List of Alternatives to Facebook & Google Owned Apps
AKA Leaving The Matrix
In these days of Facebook & Google's rampant censorship, privacy breaches, anti-competitive attacks on competitors and making billions off other people's work without compensation, a lot of people are looking for alternatives for their online lives.
As CEO of JPB Liberty which is bringing a class action against Facebook and Google for anti-competitive conduct I've had to find alternatives to Facebook & Google products for my personal and business online activities.
The bad news is that when you try to leave The Matrix, your realise how all pervasive Facebook & Google are. Its not so easy to avoid their tentacles.
But the good news is that there ARE excellent alternatives. Many are feature wise or technically better and some will even pay you for your online activities.
Many of these are decentralised crypto based projects that can never be taken over or bought by Facebook, Google or anyone.
I've set out these alternatives below so you can try them and free yourself from The Matrix
Email - ProtonMail
Email is the oldest but still one of the most essential online services and Gmail has dominated this space for years. This means they can scan every email you send or receive and it adds to their big data picture of your life and the life of everyone around you.
Email is also generally insecure and subject to interception, phishing scams etc.
While there are many email alternatives, I've found that the best is the Swiss based ProtonMail.
It provides complete privacy and security using PGP based end-to-end encryption and digital signatures.
It makes encryption easy for anyone to use and has iPhone & Android Apps and integration with Windows & OSX mail applications.
I've been using ProtonMail for months now and am very happy with it.
Web Browser - Brave
The second oldest and essential way we interact with the online world is via the web browser.
There are a range of options, but again Google has a dominant position with Chrome.
Browsers have a big problem with tracking, privacy loss, pop-up ads and other annoying ads that disturb and distract our web surfing experience. But websites need revenue and advertising has been the main way to get it.
How to solve these problem? - Enter Brave a browser which does an excellent job of blocking ads, trackers and all the other crap that tries to attach to us online while providing an alternative revenue model (the BAT token) for websites.
I've been happily using Brave for about a year now and have had 140k trackers blocked and over 300k ads blocked by Brave. I've also automatically made micropayments of BAT to the websites I use the most.
Web Search - PreSearch & DuckDuckGo
The third oldest and essential way we interact with the online world is by using web search engines. Google completely dominates this space and with it the ability to control your information flows, track you and harvest your data, which they sell to advertisers.
I've been using the privacy focussed search engine DuckDuckGo for years now and have been very happy with it. They don't track you, follow you around with ads or store your personal information.
Recently I've discovered PreSearch which is a decentralised project which PAYS YOU (in the PRE token) for every search you do using your preferred search engine (eg DuckDuckGo). I understand that they will have their own decentralised privacy focussed search engine in due course.
Instant Messaging - Telegram
Instant messaging has become an essential form of communications over the past few years and the space is dominated by WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, and Facebook messaging.
Fortunately Telegram is a big competitor (200M users) to WhatsApp which is privacy focussed and promises to remain independent. They recently conducted a huge ICO (announced a few days before Facebook banned ICO ads - suspicious eh?!) and are planning a decentralised version.
Video Sharing- DTube & BitChute
Video Sharing has replaced television as the main method we view video content.
Youtube, owned by Google, completely dominates this space and has been abusing its power by censoring and demonetising alternative views a lot lately.
There are many alternatives but I prefer decentralised ones that can't just be bought up by Google.
DTube runs on the Steem blockchain and YOU GET PAID when people upvote your videos. It is censorship resistant.
BitChute is bigger and also censorship resistant.
See a more detailed review here
Content Sharing - Steemit
Sharing your content, whether it be blog posts like this, your photography or art, is an essential internet function.
There are many alternatives, but because a lot of people use Facebook for this function, it dominates the space.
Steemit runs on the Steem blockchain which means that its censorship resistant and YOU GET PAID when people upvote your posts.
I've been been blogging on Steemit for 6 months now and the fact that I get paid and I own my own content has inspired me to write much more than I ever did before. I've also found new communities that are interested in my views rather than annoying my friends with them on Facebook.
Social Network - Minds
While it is debatable whether social networking is an essential online function or a psychologically damaging and privacy destroying fad, there is no doubt that it is huge at the moment and completely dominated by Facebook and Instagram (which is owned by Facebook).
Minds is a decentralised crypto based social network where you get paid for your posts and interactions.
I stopped using Facebook more than a year ago and have been so much more productive since so I'm not rushing to use another social network, but if I did, Minds is where I would be.
Full disclosure: PreSearch & Brave links above are referral links.
Its time for us all to become responsible users of the internet by supporting alternatives which ensure that the internet will always be a free place for all
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Great list!
One can really get away from the Big Tech companies and still have a good internet experience.
While I broadly agree with your views on social networking in general, another social network option on its way for those who prefer a more secure and privacy focussed version is Open Book.
Its at early stages yet with a Kickstarter campaign currently underway for early funding. They are building an advertising free social network with privacy built in.
Great list!
Thanks
All of these are excellent options. @ironshield