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.
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.
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
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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”
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.