18 Comments
User's avatar
Feral dog (formerly Nabler)'s avatar

Keenly interested in product and service recommendations; also trying to do this!

Expand full comment
Lloyd Alter's avatar

I have Proton Mail, and there are Sync and Rebel as Google Drive alternatives, but when you are in the Apple ecosystem, it is so hard; nothing works so seamlessly as iCloud. And of course we are both on Substack.

Expand full comment
Paris Marx's avatar

Yeah, I've been on Proton for years too. iCloud is the one Apple service I'll still be paying for after this, but I am looking at alternatives to its built-in applications.

Expand full comment
David E Pike's avatar

+1 for proton mail, firefox/mozilla are decent browsers as well as opera and duckduckgo

Expand full comment
Flinz's avatar

Why bad news? The article goes in great detail and show that in fact the CEO and company are not supporting Trump.

Expand full comment
RiotingPacifist's avatar

I don't think it does, it looks very much like the CEO is on the trump train.

Expand full comment
Marcello Mancuso's avatar

I left Gmail for ProtonMail (Swiss with distributed servers throughout the world and iCloud for ProtonDrive (see above). Freemium in both cases. When Substack refused to enforce its TOS with openly fascist and racist posters, I took my little newsletter to Ghost (UK and Ireland, I think). I see the attraction of Substack and admit Ghost is not a one for one alternative, but it is progressing well toward seamless integration with the Fediverse. I search on DuckDuckGo. Google broke itself anyway, so no real loss for me.

It ain’t just the oligarchs for me. Though they are certainly enough. US threats to Canada’s sovereignty pushed me over the edge.

I am trying to get off Adobe, but haven’t found an acceptable alternative. And now I need a new phone and… well!

Expand full comment
Jeremy Krall's avatar

https://european-alternatives.eu/ is great. Help start the revolution away from the way too powerful! Even if you can't get completely out of the US tech scene, maybe some lesser companies like Mozilla with Firefox and Thunderbird.

Expand full comment
Paris Marx's avatar

Agreed, but I’ve been looking beyond just European alternatives,

Expand full comment
Jeremy Krall's avatar

Well I'd say that being in Canada that you would start there. 😉 But did want to provide the link in case anyone else is interested in starting the search themselves.

Expand full comment
Nathaniel Morris's avatar

Yes please! The AI slop being forced on us from every direction is doing my head in - like, it's lame, and patronising, and also have none of these goons watched Terminator??!! - so any way of lessening my dependence on all these US-based, fascism-enabling platforms would be most welcome!

Expand full comment
Barry D's avatar

Really looking forward to see what you have found. I would like to reduce my usage too even if I don’t get rid of everything either yet.

Expand full comment
RiotingPacifist's avatar

System76 and Tuxedo are really solid replacements for when you are ready to abandon your MacBook, there are probably others too.

Expand full comment
Supriyo Chaudhuri's avatar

I believe the only country which developed a viable alternative tech stack is China. Everywhere else the underlying infrastructure is controlled by Silicon Valley (and the US control over the physical infrastructure). But come to think of it, China was saved by Stalin's freak advice to Mao of not replacing the Chinese script, thus giving China a keyboard and a language that work as a useful barrier to the US tech onslaught. I can't even find a good Amazon alternative in Britain (except Temu)!

Expand full comment
Paris Marx's avatar

The big thing China has going for it is the size of its market, but also because it rejected US pressure not to erect trade barriers on digital technology. The Great Firewall (while also a censorship tool) gave domestic firms the room to grow and improve before going international. Other countries had their competitors to Silicon Valley crushed or acquired before they could reach that stage.

Expand full comment
Supriyo Chaudhuri's avatar

Yes of course. I am from India and even though I heard one of the country's leading oligarchs speak of 'data colonialism' (first time I heard the expression), I believe the surrender of the country's tech industry was consensual. It was copy-and-catch-up innovation mostly, built around US ideas and infrastructure. I heard tech entrepreneurs complain about roman script keyboards exposing themselves to global competition and referring admiringly to China's own 'cultural firewall'. Of course, it must be one of the factors (and not the reason), but I hear the conversation in China about creating building a Tech stack chip-level upwards and I wish my Indian friends were speaking about that. But I believe the cost of switch is too much and it is impossible to achieve without public investment in Tech, but also in education and market creation.

Expand full comment
Nathaniel Morris's avatar

duckduckgo is definitely gaining on google post 'ai overview'

Expand full comment