essays-ccs/favorite_apps_and_services.md

Favorite apps and services

Contents

• Goals
• Media
• Documents and Coding
  • Hosting
• Tasks / Todos
• Collaboration
• Browsing
• Passwords
• Mobile keyboard
• Calendars / Contacts
• Chat / Communication
• Social Media
• Operating system
• Links

Goals

• Privacy conscious, end-to-end encrypted (E2EE).
• Decentralized, no reliance on cloud providers like Google, Microsoft, Apple, Spotify, Netflix Youtube, etc.
  • Self-hosted and self-reliant.
  • Simple files preferred over running services.
• Make sure no sites / services are US based.

Media

• Download all music / movies locally, using torrents, behind a VPN. (Don't use Tor for torrenting)
  • Use AirVPN, Mullvad, NordVPN
  • Use qbittorrent, deluge, or transmission for PC, LibreTorrent for android.
• Use MPV or VLC, open source media players to play media.
• Use Jellyfin or SFTP for streaming to other devices.
• Instead of centralized, hosted youtube alternatives with upload limits, use torrents, and find a platform to post and comment on the magnet links.

Documents and Coding

• Install Syncthing, and put all your documents in a synced folder.
• Write all documents and notes in markdown.
  • Use Typora, Mark Text, or vim as markdown editors / notes.
• Use vim with vimrc and coc.nvim for code.
  • Do not use vscode, it's difficult to impossible to turn off keylogging. If you must, use VSCodium, which removes the built-in telemetry.
• Spreadsheets in Libreoffice.

Hosting

• Codeberg.org is a good shared host.
• Otherwise, self host a Gitea instance.

Tasks / Todos

• Use a todo.txt file for a personal task list, synced with syncthing.
  • QTodoTxt as a desktop client, todo.txt-vim, Simpletask Cloudless for Android.
• For shared task lists, use CodiMD.

Collaboration

• Use CodiMD, a live / collaborative markdown editor.

Browsing

• Use Firefox or Tor Browser, with the addons:
  • uBlock Origin
  • Facebook Container - Keeps all Facebook stuff in it's own container.
  • Google Container
• Startpage, Searx (onion service), as a search engine
• If using Tor, use onion services if possible.

Passwords

• Use KeePassXC for PC, KeePassDX for android.
  • Install the Firefox KeePassXC plugin.
  • Use a long master pass phrase, with at least 10 words.
  • Sync your password file everywhere you need using Syncthing.
• Bitwarden if you want to host a server.

Mobile keyboard

• Use a secure keyboard on android if you don't want your passwords stolen by google.
• OpenBoard, or AnySoftKey work.

Calendars / Contacts

• Use Syncthing + DecSync for calendar and contact sync from android to desktop. Radicale is a server based solution.

Chat / Communication

• Use Matrix / Element, turn on e2ee in rooms.
• Use Thunderbird for email, e2ee with pgp if possible.

Social Media

• Twitter alternative : Pleroma, Mastodon
• Facebook : Friendica
• Reddit : Lemmy (I'm a dev), PostMill, or Lobste.rs
• Medium : Plume, WriteFreely
• YouTube : Torrents, or Peertube.
• Instagram : Pixelfed

Operating system

• Use Linux. I like Arch Linux.

Links

• PrivacyTools.io