Reminder: Ditch Big Tech
Use services that respect your privacy and ditch or limit Big Tech's influence
A recent post on Bluesky from The Tor Project serves as an important and timely reminder that privacy is NOT dead. It might look that way as Big Tech hardens its grip, and many have just given up and believe that privacy is no more thanks to all the tech we use. However, that couldn’t be further from the truth. Privacy is very much alive and is possible, you just need to ditch or severely limit your use of Big Tech.
To take back your privacy, you need to use services that respect your privacy. Thanks to more people becoming more aware of their privacy rights, there are now many privacy-focused services that rival Big Tech products and can even replace them, with more being created as we speak.
Some of these sites that you can find privacy-focused tech I have mentioned in the past, but I’m relisting them again since these are great resources.
AlternativeTo - “A crowd-sourced and free site that helps you find better apps and services.” Can filter results for privacy-focused tech and even country of origin, a recently added feature.
European Alternatives - “We help you find European alternatives for digital service and products, like cloud services and SaaS products.” Great resource if you are looking to cut your reliance on U.S. tech. Europe is seen more as a privacy-friendly destination due to regulations such as the GDPR.
Open source projects are typically seen as more privacy-friendly than closed source since you can view the code. Check out these sites if you are interested in open source.
OSS Gallery - "A crowdsourced list of the best open-source projects on the internet."
Open Alternative - "A curated collection of the best open source alternatives to everyday SaaS products."
opensourcealternatives.org - "Find free and open source alternatives to tools that don’t respect you."
Take a look at these privacy knowledge bases as well. You will find great information and resources to learn more about privacy and security.
Surveillance Self-Defense - “Tips, Tools, and How-Tos for safer online communication.”
Smartphone Don’t Spy! - “A checklist for your mobile security”
Techlore - “Digital rights for all”
Privacy Guides - “The collaborative privacy advocacy community.”
Switching Software - “Ethical, easy-to-use and privacy-conscious alternatives to well-known software.”
The New Oil - “The Beginner’s Guide to Data Privacy & Cybersecurity.”
With these resources, you will easily find privacy-focused options that should be able to replace Big Tech products. Even if you cannot ditch Big Tech completely, these resources give you information on what you can do to protect your privacy from them.
Let me know in the comments on what has been your experience ditching Big Tech.
Until Next Time,
Monique 🔐
✨Please consider supporting my work by doing the following: Make a recurring donation to me over on Liberapay, provide one-time donations either through Ko-fi or Monero, subscribe to The Privacy Cloud (if you haven’t already), and share the newsletters with others!