what are the best Google alternative apps ?
Google Voice - Cheogram
Search - Duck Duck Go or Start Page
Contacts - NextCloud
Calendar - NextCloud
Tasks - Task.Org
Keep - Joplin
Maps - Magic Earth
Passwords & Sign In - Bitwarden or Keepass
Docs & Sheets - Open Office
Gmail - Proton or Tutanota
Dialer - Simple Dialer
Files - Material Files
Chrome - Firefox
YouTube - Peertube
Photos - NextCloud
Bookmarks - NextCloud, Floccus, or XBrowsersync
I use all of these but I still have to use Google Voice and Maps because they are just superior to everything else that I have tried imo. And I sometimes use gmail too because certain website logins are locked to my old Gmail’s.
Not open office, use libre office.
Actually I use only office (not open office) with collabora apps on my android and iphone. I always get the two names mixed up.
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Good list but let me respond to a few of those.
Calendar -NextCloud is needed to sync. On my Android I use simple calendar and the dav5x app connects it to my NextCloud to sync to it. The stock Calendar syncs to NextCloud on my iPhone.
Contacts - same exact setup as how I do Calendar. NextCloud is needed to sync. On my Android I use simple contacts and the dav5x app connects it to my NextCloud to sync to it. The stock contacts app syncs to NextCloud on my iPhone.
Maps - I absolutely loath organic maps. It never worked for me. I would put in a street name and address and it would never find it. I need stuff that works. So it’s Magic Earth most of the time and Google Maps if I’m really serious about getting somewhere and scared to get lost. Like if I’m in a sun down town or some shit like that.
Weather - I also use Geometric weather. Fantastic app!!!
Google Play store - When I first started degoogling, I tried to completely cut out the play store but then some apps that I paid for would never work. And they refused to accept any other form of payments. So I use the play store to download certain apps and then I block it with afwall+. I mostly use Obsidian and F-Droid
Google authenticator - I use 2fas. I like the browser extension and it just works seemlessly between my android, iphone, and desktop. It’s also now recently been open sourced.
Google messages - I also use simple sms. I really like the simple suite and how simple it is. I even use their dialer and gallery.
Gboard - is probably the very last Google app that I’ll get rid of. I’ve tried all the open sourced keyboards and none are as good. But I do have afwall+ blocking all outgoing connections on my Gboard. Gifs don’t even work.
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onlyoffice is much more polished than openoffice or libreoffice but a bit less open
Cheogram just isn’t there yet for me. Can’t seem to make group chat work.
If you don’t need that, it seems fine.
Yea not there for me yet as well. That’s why I went back to Google Voice. Plus I have like 4 GV numbers lol
What about Collabora Office?
Photos - Immich
Yes it’s tasks.org. I misspelled it. Also, I use only office in conjunction with collabora. I self host the only office server straight from a docker container on my PC. I always get open office and only office mixed up.
Nextcloud has a notes feature now that is pretty much comparable to keep. Has its own app too
Maybe something changed recently, but it’s not like keep from what I remember. Keep has easy to use lists, embedded images, card layout. I do love the simplicity of markdown though.
I since converted to joplin, love it.
There’s many ways to do notes. Here’s the 3 ways that I tried. Keep in mind that I have iPhone, Android, and Windows Desktop and Windows Laptop… So I like options where it will sync seemlessly across all of those.
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Tried obsidian. There was a feature that it was missing that made me completely give up on it. I forgot what it was but I remember it being something that all note taking apps should have. Like a no-brainer.
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Then I tried NextCloud notes (desktop). Quillpad (android). Notebooks (iOS). Syncing between the 3 was terrible.
3a. Joplin. There’s an app for all 3 devices and so the user experience is the same everywhere. Used my NextCloud to sync and it worked amazing for a week. Then after that, I started getting sync errors every time.
3b. Made a free Dropbox account and switched my Joplin sync to that. Has been smooooooth sailing ever since. Also there’s a Backup add-on that exports all my notes to a folder on my desktop daily.
Interesting… Thanks for your insight! I’ll experiment with Joplin.
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Duck Duck Go censors searches.
EDIT You can manually backup your bookmarks.
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I use duck duck go.
It’s pretty good, but it’s obviously not as good as google. And I’ll frequently have to actually google something.
Things that are almost comically bad on DDG:
-maps/restaurants/businesses -news/current events
DDG is a good bing proxy, but I do prefer Google’s results so I use startpage which is to Google what duckduckgo is to bing. Neither have their own web crawler they both are simple proxies to another engine
I use DuckDuckGo for search. Has worked well for me.
Other than that, I’m mostly on Apple devices so I use their alternatives. Gmail is the one I haven’t been able to get away from. I use it in too many places now.
I want to do the same. I want to start becoming less and less dependent on these large corporations. I don’t use social media but i still need to use the cloud. I am still stuck with gmail.
For Search I use Duckduckgo (free).
For Mail, Calendar and Contacts I use Fastmail (free or paid, I use the paid version).
For file storage there’s plenty of alternatives (Dropbox etc.)
For browser I use Edge, but it is also built on Chromium. I will make my choice once the recent Web Environment Integrity topic has become more clear.
Why do you use Edge over Firefox?
You’re free to do whatever you want, but I think it’s important to be informed and reading your comment about Edge I thought I might clarify: The reason WEI is a problem is because of Chrom(e)(ium)'s sheer market share. If it’s easy for websites to assume a non-attested browser is a bot or a small minority of privacy-minded people they will simply not serve those.
Basically I’m saying by staying with your current browser you’re helping Google push this through.
But again, you’re free to do whatever you think is right for you.
Search - SearXNG - Has the option to self-host but is an aggregated search engine. Respects privacy, lots of configurable search engines.
https://github.com/searxng/searxng
Browser - Firefox - Really enjoying the mobile version with addon support.
Maps - OsmAnd~ - Honestly not as good as maps, but fits the bill.
For maps check out Organic Maps: https://organicmaps.app/
Also check out GMaps VW when OSM is not enough. You can use for Google maps without a Google account.
Do you have a link? I can’t seem to find “GMaps VW”.
Autocorrect lol its WV not VW https://f-droid.org/packages/us.spotco.maps/
I just switched from Chrome to Brave, and then shortly after from Brave to Vivaldi. Search engine is now Startpage.com, which while slower than Google, it’s been bringing up decent results. Unfortunately I still use quite a few Google-centric apps, so hopefully I’m able to discover more options as time goes on.
How do you find startpage results to duckduckgo?
So I never really dabbled in DDG. I did for a little while, but just like Brave (Eich being a POS, anti-LGBTQ, questionable crypto BS, etc.), some dirt came up for DDG that steered me away. Although, now doing more digging, and even Startpage has its issues. I really don’t like this hopping round thing.
I personally think Brave Search doesn’t get enough love. It’s surprisingly great, search results are fast and always get me relevant sites, and the AI summarizer is really good.
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For Google Photos, Immich
Honestly I’ll move hard drives by carrier pigeon before I use drmweb.
If I could go a day without seeing this exact post over and over, I would be soooo happy.
Brave 😬
FWIW they at least have their own indexer instead of relying on bing/yandex (looking at you ddg). Although I guess selling content you’ve crawled as your own is still a pretty shady thing to do.
Why’s that?
