#minimizebigtechreliance — Public Fediverse posts

Apple/Bing/Google Maps Alternatives

It’s the Gulf of Mexico. It was named that before the United States even existed, and Donald Trump doesn’t have the authority to name it anything else, no matter what his decaying fascist brain may think.

Despite this, the big tech companies of Alphabet, Apple, and Microsoft, have all updated their maps to reflect what Trump wants. They can cave all they want. We have options.

Instead of using a mapping service which is beholden to the country it’s headquartered in, there is an open and worldwide service we can use, including for navigation. OpenStreetMap, founded in 2004, uses a combination of GPS traces, public domain information, and crowdsourcing. As the name indicates, the mapping information is open source and available to anybody who wishes to access it. This includes app developers who might wish to use OSM for mobile device navigation software.

There are two apps in particular, available on both iPhone and Android. The first is OsmAnd (OpenStreetMap Automated Navigation Directions), while the second is Organic Maps. Both apps are open source and are free to use. OsmAnd has a paid tier to unlock features such as unlimited maps (you only download the maps you need), while Organic Maps is funded by donations. Both apps work offline, so you can navigate even when you hit a dead cell signal zone. Most importantly, both apps focus on user privacy, as neither app collects any user data.

OsmAnd:
iOS download
Android download

Organic Maps:
iOS download
Android download

#Alphabet #Apple #Bing #Google #Microsoft #MinimizeBigTechReliance #Navigation #OpenStreetMap #OrganicMaps #OsmAnd

Apple/Bing/Google Maps Alternatives

It’s the Gulf of Mexico. It was named that before the United States even existed, and Donald Trump doesn’t have the authority to name it anything else, no matter what his decaying fascist brain may think.

Despite this, the big tech companies of Alphabet, Apple, and Microsoft, have all updated their maps to reflect what Trump wants. They can cave all they want. We have options.

Instead of using a mapping service which is beholden to the country it’s headquartered in, there is an open and worldwide service we can use, including for navigation. OpenStreetMap, founded in 2004, uses a combination of GPS traces, public domain information, and crowdsourcing. As the name indicates, the mapping information is open source and available to anybody who wishes to access it. This includes app developers who might wish to use OSM for mobile device navigation software.

There are two apps in particular, available on both iPhone and Android. The first is OsmAnd (OpenStreetMap Automated Navigation Directions), while the second is Organic Maps. Both apps are open source and are free to use. OsmAnd has a paid tier to unlock features such as unlimited maps (you only download the maps you need), while Organic Maps is funded by donations. Both apps work offline, so you can navigate even when you hit a dead cell signal zone. Most importantly, both apps focus on user privacy, as neither app collects any user data.

OsmAnd:
iOS download
Android download

Organic Maps:
iOS download
Android download

#Alphabet #Apple #Bing #Google #Microsoft #MinimizeBigTechReliance #Navigation #OpenStreetMap #OrganicMaps #OsmAnd

Apple/Bing/Google Maps Alternatives

It’s the Gulf of Mexico. It was named that before the United States even existed, and Donald Trump doesn’t have the authority to name it anything else, no matter what his decaying fascist brain may think.

Despite this, the big tech companies of Alphabet, Apple, and Microsoft, have all updated their maps to reflect what Trump wants. They can cave all they want. We have options.

Instead of using a mapping service which is beholden to the country it’s headquartered in, there is an open and worldwide service we can use, including for navigation. OpenStreetMap, founded in 2004, uses a combination of GPS traces, public domain information, and crowdsourcing. As the name indicates, the mapping information is open source and available to anybody who wishes to access it. This includes app developers who might wish to use OSM for mobile device navigation software.

There are two apps in particular, available on both iPhone and Android. The first is OsmAnd (OpenStreetMap Automated Navigation Directions), while the second is Organic Maps. Both apps are open source and are free to use. OsmAnd has a paid tier to unlock features such as unlimited maps (you only download the maps you need), while Organic Maps is funded by donations. Both apps work offline, so you can navigate even when you hit a dead cell signal zone. Most importantly, both apps focus on user privacy, as neither app collects any user data.

OsmAnd:
iOS download
Android download

Organic Maps:
iOS download
Android download

#Alphabet #Apple #Bing #Google #Microsoft #MinimizeBigTechReliance #Navigation #OpenStreetMap #OrganicMaps #OsmAnd

Apple/Bing/Google Maps Alternatives

It’s the Gulf of Mexico. It was named that before the United States even existed, and Donald Trump doesn’t have the authority to name it anything else, no matter what his decaying fascist brain may think.

Despite this, the big tech companies of Alphabet, Apple, and Microsoft, have all updated their maps to reflect what Trump wants. They can cave all they want. We have options.

Instead of using a mapping service which is beholden to the country it’s headquartered in, there is an open and worldwide service we can use, including for navigation. OpenStreetMap, founded in 2004, uses a combination of GPS traces, public domain information, and crowdsourcing. As the name indicates, the mapping information is open source and available to anybody who wishes to access it. This includes app developers who might wish to use OSM for mobile device navigation software.

There are two apps in particular, available on both iPhone and Android. The first is OsmAnd (OpenStreetMap Automated Navigation Directions), while the second is Organic Maps. Both apps are open source and are free to use. OsmAnd has a paid tier to unlock features such as unlimited maps (you only download the maps you need), while Organic Maps is funded by donations. Both apps work offline, so you can navigate even when you hit a dead cell signal zone. Most importantly, both apps focus on user privacy, as neither app collects any user data.

OsmAnd:
iOS download
Android download

Organic Maps:
iOS download
Android download

#Alphabet #Apple #Bing #Google #Microsoft #MinimizeBigTechReliance #Navigation #OpenStreetMap #OrganicMaps #OsmAnd

Apple/Bing/Google Maps Alternatives

It’s the Gulf of Mexico. It was named that before the United States even existed, and Donald Trump doesn’t have the authority to name it anything else, no matter what his decaying fascist brain may think.

Despite this, the big tech companies of Alphabet, Apple, and Microsoft, have all updated their maps to reflect what Trump wants. They can cave all they want. We have options.

Instead of using a mapping service which is beholden to the country it’s headquartered in, there is an open and worldwide service we can use, including for navigation. OpenStreetMap, founded in 2004, uses a combination of GPS traces, public domain information, and crowdsourcing. As the name indicates, the mapping information is open source and available to anybody who wishes to access it. This includes app developers who might wish to use OSM for mobile device navigation software.

There are two apps in particular, available on both iPhone and Android. The first is OsmAnd (OpenStreetMap Automated Navigation Directions), while the second is Organic Maps. Both apps are open source and are free to use. OsmAnd has a paid tier to unlock features such as unlimited maps (you only download the maps you need), while Organic Maps is funded by donations. Both apps work offline, so you can navigate even when you hit a dead cell signal zone. Most importantly, both apps focus on user privacy, as neither app collects any user data.

OsmAnd:
iOS download
Android download

Organic Maps:
iOS download
Android download

#Alphabet #Apple #Bing #Google #Microsoft #MinimizeBigTechReliance #Navigation #OpenStreetMap #OrganicMaps #OsmAnd

Ever since I first used Microsoft Outlook, I’ve looked for ways to organize my calendar, contacts, and notes. Whether it was a paper planner, a Palm Pilot, or the current method of choice, a smartphone, the ability to organize my life at my fingers is something I enjoy doing. Once companies like Yahoo and Google started offering their own PIM services, it just made sense to use them in tandem with my phone.

Now that I’m weaning myself away from the Big Tech companies and their services, I needed to find an alternative. Fortunately, there is a cloud based PIM service, Nextcloud, which is open source and, should I wish, something I could host on my own hardware and network.

Not only does Nextcloud offer the same calendar, contacts, and notes management as Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and others, it also features a file syncing service similar to Dropbox, OneDrive, or Google Drive. Unlike the big corporate services, Nextcloud is fully open source, secure, and has many hosts around the world to choose from. I am currently trying out on of those hosts which offers 8GB of storage under their free tier. If everything works well enough, and I believe it will, my next step is to spin up my own Nextcloud host on my own network and take full control of my data.

You can find out more about Nextcloud at https://nextcloud.com/.

https://medi-nerd.com/2024/03/13/minimize-big-tech-reliance-cloud-personal-information-services/

#2024Goals #CloudServices #MinimizeBigTechReliance #Nextcloud #PersonalInformationManager #PIM

Ever since I first used Microsoft Outlook, I’ve looked for ways to organize my calendar, contacts, and notes. Whether it was a paper planner, a Palm Pilot, or the current method of choice, a smartphone, the ability to organize my life at my fingers is something I enjoy doing. Once companies like Yahoo and Google started offering their own PIM services, it just made sense to use them in tandem with my phone.

Now that I’m weaning myself away from the Big Tech companies and their services, I needed to find an alternative. Fortunately, there is a cloud based PIM service, Nextcloud, which is open source and, should I wish, something I could host on my own hardware and network.

Not only does Nextcloud offer the same calendar, contacts, and notes management as Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, and others, it also features a file syncing service similar to Dropbox, OneDrive, or Google Drive. Unlike the big corporate services, Nextcloud is fully open source, secure, and has many hosts around the world to choose from. I am currently trying out on of those hosts which offers 8GB of storage under their free tier. If everything works well enough, and I believe it will, my next step is to spin up my own Nextcloud host on my own network and take full control of my data.

You can find out more about Nextcloud at https://nextcloud.com/.

https://medi-nerd.com/2024/03/13/minimize-big-tech-reliance-cloud-personal-information-services/

#2024Goals #CloudServices #MinimizeBigTechReliance #Nextcloud #PersonalInformationManager #PIM

There is an oft-used phrase when it comes to the “free” services companies like Google and Facebook provide: If you are not paying for the product, YOU ARE THE PRODUCT. While this may come across as more tech paranoia, the behavior of these companies throughout the years proves this maxim again and again. Google’s Gmail product, for example, gives users a free email account with essentially unlimited storage. Both the cost and the storage help to lock the user into using Gmail for the long term. Google, however, is able to scan the contents of your Gmail account, purportedly to give you targeted ads in your Gmail interface, but the only way you can say no to this is to say no to Gmail as a whole.

I have started to say no by starting to move my email services away from Gmail.

I wanted to find an email service I could use which fit my criteria for mimizing my Big Tech reliance. Fortunately, email services are already platform agnostic, but I wanted to support a service which was open source and privacy focused. The solution I chose is ProtonMail.

ProtonMail’s security and privacy focus is their top priority. The service is encrypted end-to-end where possible, is hosted in Switzerland, which is much more privacy friendly than countries like the US. While the company does offer a free service tier, I opted to pay for ProtonMail so I could use my own medi-nerd.com domain and get more storage on my account, currently 18 GB. I also have access to other services Proton offers, such as their own calendar, file storage, and VPN services, though I have not put those to use just yet. I also use ProtonMail in my role as Drum Corps Planet Managing News Editor for receiving press releases and communicating with drum corps journalists and communications teams.

Since migrating to ProtonMail in May of 2020, I have slowly cut my reliance on my Gmail account, either moving things over to my ProtonMail address as needed or simply unsubscribing or deleting services and accounts which connected to Gmail but I no longer needed. I find that my email usage is much more focused on what I need it for, while I also enjoy the piece of mind which a secure and private email service gives me. Top that with having email for my domain, and ProtonMail gives me everything I want and need at a price that matches the value I receive.

If you’re interested in checking out ProtonMail, they offer a referral program. Just click the link below to try Proton’s Mail Plus service free for a month. If you like it and subscribe to a plan, I will get credit towards my subscription. Even if you just switch to the free tier once your month is up, I think you’ll find that you’ll enjoy using ProtonMail and appreciate what they offer.

ProtonMail Refer A Friend Link – https://pr.tn/ref/8H9W5ADH1WPG

https://medi-nerd.com/2024/02/18/minimize-big-tech-reliance-email/

#2024Goal #BigTech #Email #Facebook #Gmail #Google #MinimizeBigTechReliance #ProtonMail

It turns out today is the anniversary of the release of the first web browser, Mosaic, in 1993. Since I posted my web browser recommendation yesterday, today I’ll focus on something we all use in our browsers: search engines.

When we think of web search, we almost always think of Google, who revolutionized search engines in the late 90s with their algorithms and automated curation. Companies like Yahoo and Microsoft have tried to compete throughout the years, but few now remember that Yahoo started out as a search engine before Google, while the best which Microsoft can do is…Bing?

Now, however, Google and Microsoft are working to implement AI into their search results. The results aren’t looking good, at least according to SEO experts such as Lily Ray:

“It’s the worst quality results on Google I’ve seen in my 14-year career,” eminent SEO expert Lily Ray told Fortune.

Instead of filtering out scams, Google is seemingly bowing to the pressure and is instead promoting them.

Tangermann, V. (2024, January 20). AI Garbage Is Destroying Google Results. Yahoo. Retrieved January 23, 2024, from https://news.yahoo.com/ai-garbage-destroying-google-results-120005350.html

Between that and my desire to move away from Big Tech, I’ve recently switched to the DuckDuckGo search engine. Unfortunately, DuckDuckGo is another proprietary search engine like Google and Bing. When I did a check for open source search engines, there were few options I could find. Two of the search engines which came up on alternativeto.net, Searx and Gigablast were recently discontinued, while the rest were pretty obscure. In fact, outside of DuckDuckGo, most of the non Big Tech search engine options were completely unknown to me. DuckDuckGo it is, then.

So far, my search experience with DuckDuckGo has been good. I’ve found whatever I’ve looked for without issue, and I don’t use it for anything else. DuckDuckGo does one thing and it does it well. Throw in the focus on user privacy and this, in my opinion, is the best current search engine option. You, however, may have a different opinion. If you do, let me know in the comments.

https://medi-nerd.com/2024/01/23/minimize-big-tech-reliance-search-engine/

#2024Goal #alternativetoNet #Bing #DuckDuckGoTechnology #Gigablast #Google #Microsoft #MinimizeBigTechReliance #Mosaic #Search #SearchEngine #Searx #Yahoo

I currently use almost all Apple devices for my personal tech, so Apple’s Safari web browser is pretty much front and center on all my devices. I have no problem with Safari. It’s free, easy to use, and has enough extensions for what I need while surfing the net. It’s provided by Apple, however, so, in keeping with my goal to minimize my reliance on Big Tech, I’m looking for an alternative browser which fits the bill.

Before I look at my options, let’s eliminate a few other choices, also from our Big Tech friends. Google’s Chrome browser, while popular, is most definitely not an option. Neither is Microsoft’s Edge browser, which is now based off the same open source Chromium browser which Chrome comes from, so it gets a double nope from me. Meta and Amazon don’t have browsers, though I wouldn’t use them if they did.

So, what are my options?

• The website Open Source Alternative To recommends the Brave browser. Like Chrome and Edge, Brave is based off the open source Chromium browser. Brave also touts its focus on privacy, which would normally appeal to me. Brave’s founder, however, is Brandon Eich, a former Firefox executive who donated money to California Proposition 8, which attempted to make same sex marriage illegal in the state. The controversy when this was discovered led to Eich’s resignation from Firefox. I won’t support Eich or Brave as a result.
• The TOR browser is an option I almost considered due to their heavy privacy focus, but it is not available on iOS, so I’m not able to use it on phone or tablet.
• The same is true for Chromium, the open source browser upon which Chrome is based, but, again, no iOS option.
• This leads me to my actual choice: Firefox. The browser is open source, and I love the ability to customize the browser via add ons and settings, especially from a privacy standpoint. I’ve used this list of privacy focused extensions to improve browsing experience.

What browsers would you recommend? Put them in the comments.

https://medi-nerd.com/2024/01/22/minimize-big-tech-reliance-web-browsers/

#2024Goal #Apple #Brave #Chrome #Chromium #Edge #Firefox #Google #Microsoft #MinimizeBigTechReliance #Mozilla #Safari #TOR #WebBrowsers

Microsoft. Apple. Amazon. Meta (Facebook). Alphabet (Google). Together, these companies comprise what is known as Big Tech. The services offered by the companies throughout the years are utilize by many businesses and consumers all over the world, including myself.

The business practices of Big Tech, however, are questionable, at best.

Microsoft’s Bill Gates era was marred by predatory and monopolistic business practices, while their current focus on subscription services started a dubious trend across technology. Apple champions themselves as protecting user privacy, but their hardware is designed with no user upgradability and few, it any, user repair options. Amazon has all but declared war on small businesses and their own employees. Meta created a toxic social media environment that fosters disinformation and extreme right wing beliefs, not to mention major privacy concerns. Speaking of privacy, Alphabet wrote the book on accessing user data as the trade off for their “free” services.

In order to move away from these companies as much as possible, I am looking at software and service alternatives that fit some of all of the following criteria:

• Comes from the FLOSS (Free, Libre and Open Source Software) community
• Is platform/hardware agnostic
• Is user/consumer focused
• Is privacy focused

In some cases, I’ve already made the move to providers which fit these criteria. I’ll be discussing their pros and cons, as well as other options you can choose from. In other cases, I’ll be checking out my options as I prepare to make my move away from Big Tech and will bring you along on the journey. There may even be some services which I self host, now that I have a fiber connection for my home and some spare equipment I can put to use. I actually like that idea the most since I would have full control of the software and hardware.

If you’re already using non Big Tech software and services or know of some you think I might be interested in, let me know in the comments.

https://medi-nerd.com/2024/01/20/2024-goal-minimize-big-tech-reliance/

#2024Goal #Alphabet #Amazon #AppleMeta #BigTech #FacebookTechnology #Google #Microsoft #MinimizeBigTechReliance

Microsoft. Apple. Amazon. Meta (Facebook). Alphabet (Google). Together, these companies comprise what is known as Big Tech. The services offered by the companies throughout the years are utilize by many businesses and consumers all over the world, including myself.

The business practices of Big Tech, however, are questionable, at best.

Microsoft’s Bill Gates era was marred by predatory and monopolistic business practices, while their current focus on subscription services started a dubious trend across technology. Apple champions themselves as protecting user privacy, but their hardware is designed with no user upgradability and few, it any, user repair options. Amazon has all but declared war on small businesses and their own employees. Meta created a toxic social media environment that fosters disinformation and extreme right wing beliefs, not to mention major privacy concerns. Speaking of privacy, Alphabet wrote the book on accessing user data as the trade off for their “free” services.

In order to move away from these companies as much as possible, I am looking at software and service alternatives that fit some of all of the following criteria:

• Comes from the FLOSS (Free, Libre and Open Source Software) community
• Is platform/hardware agnostic
• Is user/consumer focused
• Is privacy focused

In some cases, I’ve already made the move to providers which fit these criteria. I’ll be discussing their pros and cons, as well as other options you can choose from. In other cases, I’ll be checking out my options as I prepare to make my move away from Big Tech and will bring you along on the journey. There may even be some services which I self host, now that I have a fiber connection for my home and some spare equipment I can put to use. I actually like that idea the most since I would have full control of the software and hardware.

If you’re already using non Big Tech software and services or know of some you think I might be interested in, let me know in the comments.

https://medi-nerd.com/2024/01/20/2024-goal-minimize-big-tech-reliance/

#2024Goal #Alphabet #Amazon #AppleMeta #BigTech #FacebookTechnology #Google #Microsoft #MinimizeBigTechReliance