For whatever reason, you decide to get away from Google (and big tech) these are what you will need
- Ubuntu: easy to use operating system. install anywhere and not worry about licenses and drivers etc
- Brave: browser based on chromium
- LibreOffice: the leading open source Word alternative
- DuckDuckGo: search engine. currently comprises of around .5% of the worlds search volume
- Telegram or Signal: whatsapp replacement. great for calls
- Email Host: German/Swiss email provider of your choice (Proton, Tutanota, GMX etc)
- Thunderbird: Desktop email and calendar client
- mewe: social media
- Nextcloud: for businesses management
- OpenStreetMaps: Google Maps Alternative for desktop or mobile
- LBRY instead of youtube
Let us take a quick dive into how each of these works.
Ubuntu:
First we have to look at the base operating system. If you don't want Apple or Microsoft tracking you need to go Linux. Ubuntu and its derivatives is the most popular and stable Linux flavour that you can install on your PC. Ubuntu Touch is also available for smartphones. You could buy a $200 PinePhone or install it on many android devices that you already have. Ubuntu touch isn't 100% production ready so please check the following before trying to use it as a daily driver. Click on a device from their website to see which functions currently work. Check out if the app store has what you need and Anbox could run some basic android apps.
de-googled android:
If you don't want to give up your android device you can install a stock android without play services and download apps with pureapk. This is a more stable system then the current Ubuntu Touch operating system. First you need to root your phone and install. Many apps like Whatsapp and GoogleMeet won’t work out of the box. However you should know that many apps that won't install without Google Play Services will work fine in the browser on desktop mode.
Brave:
Browsers make money by either directing you to a search engine with ads or by targeted ads from the browsers itself. Brave utilizes a brilliant new way of having targeted advertising with collecting any user data. This works by having your browsing data stored locally from which it matches pre-downloaded ads to. The user can choose how many ads displayed per hour and receive crypto coin or choose to opt out of ads entirely. https://brave.com/intro-to-brave-ads/
Brave Search Engine may be the first completely independent, privacy respecting, real search engine
DuckDuckGo
DDG has been around for about two decades (only 10 years after Google). They're a search engine that simply does not utilize user data. Their search results partially come from its own crawlers and Microsoft Bing which also provides the ads. Their market share makes up somewhere between 1% and 0.5% of the global search engine queries. You could go with a metasearch engine but DDG is the closest to an organic search engine.
Unfortunately there are no simple self-hosted email solutions. Trust me on this, it's not worth it unless you've successfully done it before. You are best off using a small email provider with a stable business model and integrity. GMX email hosting and thunderbird client make for a nice feature full free email suite. Thunderbird offers end-to-end-encryption so that your email host has no chance of reading your message. Some mail providers (like GMX) only support a browser addon for end-to-end-encrypted mail so use ProtonMail bridge if you want to use e2ee with Thunderbird.
Other Desktop tools
If you are used to using Microsoft tools like Word or Moviemaker you wont be disappointed using the free alternatives. LibreOffice, Gimp, Audacity, and KdenLive (video editing) are just some of the professional programs available natively on Linux. Most of the big Linux programs also work fine on Windows or Mac.
Telegram & Signal
These two programs are the new social communication apps of choice to replace Facebook's WhatsApp. The main difference Telegram and Signal is that Telegram is a business. Telegram intends to monetize with ads on large public channels and premium business features. They acknowledge what happened to Whatsapp (bought by Facebook and now sells your private data) and assure users of their privacy and integrity. The client apps are open source so it is easy to assess how Telegram is using your data. As a business, Telegram has grown much faster then Signal and therefore much more likely to be used by the people you know.
Signal is an open-source platform which uses peer-to-peer technology for video and voice calls. Because it’s an organization there is no threat of anyone monetizing and changing the system. Their server infrastructure needs to be constantly funded by pro freedom foundation donations and loans. Many companies run their own Signal servers as a way ensuring security and quality service to private employee communications.
It can make a difference choosing a client app, for example TELEports app hides your phone number on Telegram by default.
Open Street Maps
OSM is the best Google Maps alternative for navigation and mapping. I surprised by nice features such as tracking my bike ride without sharing any data.
You will have to forgo Streetview, store hours and other specific map data.
LBRY
Is a peer-to-peer blockchain based video sharing platform that looks like Youtube. Odysee.com is one of the public facing websites you could view it on or you can use a desktop app.
Among the downside you might face is:
Although LBRY will takedown reported copyrighted and illegal material, YouTube uses AI to watch all videos and filter spam/inappropriate and copyrighted content. This is a tool that LBRY does not have.
Also the SEC has launched a lawsuit against their crypto coin offering (considered securities)
Mewe
Mewe is the Social Network platform similar to Facebook. Wikipedia claims it is popular among conspiracy theorists, and anti-vaxxers. From my experience of 5 connections and 3 followers this is not true.
Nextcloud
A self hosted office suite that can do all your cloud needs. From file storage to video conferencing Nextcloud is built to replace Office365, Google-drive, zoom and much more.
For IT pros
For cloud hosting providers I find Linode to be the cheapest, non-political and feature full. There is plenty of authentication
There are endless great tools that replace how Google integrates our systems such as pihole and syncthing. There are also great easy tools to hide your own Google footprint such as Wireguard VPN
Conclusion
Be warned it is an uphill battle avoiding your footprint on the largest corporations ever known to mankind. However monopolies are bad for everyone in the long run, and it up to us to fight it not to feed it.