interested, here is the url for list of available features.
Browser
From Google Chrome to Vivaldi
This is simple, it just works...
The cloud sync from them it's great, both Android and Linux applications have no issues, and I can use all the extensions I need.
Vivaldi is privacy directed, it uses the same engine from Google Chrome but without all the tracking.
It has tracking and ad blocker directly integrated, and I've noticed a huge difference on my Pi-hole ad and tracking requests.
AI Assistant
From ChatGPT to Mistral AI
One more time, it is a direct replacement.
This time the reason for the switch is not directly related to privacy (it's an online AI Assistant so it's as private as they say it is, use with caution like everything else) but trying to move more to the open source community and use it instead of locked systems.
Mistral AI has a great performance and is able to generate images and analyze code.
This is an example image I generated using an input in Portuguese to test the multi language capabilities of the AI and to generate an image at the same time.
Video
From YouTube to Odysee | Rumble | PeerTube?
This is still an ongoing process...
Odysee, Rumble and PeerTube have a lot less content than YouTube, but the internet shows it is getting more and more.
A lot of content creators are not happy with the current YouTube policies and a lot of them are trying to find new platforms to either use it as a second platform or switch completely.
I would say that a complete switch is not possible at the moment, but it may be in a very near future.
I'll keep testing, and probably update this in the near future 😄
Messaging
From WhatsApp to Telegram
This is simple, outside of Meta... It may not be more secure or more private or more whatever, but the data is also not shared with third-party systems including Meta.
Big problem here, everyone uses WhatsApp! But that is changing also. Every week I get a notification that one more of my contacts has joined telegram, and one by one, people are joining.
Office Suite
From Microsoft to LibreOffice
Also a direct replacement, I do not use very complex features available only on Microsoft office, so it was as simple as just stop using all Microsoft office related applications and start with LibreOffice.
At work this is not possible due to need to use Microsoft almost everywhere, almost all clients use Microsoft 365, SharePoint, specific Microsoft Office files docx and pptx, etc. and this makes it very difficult to work with any other platform.
It is true that LibreOffice is capable of open and edit this files, but a lot of excel functions and words themes, for example, are specific to Microsoft Office and will not work on LibreOffice or any other Office Suite.
Internet search
From Google to Qwant
This one I was not expecting to be as good as it is.
I've tried a lot of different search engines and I always go back to Google eventually, but with Qwant, it has been working great.
Maybe because Qwant is from France, it may be a little better for Europe, I have no clue... But truth is, that it finds what I'm looking for....
We also need to take into consideration that a lot of the search we did on Google, we do them now on the AI Assistants, and that can also be why I'm not having issues with Qwant.
Even so, it's a France located service, that does not track your data, and are said to be more privacy focused (so they say) 😄