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Hello Fellow Lemmings,

I’ve been on a 2+ year long digital hygiene project involving moving to various self-hosted services, tidying up my backup procedures, cancelling underutilized subscriptions, streamlining my task management and calendaring, purging corporate evil from my phone, etc.

Recently, I made a big spreadsheet of my apps including their licenses, whether they’re FOSS, whether they have cloud dependencies, where I’m sourcing them from, and whether I think they are sketchy. I hope to share this eventually once I have worked out what to do about a few of the remaining proprietary gremlins lurking on my silicon. I would love some input on how to deal with the apps I’d like to quit, minimize using, replace with FOSS alternatives, etc. The phone in question is an Android device running GrapheneOS.

I view my adversaries as follows:

  • First and foremost, I hate advertising, personalized tracking, intrusive notifications, etc. Corporate America/ Big Tech is my arch nemesis. I also feel an ethical obligation to move away from these solutions. I would also like to have control over my own data where possible and when it’s within my skill level
  • I want my phone to be secure. I don’t need to show up on in some scammer or spammer’s list because some sketchy app stole my credit card or personal info. Same goes for physical security, I don’t want anyone unlocking it unless I’ve given them permission to use it.
  • I’m least worried about state actors. Anything they want to know about me they could buy off Google, Amazon, etc. I really doubt I’m much of a target except the way they target all of us by piggybacking on corporate tracking. I know there are people on here who don’t have the privilege of ranking this so low on the list and count myself lucky that this is >>currently<< not a bigger issue.

I’m approaching this from a practical point of view, unfortunately I do have some proprietary software I haven’t found a suitable alternative to. I will probably still have a few of them, even after my purge is complete. Having said that, I’m a firm believer in risk reduction. I’d appreciate your insights, I’ve numbered them as that may help keep the conversation from becoming too chaotic.

  1. Discord Not sure what to do about this other than say “I told you so, we should have never left mumble!” I have communities on here I can’t get elsewhere and always accessing via the desktop website is impractical when I’m actively involved in planning a surprise Minecraft raid.

  2. eeero If they get their act together, we’re due to get fiber in the next year or so. They seem to install with eeero routers, but I would prefer to get rid of amazon, I really like the gli router I have for travel. Does anyone have experience with their router offerings? I’d like to have Wireguard access back to the home and network ad-blocking on a per-device basis is desirable. I’ve been using a drop in gateway to provide adblocking for my phone and laptop while I’m at home.

  3. Google Lens Some features can be replaced with TinEye or imgops, but the main thing I need is the augmented reality integration with google translate where you can point the camera at text to have it translated live on the screen. Do any FOSS translator apps include AR translation?

  4. Google Maps I’m surprised at how reliant I’ve become on this for opening/closing times, browsing satellite maps for fun, browsing satellite maps to find parking garage entrances, checking busy times, viewing menus, etc. I like Organic Maps for its simplicity and impressive ease of use. OSMand has an awesomely absurd amount of detail. For some reason I keep opening google maps, and it’s more than just the menus and phone numbers. What map app(s) do you use for driving, biking, exploring? Do any FOSS map apps provide phone numbers, opening hours, and menus reliably?

  5. Google Translate I need the conversation translate feature where you can talk back and forth and have it live translate like an interpreter would. I can put it in its own profile to isolate it, but I’m still giving it a lot of info just by using it. What’s my best FOSS or even reduced-harm alternative?

  6. Lyft & Uber & Southwest I may just disable these except for the rare occasion where I need them. What’s the risk of enabling, using, then immediately disabling?

  7. Ring It seems like the big players are Amazon and Google. Can you recommend any privacy respecting doorbells that are relatively easy to set up? I need the ease of use because due to current life events my Home Assistant project is progressing very slowly. I failed at the VM install and don’t want to screw up the system with a bare metal install as I have frequently used docker images running on it (data backed up though!). My Linux knowledge is begintermediate/intermediate with a weakness in networking.

  8. Youtube I have Thorium installed to access Peertube and ween myself off YouTube. This is a long term project. Short term, I have Tubular, a newpipe fork with sponsorblock baked in whic accesses youtube okay. I do have the official youtube app because I like being able to line up videos on the TV via chromecast. Tubular doesn’t seem to cast. What do you do to get video/audio to your external screens?

  9. X-plore File Manager There is no alternative that I have found that does so much so well. This program is God-tier. I can do SSH, access network shares, set up sync jobs to backup folders, access nextcloud, and so much more. Possibly the most important app on my phone, but it’s proprietary.

  10. F-Stop Photo Gallery I haven’t found a gallery that works as well as this one. I also like that it can access network shares though it doesn’t seem to include them in the favorites and ratings tabs, so there must be some sort of limitation with the metadata or something. I use it for basic photo management on my phone while I use a different app to view my old vacation photos and stuff like that. But it’s proprietary. :‘’'-(

  11. Tody Keeps track of repeating chores by room and changes color from green to red based off of how long it’s been since it was done. This works better for my brain than due dates because sometimes I can only keep everything in the yellow, but that looks like chaos with overdue everything when done in a traditional task management app. I know there is at least one other proprietary app that does this. Does anyone know of a FOSS app or better option?

  12. Nova Launcher I have an extreme aversion to clutter, unwanted notifications, bad spacing. I’m hard to please. Nova Launcher has scratched my itch for home screen customization for years and years. I think they recently got bought out or something, but people didn’t panic terribly. I’m fairly certain there is no alternative that will meet my needs, so what can I do to limit my exposure? Can I use an app like Hypatia to see what URLs it reaches out to and block any telemetry and phoning home via DNS or something like that?

  13. Futo vs Transcribro The GrapheneOS default keyboard is fine but doesn’t have voice input. I tried Transcribebro and recently stumbled across the source available Futo which has the source published, but is under some sort of non-commercial license. I’m not a company and I’m not so keen on the corporate grift to begin with. I care more about replacing google voice typing with something less malicious. Futo seems better integrated, but I’m torn about whether I should use/support Transcribro simply on account of it being open-source. Thoughts and experiences?

  14. Whatsapp I prefer Signal, but there are places I visit where Whatsapp has a majority share of users for any communication. Can I do anything to stop all the spam and idiotic crypto group invites and junk that comes along with this app? It’s totally true to what I think of when I hear the “Meta experience”, clutter and bullshit.

  15. Strava Is anyone hosting Wander? I’ve seen it posted on here and maybe on Mastodon but the installation process intimidated me a little bit. If I’m uploading my rides at all and I’m tracking on my cycle computer rather than with my phone, is there any additional privacy lost from installing the app? I use it for the heatmaps and people on here previously shared a number of useful alternative tools for making personal heatmaps overlaying map data. It’s too much work without automating it somehow. I would like to reduce my exposure and understand the risks better though. Any ideas or experiences?

  16. Final question, for those of you using GrapheneOS, do you isolate apps in profiles or use the private space/work profile feature? How do you split up your apps. I’ve been running 2 profiles with one being Financial and Medical apps and one being everything else. Is this separation even necessary with the app sandboxing? I’ve been reading their forums, but it’s an absurd amount of information to digest.

Thank you for any insights, experiences, recommendations you may share. I’m sure I will annoy the FOSS brigade (which I would like to eventually 100% join), the power users who answer these questions a dozen times a month, and the nihilists who think privacy is already a lost cause. Having said that, I appreciate your assistance as I have come a long way to get to this point and my proprietary dependencies are lower than they’ve been and more contained than they’ve been in a very long time.

  • N.E.P.T.R@lemmy.blahaj.zoneEnglish
    4·
    4 hours ago

    See if RTranslator meets your needs for a gtranslate alternative.

    Also, Heliboard has swipe/glide typing and can use other STT/voice type apps. I recommend Heliboard + FUTO Voice Input.

  • lol_idk@lemmy.ml
    2·
    4 hours ago

    Ride With GPS is an organization I choose to trust because I know 3 of the employees personally. Their privacy policy is pretty clear, although the app’s data collection settings are great.

  • sic_semper_tyrannis@lemmy.todayEnglish
    3·
    6 hours ago
    1. I have a GL.Intel Flint 2. It’s very easy to use. It makes it easy to install VPNs, Wireguard or OpenVPN as well as Tailscale support. It has an Adguard feature built in or you can use a custom DNS service. The one thing I dislike is the inability to setup VLANs (if I’m mistaken I would love to be informed how to set one up).
    2. I use GMaps WV to look up stuff on Google Maps if it’s not on OSM, then I’ll route with Organic Maps with Sherpa Onnx TTS.
    3. I have heard Uber works well in the browser
    4. Use a Wyze Video Doorbell 1 flashed with the Thingo firmware
    5. Material Files is probably the closest you’ll get
    6. Immich, Aves, or Ente photos
    7. Lawnchair launcher. Hypatia is discontinued now
    8. Don’t worry about the licensing with Futo if you’re still using closed source apps, you’ll just hinder yourself. Look up FUTO on YouTube or Louis Rossmann to understand why they made the licensing that way.
    9. Soon WhatsApp will have interoperability with Signal, use Signal.
    10. OpenTracks. Strava has had many many privacy issues. Privacy issues that can turn into security issues in person.
    11. If I require the use of a non privacy respecting app I’ll put it on it’s own profile.

    I will finish by saying you should evaluate what’s actually necessary vs a convenience. You’ll find that you can do without some features that you may use once in a blue moon or can be done less conveniently with a cable, etc.

  • agile_squirrel@lemmy.ml
    11·
    5 hours ago

    Great job on your journey! It sounds like you’ve made a lot of progress in the last 2 years.

    Q1. I highly recommend OpenWRT. It runs on cheap hardware, is open source, and has a lot of options. I don’t have any strong recommendations for hardware, but I’ve seen people recommend the Flint 2 routers and they sometimes go on sale. Regarding remote access to your LAN, 2 common options are setting up a VPN (aka road warrior) for remote access and using Tailscale. If you’re not great at networking, I’d recommend setting up Tailscale. It can run on your router, or another always on computer like your Home Assistant machine. It’s not FOSS, but is easy to set up and I recommend it. You can always swap it out with something FOSS later on your journey. As a side comment, you may want to looking into running PiHole. I think it can run on an OpenWRT router if you’d like. This is a little advanced, but once you get set up and comfortable with your router, I highly recommend looking into VLANs (software setting on some routers like OpenWRT). I have a specific SSID that does not have external internet access. I put any questionable devices on that SSID/VLAN (like cameras, doorbells, IOT) so they are secure but I can still access it locally from my server. I make sure to only buy IOT devices that can work locally without internet.

    Q3. For maps navigation, I use Magic Earth (not FOSS). For me, it’s the right balance of privacy and usability. For browsing google maps, you could check out GMaps WV which is basically a PWA (progressive web app) for Google Maps.

    A couple questions are about GrapheneOS app strategy. My approach is:

    • Main profile has only FOSS and privacy respecting apps enabled. I use a limited number of privacy abusing apps (e.g., Google Camera), but they do not have network permissions. In your case, you might use Nova launcher but block internet access using permissions.
    • In my main profile, I install and then immediately disable privacy abusing apps that require network permissions. I then create a new profile for each app (e.g., 1 profile just for Lyft, 1 profile just for Southwest, etc.). I also have Orbot installed and disabled. I “install” these apps by editing the profile and “Install available apps” from my main profile to only install the app (e.g., Southwest) + Orbot (if I want to force it only use the Tor network).
    • I like this approach because it makes app updates easy (I only need to update all apps from my main profile). It isolates apps, since apps can see what other apps are installed and there are risks to using “bad” apps in the main profile. It allows me to configure apps to only use Tor. It disables them when not in use since I set the profile to not run in the background. As a side benefit, it makes it more difficult for me use these privacy abusing apps so it incentives me to use FOSS and privacy apps instead.

    Q6. Reolink + Frigate is commonly recommended, but I’d be careful before starting that project. Frigate is one of the more difficult items to self-host for new people, especially if you want to make sure the camera is on a restricted VLAN.

    Q11. You could also look at lawnchair launcher, but it hasn’t been updated in a while.

    Q12. I like the GrapheneOS keyboard, but I use the FUTO Voice Input with it. That is a separate app from the FUTO keyboard. I make sure the network permissions are disabled on the FUTO Voice Input.