Favorite apps and services
Contents
- Goals
- Media
- Documents and Coding
- Tasks / Todos
- Collaboration
- Browsing
- Passwords
- Mobile keyboard
- Calendars / Contacts
- Chat / Communication
- Social Media
- Operating system
- Links
Goals
- Privacy conscious, end-to-end encrypted (E2EE).
- Decentralized, no reliance on cloud providers like Google, Microsoft, Apple, Spotify, Netflix Youtube, etc.
- Self-hosted and self-reliant.
- Simple files preferred over running services.
- Make sure no sites / services are US based.
Media
- Download all music / movies locally, using torrents, behind a VPN. (Don’t use Tor for torrenting)
- Use AirVPN, Mullvad, NordVPN
- Use qbittorrent, deluge, or transmission for PC, LibreTorrent for android.
- Use MPV or VLC, open source media players to play media.
- Use Jellyfin as a home media server.
- Use Navidrome for a self-hosted music server, and DSub for an android client.
- Instead of centralized, hosted youtube alternatives with upload limits, use torrents / torrent sites.
Documents and Coding
- Install Syncthing, and put all your documents in a synced folder. Use Syncthing-Fork for Android.
- Write all documents and notes in Markdown.
- Use MarkText, Markor for android, or vim as markdown editors / notes.
- Use vim with vimrc and coc.nvim for code.
- Do not use vscode, it’s difficult to impossible to turn off keylogging. If you must, use VSCodium, which removes the built-in telemetry.
- Spreadsheets in Libreoffice.
Hosting
- Codeberg.org is a good shared code host.
- Otherwise, self host a Gitea instance.
Tasks / Todos
Collaboration
- Use Hedgedoc, a live / collaborative markdown editor.
- NextCloud for a more expansive document store.
Browsing
- Use Librewolf on desktop, or use Firefox or Tor Browser, with the addons:
- Use Mull or Fennec for android.
- Startpage, Searx, as a search engine
Passwords
- Use KeePassXC for PC, KeePassDX for android.
- Install the Firefox KeePassXC plugin.
- Use a long master pass phrase, with at least 10 words.
- Sync your password file everywhere you need using Syncthing.
- Bitwarden if you want to host a server.
Mobile keyboard
- Use a secure keyboard on android if you don’t want your passwords stolen by google.
- Florisboard, MessageEase, OpenBoard, or AnySoftKey work.
Calendars / Contacts
- Use Syncthing + DecSync for calendar and contact sync from android to desktop. Radicale is a server based solution.
Chat / Communication
- Matrix / Element for SMS and chatrooms.
- Briar for extreme security.
- Don’t use Signal.
- Don’t use Discord.
- Thunderbird for desktop email, e2ee with pgp if possible.
- FairEmail for android.
Social Media
- Reddit : Lemmy (I’m a dev), Lobste.rs.
- Twitter alternative : Pleroma, Mastodon
- Facebook : Friendica
- Medium : Plume, WriteFreely
- YouTube : Torrents, or Peertube.
- Instagram : Pixelfed
Operating system
- Use Linux. I like Arch Linux.
- On mobile, use a de-googled android with google play services removed.