Favorite apps and services

Contents

• Goals
• Media
• Documents and Coding
  • Hosting
• 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

• Use tasks.org.
• For shared task lists, use Hedgedoc.

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:
  • uBlock Origin
• 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.

Email

• 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.

Links

• PrivacyTools.io