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Several excellent applications currently offer comprehensive alternatives to Google services. What are your preferred applications at this time? (lemmy.world)
submitted 2 weeks ago by LEONARDE11@lemmy.world to c/degoogle@lemmy.ml
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I'm slowly ditching Google lately. Always on the lookout for better options, so lemme know what you're using! 👌

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[-] pdxfed@lemmy.world 100 points 2 weeks ago

The graphic format doesn't do much for those looking to learn, if I don't already know the non-google icon or app this doesn't help. I understand the point of the post is to drive discussion but if the whole broader goal is to help people switch listing it out in text or labeling the icons at least would make it as useful as the other breakdowns we often see here that have lists by app/category are more useful.

[-] David_Eight@lemmy.world 15 points 2 weeks ago

Can anyone here legit write a list for that for me please (◕‿◕)?

[-] LEONARDE11@lemmy.world 35 points 2 weeks ago

My bad.

Gmail -> Proton Mail
Chrome -> Fennec (Firefox fork)
Google Photos -> Immich (Self Hosted)
Google Calendar -> TickTick
Google Drive -> Filen
YouTube -> YouTube Revanced
WhatsApp -> Nekogram (Telegram fork)

[-] srestegosaurio@lemmy.dbzer0.com 17 points 2 weeks ago

Why recommend Telegram when, arguably, it's no better than WhatsApp?

[-] DougHolland@lemmy.world 15 points 2 weeks ago

WhatsApp is owned by Facebook which is reason enough to make a move.

[-] Delamcode@lemm.ee 5 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Even if it’s not the best, it’s still better than Meta. Signal is better for privacy but is missing some features (not as powerful group chats, folders only on Android and only client side, no pinned messages, no polls - though if one answer is enough you can use reactions). Matrix is pretty good for that kind of thing.

[-] dev_null@lemmy.ml 8 points 2 weeks ago

I suggest Ente Photos instead of Immich, if self-hosting is not something for you. It's also more feature complete, as Immich is still actively being built and bugs are expected.

[-] Delamcode@lemm.ee 4 points 2 weeks ago

I’ve heard that Ente has fewer features (haven’t personally tried it though) and self hosting isn’t that bad… Immich can have bugs sometimes but never has broken anything majorly (once timelines broke, was fixed in the next version, nothing ever was deleted because of a bug) since I’ve been using it.

[-] dev_null@lemmy.ml 9 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

Yeah self-hosting is not hard if you are technical, but the average person won't even entertain the idea.

I haven't tried Immich, I'm currently happy with Ente, and I'm planning to move to Immich (and see how it compares) once it's declared stable by the developers.

[-] Delamcode@lemm.ee 1 points 2 weeks ago

Yep, fully agree. Honestly the only reason Immich isn’t perfect for me, is because my duckdns goes down all the time, and I run it on an old MacBook in a different country (at a friend’s)… it’s not exactly the most reliable way to host it

[-] Igilq@szmer.info 2 points 2 weeks ago

Instead of using YouTube, use PeerTube

[-] ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.org 8 points 2 weeks ago

You can't really replace YouTube's massive library yourself, the best you can do is avoid it but that's hard too. As for the frontend, there is

  • NewPipe/Tubular (Android, also supports Peertube, media.ccc.de, SoundCloud, Bandcamp)
  • Piped (web, very privacy-friendly)
  • Grayjay (Android and desktop, partially open source, support for many services including PeerTube and Odysee, $10 or guilt-tripping infinite free trial)
  • Revanced as mentioned above
[-] 123213217362131231@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago

I can recommend TubeSync, it’s a self hosted service to schedule regular download of selected content from YouTube. You can integrate it easily with Plex

[-] trilobite@lemmy.ml 1 points 2 weeks ago

The problem with many of these apps is that when you go looking for them on fdroid they are not there. Example in the above list is YouTube Revanced.

[-] ItJustDonn@slrpnk.net 6 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

I find that lists like this are often on GitHub, so it's worth adding that site to your search

Here's an example by Tycrek

Edit: found another by Pluja

You'll see overlap on the lists for good reason

[-] LEONARDE11@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago

Legendary 🙌👏

[-] trilobite@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 weeks ago

Awesome Privacy looks goog. Need to explore.

[-] tiny_hedgehog@lemm.ee 17 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

What is the YouTube alternative? That’s what I’m struggling to find. I found PeerTube but couldn’t find much I’d like to watch.

ETA: I like videos like Veritasium and VSauce, Tom Scott, those kinds of things.

[-] jachymx@lemm.ee 5 points 2 weeks ago

Odysee and peertube, best instance on peertube is framatube :))

[-] meldrik@lemmy.wtf 9 points 2 weeks ago

Not really. Framatube.org doesn’t allow registration. You should check out the pinned post at !peertube@lemmy.wtf about PeerTube platforms (instances).

[-] meldrik@lemmy.wtf 4 points 2 weeks ago

Check out the list of channels here: !peertube@lemmy.wtf

[-] simop_jo@lemmy.world 2 points 2 weeks ago

I'm pretty sure the image put YouTube revanced. However, you could try NewPipe if you don't want microg

[-] LWD@lemm.ee 2 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

My YouTube alternative: still YouTube, but I screw them out of ad revenue with a dedicated account and third party apps

[-] OprahsedCreature@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 weeks ago

That's definitely a good first step. I'd support peertube as much as possible to really hurt YouTube in the content whenever possible for the future.

[-] Thekingoflorda@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago

You have nebula, but that is paid.

Besides that, not much. Youtube has a way to powerful marketposition.

[-] Manalith@midwest.social 1 points 2 weeks ago

I know not everyone can do it, but $300 for a lifetime Nebula subscription was great. Do wish more people moved over though.

[-] ThisGuyThat@lemmy.world 11 points 2 weeks ago

Nextcloud. Replaced drive, contacts, calendar, and their office. Basically all their groupware stuff with addituonal functionality. Davx5 on android to sync to nextcloud.

[-] pglpm@lemmy.ca 2 points 2 weeks ago

This is the Way.

[-] Bunbury@feddit.nl 9 points 2 weeks ago

I’m loving mailbox.org as an alternative to Gmail and Magic Earth as a replacement for Google Maps. Also I’ve been using Ecosia - both the browser and the search engine. Sadly the search engine is just a reskinned bing, but they are involved in the project of making the first real EU based search engine. And once that’s out I’m looking forward to using that.

[-] Dreaming_Novaling@lemmy.zip 2 points 2 weeks ago

+1 for the mailbox.org, moving to it as Proton's CEO Andy outed himself as a Trump supporter. It's been working fine so far with my anonaddy (moved from simplelogin to...)

I'm using Thunderbird on my phone to see my mailbox.org emails

[-] someacnt@sh.itjust.works 9 points 2 weeks ago

If only my uni email was not using gmail..

[-] shoki@lemmy.world 8 points 2 weeks ago

well, you can still use k9mail or thunderbird with a gmail account so at least the client is foss

[-] ChaoticNeutralCzech@feddit.org 9 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

You're lucky with Gmail. Both my work and school uses Outlook and they ban IMAP, POP3, third-party apps (even those with OAuth2) and also forwarding to another address. So I have to keep another browser or an anonymous window open for one of them, as it takes WAY too long to switch accounts and I'm NOT downloading the official Outlook app.

[-] letme@lemmy.wtf 2 points 2 weeks ago

I once had a Roundcube setup just to access gmail IMAP. It worked great and I did not have to get google tracking cookie.

[-] mesamunefire@piefed.social 8 points 2 weeks ago

Gmail and maps are my last hold outs.

[-] SirQuack@feddit.nl 5 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

I really like Here maps. Hosted in Eindhoven, NL (apparently) and has cool stuff like panning when using spoken navigation, so "turn left" comes from the left speaker, which is something I would otherwise struggle with.

[-] rfr_Foglia@feddit.it 4 points 2 weeks ago

I'm using Organic Maps and I like it a lot, but nothing is as feature complete as Google Maps sadly. You always have to make a compromise.

[-] David_Eight@lemmy.world 3 points 2 weeks ago

Magic Earth is a decent alt for navigation.

[-] nfreak@lemmy.ml 3 points 2 weeks ago

I've been using Magic Earth for navigation, it's not FOSS but still has a lot of strong vouches in these sorts of communities, I believe their privacy policy has been thoroughly vetted if I recall. Works great and does what it needs to do.

For Gmail, I highly recommend Tuta, fantastic service. Paid plans are very affordable. The only thing I wish their client had was more in-depth rule customization but I may just be stupid. Admittedly setting up email forwarding from my gmail accounts has made me a bit lazy in fully switching over every single account from gmail to a tuta address, but I'm getting there.

[-] _LordMcNuggets_@feddit.org 1 points 2 weeks ago

+1 for magic earth, great for navigation. Organic maps has a more natural UI though I find, when looking for places around you

[-] SexDwarf@lemmy.world 1 points 2 weeks ago

Maps and Calendar for me

[-] SexDwarf@lemmy.world 8 points 2 weeks ago

My replacements

  • Gmail -> Proton Mail
  • Chrome -> Firefox
  • Google Photos -> Ente Photos
  • Google Drive -> Proton Drive, Filen
  • YouTube -> YouTube Revanced
  • WhatsApp -> Signal
  • Google Keep -> Joplin
  • Google Docs -> LibreOffice
  • Translate -> DeepL
[-] toastal@lemmy.ml 6 points 2 weeks ago
  • Gmail -> Posteo
  • Chrome -> LibreWolf
  • Photos -> rsync (I don’t trust Discord-only communites)
  • Drive -> rsync / VCSs
  • WhatsApp -> XMPP
  • Keep -> What?
  • Docs -> Text editor / LibreOffice
  • Google Translate -> Yandex Translate (FOSS options do not generally support Eastern languages)
[-] zqps@sh.itjust.works 3 points 2 weeks ago

Keep is for notes, optionally with cross-device sync.

[-] toastal@lemmy.ml 2 points 2 weeks ago

CalDAV supports notes/todos. I never used it tho. I usually just Note to Self on XMPP.

[-] calisti 7 points 2 weeks ago

TickTick is Chinese and Nobody should use it. They have full access to your calendar, todo lists and so on. Don’t organize your life in a Chinese owned app.

[-] lorski@sopuli.xyz 1 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago)

Email -> Runbox

Browser -> Vivaldi (also has a calendar and email client)

Messaging -> Signal

Photos/Drive/Docs -> Jotta

Notes -> Justnote

[-] samsmucny@thecle.land 1 points 2 weeks ago

@LEONARDE11@lemmy.world
My current progress:
Gmail and calendar ➡️ @Tutanota@mastodon.social some issues with UI and performance, but overall happy.
Browser ➡️ Zen (Firefox fork)
Storage ➡️ NAS with mesh VPN
Photos/videos: Jellyfin but also just manual folders. Phone sync with Easy Sync over WebDav. Quite hacky, but it works.
YouTube: SOL ​:bocchi_wiggle:​
Chat: pretty much everything with no consensus. ​:dumpsterkun:​ Attempting to use matrix/signal/xmpp more.

Still room for improvement with text/voice/video chat being the big current struggle.

this post was submitted on 29 Mar 2025
222 points (100.0% liked)

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