We are starting to see for quite some time big tech trying to get the internet under their control. We have seen half of the internet starting to block proxies. Tor is not usable in the normal internet anymore. More and more services require a government issued id for their account.
And now Google went ahead and did the final blow by announcing WEI. If that gets integrated on all popular sites, there will be no more open web. We try to fight back as much as we can, but the bitter truth is most people are already ‘good little pets’ of these giants.
Most of the people, are not just okay, but want these big brothers to handle everything for them. They want to get their finances, entertainment, social medias, government services all done for them by these giants without them even knowing. They are ready to live as big brother says. Half of them already don’t have individual opinions.
Although the fight still continues, It’s time to think about plan B. What if most of internet is blocked for us privacy conscious people? We need alternatives. It’s time to build an ecosystem that we people can use without the help of popular services. There are already a lot of softwares, but we need to fill the gaps fast. We need an open hardware, accessible and a fully open software stack including everyday apps for most of our needs and entertainments. On PC it’s almost there. Mobile terribly lacks in the lowest levels, but have some apps that can help.
PC
For PC, we can still install linux on most devices, so linux. For browsing, we can use firefox or any forks of that. Proton and skiff are good alternatives for basic email, storage etc. For social media we have federated systems like lemmy, services like odysee, mewe etc. Share services that you think should be in this list
Mobile
For mobile, we miss variety in hardware section. One option might be pinephone or other linux phones. Other option might ironically be Pixel. For OS, we can use graph eneOS, cal yx OS, linux based OS etc. But setting it up is currently very hard. For browsing, firefox for android is good (I use it) which also has extensions support. Above mentioned services like proton, skiff, lemmy, odysee, mewe etc. has android apps. For IM we have briar, Session, simpleX etc. Share services that you think should be in this list
Help me document a full recommended ecosystem. Maybe we can have a recommended guide. Maybe there are better options. Discuss.
It’s been getting ridiculous. One of the apps on my partner’s phone recently warned that they wouldn’t open with Developer options enabled.
This app is a fucking drink menu and digital punch card for a popular coffee shop, what could be done from the developer options that affects this app in any way? Especially since I only enabled developer options to speed up the godawful Android animations. Out of principal I’ve stopped going there and deleted the app.
Here’s a massive list of “Alternative Internet” software. There are some blockchain items in there, but otherwise it’s pretty extensive.
Maybe they store the punch card info locally and don’t double check with any databases on their side? It sounds really dumb, but that’s the only reason I can think of
Services I Use:
- LibreX (search engine)
- CloudTube (YouTube proxy)
- PeerTube (federated YouTube alternative)
- Tutanota (mail & calendar)
- Organic Maps (maps app based around OpenStreetMap)
- Cryptee (encrypted notes)
- Matrix (chat)
- LibreOffice + Collabora Office (office suite)
- Kiwix (offline Wikipedia & other wikis)
- NetNewsWire (RSS reader, for news)
Arms of the Fediverse I Use Regularly:
- Mastodon
- Pixelfed
- Lemmy
- PeerTube
- WordPress
Dormant Arms of the Fediverse:
- Friendica
- Kbin
- Funkwhale
- WriteFreely
I have installed Linux on all four of my laptops, and I’m hoping to migrate from my iPhone to a Pixel with DivestOS as soon as I move out of my parents’ house (I’m currently 17), or sooner if possible.
I have also swapped many web apps for desktop apps, and my music collection has been based around CDs and DRM-free files since it started in 2016. In addition, I still use DVDs, VHS tapes, and (to a lesser extent) good old-fashioned Torrents for my films and TV shows.
If the internet becomes altogether too bad, there’s always Gemini. Making web apps is trickier, but entirely feasible.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gemini_(protocol)
https://gemini.circumlunar.space/
I think there was also a federated social media site on Gemini, which could interact with Mastodon, but I can’t find it.
If you’re in the EU, Taiwan or US, may I suggest a Fairphone? They have open bootloaders and support re-locking. You can get a Fairphone with /e/os pre-installed on murena.com /e/os is great and Fairphone has stellar customer support.
Edit: thanks for helping me discover Kiwix. That’s awesome.
If you’re in the EU, Taiwan or US
Fairphone is increasingly becoming a global option. Their network compatibility seems to be improving with each generation, whereas earlier models were pretty much limited to the EU. Definitely work looking at if you’re outside of those three regions, since they have full (or close to full) network compatibility in many other places now.
If all else fails, I vote we start taking this to the people like the crazy gun nuts, the anti-vaxxers, and the crazy religious folks. Specifically the ones who aren’t as smart.
Convince them that googl€ is going to censor all the information/imagery regarding guns, Jesus, and anti-vax no matter what they say and tell them that if they want it back/to stay, they gotta pull the election riot thing that happened in Washington DC at googl€ headquarters.
If the message spreads far and quick enough, we might see them pull it off. I’d hope it works and we see them break into the headquarters and storm the place. Even if googl€ calls in the police because they get word of this happening, they won’t be able to stop a large enough crowd. In that scenario, if we’re lucky, we’d see the death of many of the traitors destroying the free web. It’s a win-win for our cause and theirs since what we would be telling them is a lie, but the people who actually go wouldn’t believe it’s a lie.
A lot of these services have a network effect. Being the only user on the platform doesn’t create any value. You need to have someone on the other side to interact with. I was able to get my entire family using Briar as an SMS replacement. I’m working on a few ideas for networking people who want to use Briar with each other so we can have private forums for an array of interests.
Another idea I thought of was copying static websites (won’t work for websites that are a service) and then putting them out there as a .onion website using OnionShare. I think it would be a good idea to create sites that are lists of .onion sites or add them to Ahmia (http://juhanurmihxlp77nkq76byazcldy2hlmovfu2epvl5ankdibsot4csyd.onion/) for people to find.
We might not be able to build a web that looks like the web of today but we can build one that’s on par or better than what existed in the 1990’s. In a lot of ways, that could be a very good thing.
The enshitification has started right when smartphones came about. I bet most of the these anti-user trends could be traced back to smart phones. and none could have been started on PCs .
Now you can’t even have a bank account if you want to use a privacy respecting device. third parties are dictating what and how to use our own devices. and its is very disgusting that masses have been sleep walking into this just for the meer satisfaction of going viral on tiktok and to have a thousand friends on Facebook and insta0
The enshitification has started right when smartphones came about.
Oh my friend, I can tell you’re young :)
The shit internet started in the mid 90’s. That’s when the internet became popular and accessible to non-computer-savvy folks. The massive commercialisation of the internet soon ensued, and ads, crappy websites, spam and all the rest soon followed.
Privacy was already dead at the turn of the millenium. Don’t take my word for it: Scott McNealy said it in 1999 and the sumbitch knew what he was talking about.
I’ve known that privacy had gone the way of the dodos since then. That’s 24 years ago. The difference now is that the fascist surveillance capitalism system we live in is now fully in place and the trap is closing on all of us who let it happen.
People are waking up to the fact that they’re in the trap and it’s closing, but I’m pretty sure too late to do anything about it peacefully at this point. It will take a full-blown dystopia for people to revolt and things to change, and it’s not gonna happen tomorrow.
As someone who has recently joined the fight for privacy, it seems like a sinking ship. The average Joe just does not give a shit and the privacy conscious group is probably like less than 1/1000th of the population. I have yet to meet a single person in real life that cares about their privacy and does not use services as such.
However, I will sink with the ship and fight until the very last moment, even if it gets to the point where caring about your privacy becomes a crime or becomes reasonable warrant for governments to arrest you and investigate your entire life.
Don’t lose hope. I was one of the average Joe who was using facebook, insta, yt, gmail all of the proprietory shit. However as I learned about privacy I seeked alternative now I’m replying you on Lemmy! As for facebook and insta I stopped using it and using Invidious for yt. :)
Obviously all of us were an average Joe at some point. But the thing is, there is many more people feeding into this proprietary privacy invasive digital world than there are people fighting against it.
I have converted almost everyone I know in my age group, so some care. I think its mostly a lack of education issue, but trying to teach people probably gets interpreted as a bad sales pitch so I don’t push anymore. I do my thing, people see it and ask questions, slow victory
May I ask which generation you are from? As a Gen Z individual I have lost all hope. Zoomers don’t care about shit but memes and porn.
Between X and Z, the always forgotten “Gen whY”
Libredirect is a Firefox addon that can redirect links to more privacy friendly services. For example, clicking someone’s YouTube link will redirect you to Piped or Invidious instead.
I don’t think individual action like changing browsers and operating systems is gonna work anymore at this point. By its very nature only a minority of nerds will do it.
We either need to build a complete alternative to the internet as we know it, or to borrow a page from our commie friends and pressure collectively for political change.
A handful of nerds taking the time and effort to switch to FOSS are not going to make a dent, we have to force them to play fair, or change the game completely.
Google is so schizophrenic. I highly recommend Pixel phones. There’s a number of privacy oriented operating systems you can install that directly support Pixel phones because Google is so open with their platform.
Pixel - best privacy phone
Android - worst OS for privacy.
¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Pixel is the new age Nexus phone, meaning Google designed it with dev’s in mind. This is why you’re able to unlock the bootloader, flash a new OS and then relock it. The hardware is for sure the most secure on the market too. Android also being based off the Linux kernel means Google’s required to publish the code for it as well. These aspects are why it’s a common choice for privacy respecting OS’s. If Google wants to stand toe to toe with Apple, they have to incentivize it’s use and this is a decent approach.
This isn’t the last stand. This is the latest stand. While this fight might seem the biggest, never forget it’s not the last we’ll have to take part in. If this fails, they’ll keep coming with some new idea later on down the road in order to deny us our right to privacy. Don’t give up. Keep giving them hell every step of the way.
