DeGoogle Yourself

App: https://grayjay.app/ have any of you used this app? What do you think of it? Is it a good alternative to YouTube and such?

For example (just as rough proof of concept)

Research articles: Pretty much any academic library website for published stuff, arxiv.org for white papers in computer science and math, pubmed for biosciences

audio equipment: gearspace.com

Encyclopedia: Wikipedia

Thesaurus: Wordhippo.com

The idea is to avoid needing to visit a search engine. Might be a high idea.

If you’re looking for an alternative to Gmail, may I introduce Port87.

I’ve been working on this email service for four years, and I just opened it to the public today. The way it works is a might different than other email services.

You still get an address like yourname@port87.com, but you don’t usually use that form. Instead, you add a label like yourname-lemmy@port87.com. This is often called subaddressing or plus addressing. With Port87, these addresses go into labels. Everything between the dash and the at is a label. When you sign up somewhere, you can give them a label, even if it doesn’t exist yet. Then it becomes a pending label that you can approve to move it in with all your other labels. This really helps with organization too.

You can also give labels meant for real people, like yourname-friends@port87.com. On labels meant for real people, you can enable screening that responds to anyone new with a link to prove they’re human. When they click the link, their email is delivered.

Lastly, you can give out your “bare address” (yourname@port87.com) anywhere, because any email to it doesn’t get delivered to you. Instead, they get a response saying to email one of your other addresses, then a list of all of the addresses to your public labels. For example, I have a public label at hperrin-opensource@port87.com that’s meant for email about my open source projects. That gets included in the list in the auto reply when you email hperrin@port87.com.

Oh, also, you can bring your own domain! The main benefit of your own domain is it prevents vendor lock in. If Port87 ever stops meeting your needs, you can pack up your domain and take it to another provider. It also prevents losing your address if Port87 ever shuts down.

If you can’t tell, I’m very passionate about email, and the more competition there is to Gmail and Exchange, the more they’ll be forced to actually stop trying to Embrace Extend Extinguish email.

Hello everyone, I'm planning on getting a pixel 9 to put GrapheneOS on. When it comes to the right phone to buy, you need a pixel that is "unlocked," correct? Does unlocked refer to both root and carrier, or is there more than one meaning? Is there anything else I should keep in mind when buying a Pixel?

I was going to go with a refurbished one, would that be fine for security as well?

Thank you all

As a result of this discussion in !degoogle@lemmy.ml, there is now an IRC channel about degoogling!

/join ##degoogle on irc.libera.chat:6697 (TLS). The channel name begins with a double hashtag (according to the namespace policy).

Come on down and join us through your local IRC client or the web client web.libera.chat!

Looking for places to have realtime chats.

Looking to try installing a GSI to a device without any third-party ROMs ported to it yet. Want to back up the stock ROM in case something goes wrong. Manufacturer doesn't offer the stock ROM for download and the only copy online is from a website that looks pretty shady. Can unlock the bootloader, but no reports of anyone rooting or installing a custom recovery environment for it. Every tutorial says to just look for a ROM on the internet, but how do people extract them in the first place?

EDIT: Ideally, it would go as follows on recent Android devices: (https://gist.github.com/gitclone-url/a1f693b64d8f8701ec24477a2ccaab87)

1. Unlock bootloader
2. Install rooted GSI, which takes over one of the two redundant system partitions
3. With rooted shell now available in the GSI, extract the other system partition holding the stock image

But it turns out this could be a weeks-long adventure for Huawei and Honor phones. I spoke too soon and it turns out the OEM unlocking in developer options on Honor phones doesn't get you very far. Once we reach fastboot / bootloader, the actual unlock commands require a 16-digit code to proceed. Huawei/Honor no longer issue the codes, though the IMEI of the first slot is related, so it is used as the starting point for a many days long bruteforce attack. Also does not work if the code is not just numeric, but instead alphanumeric, as is the case for all non-European and some European units.

https://github.com/vcka/huawei-honor-unlock-bootloader

https://github.com/Martazza/Huawei-Bootloader-Unlocker

On Day 1, the battery died while plugged in, so I had to charge and am now resuming with a USB C to C cable in hopes it will deliver sufficient power. As for the ROMs, it looks like there were attempts to tap from the Honor update CDN, but I could not get the following solutions to work:

https://github.com/rabits/honor-tools

https://xdaforums.com/t/unlock-bootloader-code-for-honor-magic-v2-root-with-magisk.4663415/#post-89499716

Will update if I succeed. Moral of the story: Don't buy Honor phones if you intend on degoogling.

Anyone here from the reddit degoogle im looking for something thats not reddit

EDIT: Thanks everyone for the awesome support! I left Reddit for Lemmy a few days ago and I’m already glad I made the switch! 🤗

Yo yo!

I’ve been working on making my life more private and need some assistance picking suitable replacement options. Please let me know what you think of my list of if there are any opportunities for improvement! Here’s where I’m at …

Apple Maps -OSMandMaps. Seems like a good option, but it’s not ready out the box. I need to do more tweaking with it. -Magic Earth. Haven’t tested it yet, seems good. But I’m looking for free options first before I dabble with paid stuff.

AI (ChatGPT) -Lumo. Chat is really good. But I understand they are good because they syphon data illegally, so I’m ok “downgrading” when switching AIs. Lump seems pretty good so far. I can tell it’s not as advanced but it will do me fine for what I need. Also, i assume once I pay for lumo pro it will be more “powerful”. -Maple AI. Seems dope, also I like the pay model, pay for what you use over “x” amount of inquiries. Does anyone know how I owledgable/powerful it is? -local AI OR Ollama. These 2 are beyond my knowledge. I don’t understand how I run these on my own server? If you know anything about these please ELI5.

Google Docs -OnlyOffice. Seems like it does everything I want. -cryptpad. Just heard of this today, need to explore more. Seems dope, but it doesn’t have an app? From what I’ve seen definitely a strong contender.

Photo App (I haven’t looked into any of these yet) -Protón Drive. -ente photos. -I’mmich.

Google Drive -protón drive.

Basically the title. I’ve installed Lineage already, however, I don’t know if it’s better than GrapheneOS

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/35171067

Have you ever deleted a google account before? Any Experiences? What should one know about this? Do you trust them to really delete everything?

[I thought of posting this question here since it's the result of my avoiding direct use of Google search. Moderators feel free to delete it if it doesn't fit (apologies in that case).]

Just noticed something curious and somewhat funny with SearXNG: if I repeat the search, say by pressing several times enter in the search field containing a specific search string, then I get every time a different batch of results. Note that I'm using an existing server.

Can anyone explain to me why this happens, and how to avoid it? Does it depend on my specific settings?

In my opinion we need to support other websites like odysee and peertube. If everyone here continue to watch content on yt we won't have a real alternative. This is my thought. For me the best alternative right now is odysee and I'm trying to watch only creator there. (If u want a list of content creator I can write it down)

Recently I've been looking for a phone that will allow me to install an google-free OS. I've never installed a different OS on a phone before. I've been looking online but haven't really found a clearly best option.

Problem with standard recommendation

From what I've read GrapheneOS seems the best alternative OS. Unfortunately they only support the Pixel devices. I want to have local, offline access to my files (e.g. music files, documents) and don't want to be dependent on cloud services. The Pixel with the most storage comes with only 256GB and no slot for an SD card.

Possible options

There are some other routes that may be feasible that I've listed here.

Fairphone 6

• No USB 3
• Pricey for what you get, both in terms of hardware and in terms of fairness, at least according to this post).
• It has an SD card slot
• You can order it with e/os installed, very convenient
• No GrapheneOS

Fairphone 5

• According to this post, the FP6 is a lot snappier
• Not significantly cheaper than the FP6
• It does come with USB 3
• It has an SD card slot
• Can also order this with e/os.
• No GrapheneOS

Sony

According to the Bootloader Unlock Wall of Shame Sony isn't the worst of the bunch.

• Many Sony's from the LineageOS list of compatible devices have an SD card slot
• Have to install the OS yourself
• No GrapheneOS

Pixel

Get a refurbished Pixel anyways and get a separate dumb MP3 player for music.

• Might be an option but 256GB is still cutting it tight with what I want to have available offline.
• The 256GB option is a lot more expensive than the 128GB option compared to the cost of a 128GB SD card
• Extra costs from buying the extra MP3 player
• Have to install the OS yourself
• Can install GrapheneOS

DumbPhone:

Get a dumbphone for calls, texting, banking, govt stuff, 2FA app, and music listening. Have a separate linux phone for all the other stuff.

• Not sure how privacy friendly the dumbphones are, might still be using Google Play services?
• Two devices instead of one to carry around
• Extra costs for two devices
• Tinkering with a linux phone could be a fun project

Bonus option: don't get the linux phone

• Less screen time
• Only 1 device to buy/carry
• Can't go on the internet while traveling

Questions

• What would be your recommendation that allows plenty of storage on the phone?
• Do you have good/bad experiences with any of these phones/operation systems?
• Are there any good options I've missed?

My biggest problem with any gmaps alternative is the missing ratings option. So far I only found mapy. I am very happy with the app but wanted to check if there are any apps that might also be worth a look. Gooing in a restaurant without looking at ratings is a bit to adventurous for me.

I have ADB, UAD, and even Shazuku with Canta. However, I tried removing Play Store and Play Services, but got my phone stuck in a boot loop. I have not tried to remove Gemini yet, but fear the same will happen. Insular (Island) will not allow me to move the services out of my persoanl profile, and Shelter will not work at all. Does anyone have a hack for this?

I do not want any Google crap on my device period. I have Samsung Galaxy 25 Ultra that I bought 6 months ago before realizing how ridiculous everything is.

Accrescent, for those who don't know, is an alternative android app store. They aim to compete directly with the play store, so unlike F-Droid they include both FOSS and proprietary apps. They are also very security focused. They're still small but I find their approach interesting and their ambition worth supporting.

Unfortunately, as with many FOSS projects, funding is a challenge. If you believe they are worth supporting, please read this blog post.

Disclaimer: I'm not affiliated with the project in any way, just a fan trying to raise awareness.

Made a new icon pack for Breezy Weather users 🌤️

If you’re using Breezy Weather, a customizable open-source weather app that’s great for anyone trying to de-Google their phone or prefers FOSS apps for Android, I’ve put together an icon pack featuring Google’s official Weather Icons v4 set.

What’s inside:

• 🌞 80+ weather icons from Google’s collection
• 🌙 Day & night variants — works like the built-in Pixel/Flat/Geometric packs
• ⚡ Simple setup — install, select in settings, done

⬇️ Download: v1.0.0 Release
📂 Source: GitHub Repo

Free, open source, and fully attributed. Enjoy the new look! ☀️🌙

I'm not buying a Pixel because I'm not giving Google any money. I'm in the US so the other OSs will not work for me. I just need this crap off my phone. I can't uninstall Youtube, and it came with Facebook. It's just infuriating. Can I just root it and connect it to my Linux laptop and just force uninstalls or something without bricking the device?

Any help appreciated!