A little bit of history

The modern Internet can be traced back to a US Department of Defence project called ARPANET that started in the late 1960s.

ARPANET

The goal of ARPANET was to allow multiple different networks to talk to each other using a single common communication protocol. In those days, each network had its own communication protocol, and a computer operator had to physically get up and walk over to a different computer terminal in order to switch between networks.

One of the biggest innovations to come out of ARPANET was an inter-network communication system called electronic mail, or "e-mail" for short.

Architecture of e-mail

E-mail, as everyone knows, is a way for two people to communicate with each other via electronic messages. However, what you may not realize is that there is no single main e-mail server.

An e-mail address is made up of a username and a server name. This is so that when you send an e-mail, your e-mail server knows which other e-mail server to contact in order to deliver your message.

Due to the fact that these electronic messages have to pass between networks, the entire e-mail system became completely decentralized. There was, and still is, no central authority on these interconnected networks. As long as any two servers can communicate, the system works.

Prior to the invention of e-mail, all communication centered around a single central server on each network.

The modern Internet

In many ways, the modem Internet has gone backwards. We now have multiple social networks which are centralized, and unable to communicate with each other. In order to communicate across one social network you have to leave the one you're busy with and move to the other.

Centralized control

Ever tried to communicate with someone on Facebook from your Twitter account? You can't.

Worse than this, you have no control over any of these social networks. You are completely at the mercy of the whims of these social networks. And you give them all of your personal information with no guarantees on how they're going to use them.

The open source movement

Back in the 70s and early 80s, most software was free. Not only was it free, you could actually get the source code, which allowed software engineers to adapt the software to different computers.

In the early 80s this started to change, as companies like Microsoft started producing proprietary software, and demanding that people pay for software.

This didn't sit well with many software engineers, who didn't like losing control of the software they were using, and started advocating for what they called "free, as in freedom" software. This was the birth of what became known as the open source movement.

Re-decentralization

Many of these open source "hackers" watched the rise of closed proprietary networks like Facebook and Twitter, and didn't like what they saw. It was the modern version of the loss of control they saw in the proprietary software movement of the 80s, disconnecting networks from each other, and a centralization of communication.

Federated social networking

Like they did in the 80s and 90s with the rise of proprietary software, "free software" engineers started writing open source social network software.

OStatus protocol

One of the first implementations was called StatusNet (now called GNU Social), and it used a protocol called OStatus to communicate between StatusNet servers.

Some other implementations that arose soon after were Pump.io, Friendica, amd Mastodon.

ActivityPub protocol

Unfortunately, as with many protocols, OStatus suffered some issues, including security problems. This led to the development of a new standard called ActivityPub.

With the establishment of this new standard, a number of the projects that implemented OStatus moved to using ActivityPub as their server-to-server communication (known as federation).

Some well known examples of projects that use ActivityPub for federation include Mastodon, Nextcloud, and Friendica. Other software includes Pleroma (similar to Twitter and Mastodon), PixelFed (an Instagram clone), and PeerTube (a federated video platform).

Tumbler actually just announced (November 2022) that they will be implementing the ActivityPub protocol too.

Real time chat services

As the Internet developed, in the early days of the world wide web, e-mail was just too slow for people who wanted real time communication, and so a number of realtime chat protocols were developed. The most popular and well known of these was called Internet Relay Chat or IRC for short.

IRC networks

IRC started out as a single server at the University of Oulu in Finland in the late 80s, but quickly spread to more servers around the world, with many of them connecting to each other, forming the first IRC network, a collection of IRC servers.

Eventually, disagreements between IRC servers lead to alternative IRC networks, and today you can choose between quite a number of IRC networks.

IRC, however, was not properly decentralized. You still had a unique nick (username) across the entire network, and all the servers had to essentially "agree" with each other. None of the servers could operate truly independently.

XMPP

In 1999, the XMPP protocol was born as the Jabber protocol. Jabber was more like e-mail, in that your username was tied to a particular server, and you could communicate with different users on different servers.

Jabber was just like e-mail, except it was instant. However, Jabber was more geared toward one-on-one chatting, and many people used both IRC and Jabber.

In 2004, Jabber was formalised as the XMPP protocol, and in 2005 Google announced an XMPP service called Google Talk.

The rise of closed chat

Eventually, Google closed off Google Talk from the rest of the XMPP servers, and morphed Talk into Hangouts, further closing their walls.

Many other chat clients started out using the XMPP protocol, including Facebook's chat feature, which then closed and turned into Messenger.

Many other companies staryed seeing communication as "the killer app" and started  developing their own chat clients and protocols. Well known examples are Slack, Discord, Google Chat, HipChat, and Microsoft Teams.

Matrix

During the advent of various closed chat clients, another open source and distributed protocol arose, called Matrix.

Matrix is decentralized, offers end-to-end encryption, and anyone can run their own server and connect to the greater Matrix network.

With the Element chat client, the Matrix protocol offers an experience much like the two biggest closed proprietary chat clients, Slack and Discord.

However, unlike Discord and Slack, all your chat messages are end-to-end encrypted, and the server does not know the contents of the chat messages. And being decentralized, this means that there is no one person or company who can shut down chat rooms or remove users.

Here on Llamarific.social, I run an instance of Matrix and Element. Check out the page on Matrix to get started.

Conclusion

Centralized control allows a single entity to control what happens in a system, and allows for easier censorship and conformity to a single point of view.

Facebook, Twitter, Reddit, Discord, Slack... they are all central services, controlled by a single entity. You are subject to their management and their ideologies, and you don't have a say in how they handle your data.

The easiest way to fight back, to control your data, to maintain your privacy and not be subject to someone else, is to leave their servers and move to alternative places that respect your privacy and leave your data with you.

Of course, the best solution to this is to run your own systems, but not everyone can do that. This is why Llamarific.social exists, so that we can provide these alternatives to those who don't have the technical expertise to do it themselves.

Alternatives

• Mastodon, Pleroma replace Twitter, and Facebook to a certain extent
• PixelFed replaces Instagram
• PeerTube replaces YouTube (see also Odysee and Rumble)
• Matrix and Element replaces Slack, Discord

E-mail

One of the biggest e-mail providers today is Google. Their GMail product took the world by storm when it first arrived on the scene, and now almost everyone has a GMail account.

Apple also has its own e-mail service, via their iCloud services. Microsoft has Hotmail (does this still exist?) and Outlook.com.

Here you have two choices: either you can continue to use your existing e-mail account, or you can migrate to a different e-mail service that respects your privacy.

Continue using your existing e-mail

If you want to continue using your existing e-mail account from your new de-Googled phone, you can do that by using K9 Mail to read your e-mail. K9 has built-in support for a number of e-mail providers, including GMail, which should make it easy to set your e-mail up. If not, a simple search for "IMAP (name of e-mail provider)" should get your started.

Migrate to another e-mail provider

The second option, and one that I recommend, is to migrate to using a different e-mail provider, one that respects your privacy. The only down side to using an alternative e-mail provider is that you usually need to pay for it.

Paying for a service is a GOOD thing. When you get to use a service for free, you are no longer the customer, you are the product. Google exists thanks to advertising. So does Twitter, Facebook and many other services that people use on a daily basis. Big Tech sells your personal data to these advertising companies, and that's how they make money.

The best option is always to run your own e-mail server, but understandably this is not an option for most people.

There are services out there that respect your privacy while providing an e-mail address. Two products that I know of are ProtonMail and Tutanota. Each service has its pros and cons, some have more features than others, and of course the price varies per service.

File storage

There are multiple file-hosting services out there. Google Drive and iCloud come bundled with your phone and your Google or Apple account. There are some other well known storage services, including Dropbox and Microsoft OneDrive. The problem with all of them? They're owned by Big Tech in some form or fashion.

Nextcloud Files

https://nextcloud.com/files/

The ideal way to counter this is to use a fantastic piece of software called Nextcloud. Not only does Nextcloud have file storage, but it also has features like a calendar, contacts, video conferencing, notes, project management and even a password manager. Nextcloud can be deployed to your own servers, where you control your data.

You can install the Nextcloud file synchronization client on your computer, and the Nextcloud app on your phone (available in the App Store, the Play Store and F-Droid), and it will automatically synchronize files between Nextcloud and all your devices.

ProtonDrive

https://proton.me/drive

Another alternative to hosting your own data somewhere is to use a service called ProtonDrive. Made by the people who make ProtonMail, ProtonDrive offers file storage in the same way that Google Drive or iCloud do. Then you can install the ProtonDrive file synchronization client, and it will automatically synchronize files between the cloud and all your devices.

Photos

Similar to file storage (and sometimes bundled together with it), photos are another feature you might miss when moving away from Big Tech.

Just another file

The easiest solution is to store your photos along with your other files. If you're using synchronized file storage, your computer and your phone already have photo galleries apps, so you should be fine. They might not be as fancy as Google Photos, but they'll work.

Nextcloud Photos

As with file storage, Nextcloud also has a photos app. The photos themselves are just files stored in your file storage, but the photos app will read your Photos folder and allow you to manage them.

Other options

A number of the file storage services mentioned above have a photo management interface, either an existing cover on your files, or as a separate service.

There are also a number of other options that are standalone (i.e. not part of another solution), like Flickr and PhotoBucket. The biggest issue with these services is their lack of privacy - by design they are not meant for storing photos privately.

Document editing

With the rise of Google's online services came document editing in the cloud. Microsoft followed soon after with Office 365. But outside of that, there isn't really much more on offer.

So what are the alternatives? Well, you can always go old school and type up your documents on your computer...

Microsoft Office

Many Windows computers these days are sold with some form of Microsoft office on them. So you could just edit your documents on your computer. Of course you're still using software from Big Tech, but at least you are keeping your documents offline.

Apple iWork

If you're using a Mac, you'll have iWork installed by default, which you can use for editing your documents. Again, these documents would remain on your computer, but you're still using Big Tech's software, and you're locking yourself into Apple's walled garden.

LibreOffice

https://libreoffice.org

Probably the most widely used office suite outside of Microsoft Office and iWork, LibreOffice is a free and open source office suite that runs on Windows, macOS and Linux. It uses international document standards for storing your documents, while still being able to read and write Microsoft Office document formats.

ONLYOFFICE

https://www.onlyoffice.com

Another open source suite is ONLYOFFICE. It is unique in that it comes as both a desktop application and as an online document editor. It comes in three flavors, a commercial enterprise version which is not free, a developer version, and a community version which is open source and free.

ONLYOFFICE, like LibreOffice, can read and write both Microsoft documents and standard formats, so you should be able to take most of your existing documents and open them in ONLYOFFICE.

Calendar

Calendars are more of a "work" thing than personal thing, but I do know a few people who use calendars on their phones to help organise their personal life.

The great news is that there are some options available for storing your calendar in your private cloud.

Nextcloud Groupware

https://nextcloud.com/groupware/

Nextcloud provides calendars out-of-the-box when you install it. You can even connect that calendar to your newly de-googled phone using an app called DAVx⁵ so that your phone's calendar is stored in your Nextcloud instance.

Proton Calendar

https://proton.me/calendar

There is also ProtonCalendar, from the makers of ProtonMail, which provides you with an online calendar. Unfortunately ProtonCalendar it seems that in order to use ProtonCalendar on your phone, you need to download and install their Android app, instead of integrating with the existing calendar on your phone.

Video calls

Ever since the start of the so-called COVID pandemic,  video calls have become a huge part of our lives, and various companies have risen to prominence. Of course the most well-known of these is Zoom.

But Zoom has a few problems; its free version is limited to 40 minute calls, it's a separate app, and worst of all, it has some pretty alarming ties to China, where apparently it sends at least some of your data.

Google Meet became another alternative, and Google expanded the availability of Meet during the last few years. But we're trying to get away from Google here.

Nextcloud Talk

https://nextcloud.com/talk/

Nextcloud provides a video calling app called Talk, which integrates nicely with the rest of Nextcloud, and provides you with a way to have calls and conferences with multiple people, no matter which platform you're using (iOS, Android, macOS, Windows, Linux).

Jitsi Meet

https://meet.jit.si/

Another fantastic open source and privacy-respecting option is Jitsi Meet. What's fantastic about Jitsi Meet is that it runs in your browser and you don't need to register or log in for it. Like Nextcloud Talk, it supports all platforms and browsers.

Conclusion

Of course, the above list is not exhaustive by any means, but it should hopefully give you some insight on replacing some of your previous Big Tech services with other smaller players who are more concerned with your privacy.

LibertyStratus

https://libertystrat.us/

I have mentioned Nextcloud a number of times in this article, and that's because it is a fantastic cloud solution that is designed to protect your privacy while providing a number of features of all the Big Tech options. But Nextcloud is software, not an online service, which means you need to host it yourself.

But not everyone has the technical capability to host their own software and run their own servers. With this in mind, I launched LibertyStratus in order to allow people to break away from Big Tech, but not have to worry about running their own cloud services.

For a small monthly cost, you get a hosted version of Nextcloud, with all the basic features of Nextcloud, including file storage, photo management, calendars and video calls.

On  top of that, LibertyStratus also provides the following features:

• E-mail
• Online document editing (just double-click your document in the files browser)
• Password management
• Note taking
• Project management
• and more....

If you're interested, please take a look at https://libertystrat.us/

Installing Apps

Since you are not using Google anymore, you might be wondering where do you get your apps from. When you step away from the Google ecosystem, you no longer have access to the apps you used to use. In some cases, you might find the very same app elsewhere, and in some cases you might find an alternative app with the same or similar functionality. And in some cases, you still need the Google Play Store.

Thankfully the open source community once again has the answer, through two apps called F-Droid and AuroraStore.

F-Droid

https://f-droid.org/

F-Droid is a repository of open source apps, including replacements for many of the apps you might have used in the past. One of the great things about the F-Droid store is that it will tell you if an app uses services or code that might be problematic (i.e. they use a proprietary service like Facebook or Twitter, or their source code is not entirely open source).

Most of the Android distributions I listed in my previous post come with the F-Droid store pre-installed. If not, it's a simple process to download and install it on your phone. You can even do it with your existing Android phone!

As with all things open source, F-Droid can feel a little like the wild west at times. Some apps are old and haven't been updated in years, some are frequently updated but a little buggy, and some are rock solid. There are also many choices for a single service you might have used on your old phone.

Having said that, I have found a lot of really great apps in the F-Droid repositories, and they have become the main apps I use on a daily basis.

AuroraStore

https://auroraoss.com/

If there is no app that matches one of the apps you used to use, and F-Droid doesn't have any viable alternatives, the best option may be to just use the Google Play store.

The AuroraStore app (which is also available in F-Droid) is able to browse, download and install apps from the Google Play store. Have a game you still want to play? Download it through AuroraStore.

The problem with Google Maps

Google Maps is the hardest app to replace, and I haven't yet found a reliable replacement for it. Most people use Maps for getting directions from one place to another, and none of the alternate apps that I have tried have anything like it, sadly.

You have two options here, you can either install the Google Maps app via the AuroraStore app, or you can just use Google Maps in your mobile browser. I personally just use Google Maps in the browser, and I haven't really encountered any situations that make me miss the app.

Other missing features

There are never truly complete replacements for everything in a particular ecosystem, even when moving between the Google and Apple ecosystems, so it should come as no surprise that not everything can be replaced with open source and privacy-respecting alternatives.

Smart watches

One of the areas that is still lacking in the Google alternatives space is smart watches. I was given a Fossil smart watch running Android Wear as a gift, and there is currently no support for Android Wear devices in the open source community.

While I am sad that I cannot use my watch, I do have an analog watch that I use instead. And to be honest, I felt a little bit too "connected" with it, so I feel it was a better move in the long run.

Cameras

If you've gotten used to the Google Camera on the Pixel phones, you'll find the default camera that comes with Android rudimentary and underwhelming. There are some slightly better cameras in F-Droid, and I recommend trying them out, but you may end up just installing Google Camera via AuroraStore.

The downside to this is that Google Camera refuses to use the built-in gallery when viewing photos, and insists on using Google Photos. I just ignore it and open my gallery app.

Photo gallery

If you've used the default photo gallery app on your phone, you might not miss much (if anything) with the default gallery that comes with Android. However, if you've used Google Photos, you'll probably find a few things annoying. The default gallery has no search feature, and it doesn't have Google's proprietary machine learning that examines all your photos and provides search keywords to make searching easier.

I personally haven't used this much, and tend to search based on date, which means that I've never had an issue with the default gallery app.

Other missing features

Aside from Google Maps, I personally have not really found any major missing features by largely removing myself from the Google ecosystem. I was already on the path to replace Google with privacy-respecting alternatives, and I'll cover some alternatives to things like Google Drive and GMail in a subsequent article.

Suggested replacement apps

By now you may be wanting to know if there are any recommended replacements for Google apps, so I've listed a number of alternatives below, with links to their entries in F-Droid.

• K9 Mail replaces Google Mail
• Chromium (comes installed by default usually) replaces Chrome
• Mull replaces Chrome
• Twidere replaces Twitter
• Frost replaces Facebook
• Mullvad VPN is an actual privacy respecting VPN
• NewPipe replaces YouTube
• Aegis is a great OTP generator
• ViMusic replaces YouTube Music
• AndBible is a Bible app with a lot of free Bibles
• Stealth replaces Reddit
• Tasks.org is an open source task manager
• FlorisBoard replaces SwiftKey

TL;DR: Buy an Android phone and install /e/OS.

State of smartphones

There are two major ecosystems available today: iOS and Android. iOS is completely controlled by Apple, and Android is partially controlled by Google.

iOS

Since iOS is completely controlled by Apple, and is pretty much proprietary, only devices sold by Apple run iOS. Apple further enforces this monopoly via only allowing people to install mobile applications from the Apple-controlled App Store, and forcing application developers to only use Apple tools to develop for the platform. A great example of this is that even Google apps on iOS use the Safari browser -- Google Chrome on iOS is actually Safari.

Android

On the other hand, Google does not entirely control Android. The base operating system itself is open source, and can be copied by anyone who wants to build their own version of Android. Instead, what Google does is license its apps for use by phone manufacturers. For a practical example, Samsung doesn't pay to use Android, but they do pay to use the Google Services (Play Store, Maps, etc) on their phones.

In addition to Android itself being essentially out of the control of Google, Android also allows anyone to install apps on their device, no matter where it is from. There are some security controls around this, so that apps cannot be installed without a user knowing, but users can still override those security controls and essentially be in control of their own device.

Other systems

As a side note, there are some other systems out there, but they don't have the financial backing of a large company like the main two, and they are still largely relegated to the "geek" community.

Getting away from Big Tech

So looking at the current ecosystems, it looks like we don't have much of a choice. Where do you go to get away from Big Tech?

Well, maybe we can do something with Android, since the base system doesn't contain any Google-specific code?

There are two major problems with a vanilla Android phone:

1. Google services
2. Locked phones

Google services

As I noted above, Google licenses the Google services on phones, and most mobile applications for Android use these services for things like notifications, in-app purchases, and other critical functionality, so obviously a plain Android phone without these services would largely be useless. As usual, the open source community has a solution: the microG project.

The microG project implements a lot of the APIs that the Google services offer, but without Google, which means that many apps that wouldn't work without Google services now work without any Google code on an Android phone.

Locked phones

Many service providers in the US, and in other parts of the world, lock their phones to their network. This used to be a bigger problem before the advent of LTE (aka "4G"), but notorious players like Verizon still lock their phones so that you cannot install a different version of Android on your phone.

Unfortunately, the only real solution to this is to buy a new phone. The easiest way to do this is to look on eBay for a specific make and model of phone that is labelled as "unlocked" and "all networks". Since almost all phones made in the last 4-5 years supports 4G, you'll be able to use an unlocked phone with pretty much any service provider. For example, my Pixel 3 is technically a GSM network phone, but since it has 4G I was able to just insert the 4G SIM card from my old phone into my Pixel 3 and still use it on the Verizon network, despite Verizon being a CDMA network.

Of course, the next question is: which phone should I buy? We'll answer that in the next section.

Android distributions ("ROMs")

Pretty much since there were Android phones, there were custom builds of Android. In the community they are often called "ROMs", but I will refer to them using the technically correct term "distributions". One of the oldest and most well known of these Android distributions was CyanogenMod, which was renamed a few years ago to LineageOS.

LineageOS is a remarkable project, since it probably supports the widest range of devices out there. But you might be wondering why a custom build of Android would only support certain devices.

Device support

If you've ever used Windows, you're probably familiar with the concept of device drivers. You buy a new graphics card, and have to install the drivers for the card before it works properly. The Mac world runs into this less, but it does still happen.

Similarly, in order for the Android system to use the components in a phone, it needs device drivers. Unfortunately, many of these device drivers are proprietary and belong to the phone manufacturers, making it near impossible for an Android distribution to support those devices.

Having said that, not all devices have proprietary drivers, and some drivers are still freely available. And as usual, some of the open source community has stepped up and written drivers for some phones.

LineageOS

https://lineageos.org/

This brings us back to LineageOS, which supports a fairly extensive list of phones. This may be a good first stop to getting rid of Google on your Android phone, if your phone is unlocked and is supported by LineageOS. Additionally, you can look through the list of supported devices and see if there's anything there that you might find available on eBay in your price range.

Having said that, LineageOS is not privacy focused, so if you're looking for an Android distribution that truly tries to protect your privacy, one of the alternatives below may be a better alternative. It is also a little more hands-on, i.e. you would also need to install microG yourself.

/e/OS

https://e.foundation/

A fantastic privacy-focused Android distribution that supports over 200 devices is /e/OS. It has an easy installer, and comes with things like microG pre-installed, and is based on LineageOS.

/e/OS is a great alternative for those who want an experience much like pre-installed Android distributions, but it does come with the down side of somewhat being forced to use the /e/ Foundation services (email, calendars, etc), which I personally don't like.

CalyxOS

https://calyxos.org/

My personal choice in Android distributions is CalyxOS. It supports a much smaller set of devices (mostly just the Google Pixels), but it also doesn't try to force you to use a set of services like /e/OS does. It also comes with microG pre-installed.

One of the things I like about CalyxOS is that they continue to support older devices, even when Google stops supporting them.

The one caveat to CalxyOS is that its installation requires you to download some tools and use the command line (shock! horror!) for installation. Having said that, the instructions on their site are very clear, and it is easy enough for a non-technical person to follow.

GrapheneOS

https://grapheneos.org/

Another fantastic option is GrapheneOS. It features a web-based installer so that you don't even need to download some software to install GrapheneOS on your phone, it just works from your Chrome-based browser.

Which phone do I buy?

Back to that question: which phone do I buy?

If your current phone is supported by one of the above options (like LineageOS or /e/OS) then see if you can install one of them on your phone. This of course is the cheapest option, since you don't need to buy a new phone.

If you don't see your phone listed, or it is listed as having some major hurdles for installing an Android distribution on it (like being network locked), look at some of the other devices and choose one of those.

Personally, I really like the Pixel phones. Service provider lock-in withstanding, Google actually makes it really easy to change the operating system on the device. I found that a Pixel phone from a year or two ago can usually be found on eBay for an affordable price.

Conclusion

There are so many great options these days for a phone that doesn't report all your activities to faceless big tech companies and the government behind them.

But, at the end of the day, it is up to you. Do you care enough about your privacy to potentially move to an alternative platform?