After big tech declared open war on free speech this past weekend I thought it would be a good idea to go over our big tech alternatives. Free speech and the free flow of ideas is the most important part of a free people. Without it, everything leads to tyranny.
“Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.”
[Special Message to the Congress on the Internal Security of the United States, August 8, 1950]” – Harry S. Truman
Social Media Alternatives
After I quit Facebook a while back I started looking at alternative options. Parler is the first to come to mind after it was systematically attacked over the weekend. At the moment they are down but they will be back. I am looking forward to it because I like Parler.
Other options that I do not know as much about are locals.com, gab.com, and the Fediverse. You could start your own website! With WordPress or phpBB it is not too hard to get a social website running for your friends and family.
Search Engine
Use anything other then Google at this point. I use a mix of duckduckgo and Searx.
Video publishing and steaming Alternatives
YouTube has had many problems over the years so a while back I switched to Rumble. They pay you a share of all the money your videos make as soon as you join, unlike YouTube. They also do not demonetize you for talking about Linux, cryptocurrency, or something they don’t agree with. As of right now, they are my favorite option.
But there are other options. I have a whole other post on YouTube Alternatives you should check out!
Web Browser
I have always been a Firefox fan. But over the weekend the CEO of Mozilla made comments that lead people to believe they are going to start censoring websites with their browser.
Chrome is owned by Google so that is a bad option. Edge is owned by Microsoft who may be slightly less bad when it comes to tracking and censoring. So what options do we have?
Not a lot. There are lots of browsers out there but few are full-featured and work as well as the big 3. But Brave works well and it was built for privacy. It was my second go-to browser but now it is my first. I also have a post about Brave if you would like to check it out.
Note: Brave blocks ads by default. But I gladly turn ads on for freedom friendly sites so that I can support them. That’s just something I want you to think about. 🙂
Chat
I feel like I need to address chat after Discord started banning people and groups. I like and use Nextcloud Talk and XMPP but there are others like Matrix as well.
File Storage
If companies are willing to selectively apply their rules and ban people they do not agree with then why would they stop there. You might want to think about getting off Google Drive, iCloud, and Amazon’s cloud storage.
I use a self-hosted Nextcloud server. There are also approved hosted options so you do not have to set up your own. It takes a bit of work to get one going but I know no one is mining my data.
E-Mail host and clients
I’m sorry but at the moment I am stumped here. Gmail is probably the worse thing you can use. My web host also hosts my e-mail but I know that is not a good option for most people. There is Proton Mail, 1791 Mail, and StartMail but I do not know enough about them to say much. You will need to do your own research.
If you do decide to use proton mail I would love it if you used my Proton Mail affiliate link. Thank you for your support!
Update (9-14-2021): Proton Mail may now be keeping logs.
Phones
This is my weak area and something I am going to have to work on.
Android Phones are run by Google and iPhones by Apple. There are not really a lot of other options. I guess you can get a Samsung or something like that and not buy directly from Google but Google still gets a cut. Then try not to use Google software by installing the Brave browser on your phone.
But if you are very determined to not use Google or Apple then the only 2 options I know of are flip phone or the Librem5. A privacy-focused smartphone. I am going to be saving my money and I’m seriously thinking about getting one when my current phone gets worn out.
Cell Networks
We can’t forget about cell networks. I have switched to Patriot Mobile and I love it. The signal is even better than my old Google Fi service.
Now if we could just get them to stop using YouTube and to move to Rumble. 🙂
Online Shopping
Sure, use Amazon to search for things. But then go directly to the product’s website or to a local store to buy the product. This also helps the little guys out a lot.
Payment Processing
I don’t know much about it yet but AlignPay was accounted as a freedom respecting alternative to Stripe and PayPal.
https://www.alignpay.com/
Operating Systems
Everyone knows at this point that Windows and MacOS call home. Linux is probably your best big tech alternative. It is free and open-source so lots of people are looking at the code to make sure nothing malicious is going on. With Windows and Mac, you have no clue.
I know this can be a big and extreme step but it is something to keep in mind.
Domain Name Registrars
I’ve been doing some research and I think Epik might be the best domain registrar. I was not even looking at this at first until I heard that GoDaddy kicked AR15.com from their service. Epik supports free speech and their CEO says “De-Platforming is Digital Censorship. Blacklisting is Digital Shunning.”
I have moved all my domains from GoDaddy to Epik. It took a little time but I think it is worth it.
Google Alerts
I found Talkwalker alerts and I like them a lot so far. I don’t know much about Talkwalker but I know they are not Google.
1792 Exchange
You can also use 1792 Exchange to see if a company is known to attack people over their beliefs.
Getting off big tech will not be easy
I’m sorry but this will not be easy. You will have to research big tech alternatives. You may even want to pay for services when you used to get them for free. Remember if the service is free then most likely you are the product.
But getting off big tech is not impossible. It just takes some determination.
Good thoughts here. It is becoming important for thoughtful people to support alternatives that promote the free marketplace of ideas rather than simply going with the flow and using services that promote a certain agenda under the guise of safety. But you’re right — it is hard to make the switch!
Do you have any insight about website/app -hosting companies in this regard, in light of how Amazon pulled the plug on Parler?
I’ve been looking into that. There are lots of options but it’s hard to know how these services feel without some examples of what they have done. One thing I just learned is GoDaddy has a history of kicking sites off their service. I also learned that Parler and others have moved to Epik. But that’s as far as I have got so far.
You can consider Decentralized Encrypted Storage too as f.e. STORJ (for free at start), Opacity(with a crypto token) projects.
That is not a bad idea. I didn’t even think about that. There’s also something called Filecoin but I have never used any of them so I’m not sure how they work.
Nice article. I agree that DuckDuckGo is a good alternative to Google for search. You also mentioned ProtonMail, I use it, it’s good, I haven’t had any problems. Ghostery is a pretty good cell phone web browser. As for news, I made https://www.currnews.com/ as an alternative to Google News.
People need to realize that their freedom is incrementally being lost every time they embrace these intrusions into their lives. Facebook is the scariest. I see churches and gun ranges utilizing Facebook as their primary website. Mark Zuckerberg is the next George Soros, but worse. Those who use Facebook accelerate the coming of our dystopian future under Zuckerberg.
Thank you for posting this!