Recommending Arch from Windows is a hot take.
Privacy
A place to discuss privacy and freedom in the digital world.
Privacy has become a very important issue in modern society, with companies and governments constantly abusing their power, more and more people are waking up to the importance of digital privacy.
In this community everyone is welcome to post links and discuss topics related to privacy.
Some Rules
- Posting a link to a website containing tracking isn't great, if contents of the website are behind a paywall maybe copy them into the post
- Don't promote proprietary software
- Try to keep things on topic
- If you have a question, please try searching for previous discussions, maybe it has already been answered
- Reposts are fine, but should have at least a couple of weeks in between so that the post can reach a new audience
- Be nice :)
Related communities
much thanks to @gary_host_laptop for the logo design :)
I think this is just a statement what the person did
Not a recomendaton
Maybe it's CachOS?
Came here to say the same thing
Google -> Kagi
ChatGPT -> Kagi Assistant
highly recommend PeerGOS over Nextcloud
Lumo isn’t really private. If you’re not local, you’re not private. AFAIK it sends to the model in cleartext (zero access) which isn’t E2EE. Signal, for example, is E2EE. Based on internet reviews, you’re better off running the models they offer locally for performance reasons on the cost anyway. I’d say you’re better off without AI in almost every situation you’d want to use an LLM of such such limited capability too so unless you really really want to set resources on fire it’s better to just drop it period.
Netflix cannot be replaced by Jellyfin. That is very disingenuous. To “replace” Netflix with Jellyfin requires a bit more infrastructure and while it might be cheaper there’s risk involved that isn’t present with your other changes.
Jellyfin/Plex is not cheaper than Netflix.
We like to pretend or tells our wives it is, but hard drives and electricity likely come close or maybe even exceed a netflix subscription.
Host your media collection because it’s in better quality, titles don’t leave the service, and overall it’s just cooler. But don’t do it because it’s “cheaper.”
Sure, just don’t tell my wife
Where is F-Droid?
Immich is better than Nextcloud for photos.
I would like to plug Mailo. Its explicitly privacy focused, has a free tier and even has child inboxes with more restrictions. Its like $75 per year and I have had nothing but great luck with it.
I've never seen Magic Earth, but as an OSM contributor, I don't understand why I'd use a subscription service when all the underlying data is free (as in beer and freedom) and contributed by volunteers (and likely not the app devs). One-time app purchases like OsmAnd I understand because you're doing stuff with the data like routing, overlays, etc., and that requires development work. But a subscription seems absurd.
I use both. CoMaps when I can, but Magic Earth has a better business data set and better traffic data right now. I also contribute to OSM when I can, but there is a lot of missing data.
Because it's a refined way of showing that information. Because search actually works. And because it adds traffic data. If you don't see the value in any of those things than it's not for you.
Nextcloud isn't really a direct equivalent to Google Photos. For that you want Immich.
I've also found ente to be a good alternative
nextcloud would be more akin to google drive.
More like Google Workspace.
yes. it's versatile and works quite well nowadays.
just nextcloud can replace most of google's webapps.
Ecosia is nice but is it really privacy-respecting?
No it's not. It got bought out a few years ago.
PlayStore -> AuroraStore and NeoStore
Google -> DuckDuckGo
Android -> GrapheneOS, LineageOS, PostMarketOS
Windows -> Linux
As another person said, why put all or a lot of your eggs in one basket (Proton)? To me the value in switching away from big tech is that I can deversify my services.
Because my eggs can communicate with each other and because I can get all my eggs with 1 reasonable price.
Inevitably Proton will enshittify. If you, dear reader that scrolled past this comment, disagree, then i think you dont belong here.
Could you elaborate? Isn't the fact that it's owned by a non-profit foundation an obstacle to enshittification? Do you assume the same will happen to services like Signal too?
The service provided is not open source, or source available. The email clients are provided under a GPLv3 license, not the service itself.
It's Open Washing (Gaining the marketing benefits without providing the freedoms)
OpenAI was also non-profit and sure as shit wasn't living up to its name of being open in any way. Then it became for-profit in late 2025 because it could, and also money.
Do you think there's something snowflake-level special preventing Proton from doing the same fucking thing? It's a corporation trying to make money; non-profit may be used to grift popularity or grassroots support.
If Proton is special and impossible to follow a similar trajectory after enough people use/are locked into their ecosystem, please share with us what your logic would be that would protect us from this. (Hint: you can't)
Also to note, Proton AG is technically for-profit. They are majority owned by Proton, which is a non-profit, but the company that hosts everything is technically for-profit.
Agreed. I use their mail and VPN, but I use a personal domain, so I could switch email with little trouble and Mullvad VPN can't really be beat.
I don't really need anything else Proton offers because I've got NextCloud.