MDRSS/security/privacy/card #748

Awesome Privacy — Alternatives

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Awesome Privacy

List of free, open source and privacy respecting services and alternatives to privative services.

About | Contributing | Quotes | Discussions

[!IMPORTANT] Anonymity, Privacy, and Security are often used interchangeably, but they actually represent distinct concepts. It is important to understand the differences between them. Read more in this section below.

The primary focus of this list is to provide alternatives that prioritize privacy. These alternatives give you control over your data and do not collect or sell it.

Contents

2FA

⛔ Avoid using apps that won't let you export your keys easily.

  • Authy
  • Google Authenticator

✅ Instead use

  • 🤖 Aegis - A free, secure and open source app for Android to manage your 2-step verification tokens. Supports variety of imports from other apps (Google Authenticator, Authy etc.), vault encryption and exporting keys (plaintext or encrypted).
  • ente Auth - A free, cross platform, end-to-end encrypted and open source app for managing your 2-step verification tokens. From the makers of ente Photos, and uses the same battle tested infrastructure. Needs an ente.io account.
  • Owky 💀 - Free and Open Source Two-Factor Authenticator for IOS users.
  • 🤖 FreeOTPPlus - Enhanced fork of FreeOTP-Android providing a feature-rich 2FA authenticator.
  • 🤖 Authenticator Pro - Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) client for Android + Wear OS.
  • Proton Authenticator - Proton Authenticator is an open source and end-to-end encrypted 2FA app that’s simple and free to use.
  • 2FAS Auth - Open source TOTP authenticator for iOS and Android with a companion browser extension and no account required. GPL-3.0 licensed.

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Analytics

⛔ Avoid any analytics service that comes from Google, Facebook, Microsoft or any private service. These kind of analytics hurt user privacy.

✅ Instead use

  • Ackee - Self-hosted website analytics.
  • Aptabase - Open-source, privacy-first and simple analytics for mobile and desktop apps.
  • Cabin - Privacy-first, carbon conscious web analytics.
  • GoatCounter - Privacy aware, lightweight and open-source analytics platform.
  • Matomo - Google Analytics alternative that protects your data and your customers' privacy.
  • Nullitics - Zero-effort open-source cheap analytics.
  • Pirsch - Pirsch is a simple, privacy-friendly, open-source alternative to Google Analytics — lightweight, cookie-free and easily integrated into any website or backend.
  • Plausible - Simple and privacy-friendly alternative to Google Analytics.
  • Shynet - Modern, privacy-friendly, and detailed web analytics that works without cookies or JS.
  • Swetrix - Privacy-focused, fully cookieless and opensource (and selfhostable) web-analytics service.
  • Umami - A simple, fast, website analytics alternative to Google Analytics.
  • Unidentified Analytics - Naive ip-based tracking that works everywhere (web, command-line, email, etc). No account required. Developer friendly.
  • Rybbit - Open-source and privacy-friendly alternative to Google Analytics that is 10x more intuitive.

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Android

Android App Store

⛔ Avoid

  • Google Play Store

✅ Instead use

  • F-Droid - F-Droid is an installable catalogue of FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) applications for the Android platform.
    • Droid-ify - Lightweight F-Droid client with Material UI.
    • Aurora Droid - Aurora Droid is a modern FOSS client for F-Droid.
    • Foxy Droid 💀 - Unofficial F-Droid client in the style of the classic one.
  • FossDroid - Fossdroid's aim is to promote free and open source apps on the Android platform: newest, trendiest and the most popular ones.
  • SkyDroid 💀 - Decentralized App Store for Android
  • Obtainium - Get app updates directly from the source.
  • Accrescent - A novel Android app store focused on security, privacy, and usability.

Alternative Google Play Store clients

  • Aurora Store - Aurora Store is an open-source alternative Google Play Store frontend client with privacy and modern design in mind.

Android Debloat Tools

⛔ Avoid

  • ADB AppControl - A simple adb wrapper with a terrible privacy policy to collect things like device information and what applications you install/uninstall.

✅ Instead use

Android Dialer

⛔ Avoid

Third-party dialers found on the play store. They may contain ads/trackers and may ask for unnecessary permissions.

✅ Instead use

  • Koler - Uniquely stylized phone app with customizable features.
  • Fossify Phone - A handy phone call manager with phonebook, number blocking and multi-SIM support.

Android File Manager

⛔ Avoid

Preinstalled file managers and third-party file manager apps found on the play store. They may contain ads/trackers and may ask for unnecessary permissions.

✅ Instead use

Android Keyboard

⛔ Avoid

  • GBoard (Google)
  • SwiftKey

✅ Instead use

  • AnySoftKeyboard - The only Android keyboard you'll ever need. Free as in speech and Free as in beer.
  • FlorisBoard - FlorisBoard is a free and open-source keyboard for Android 6.0+ devices. It aims at being modern, user-friendly and customizable while fully respecting your privacy. Currently in early-beta state.
  • Futo Keyboard - A modern keyboard that respects your privacy and security, with features such as offline voice input, swipe typing and smart autocorrect.
  • Heliboard - A privacy-conscious and customizable open-source keyboard, based on AOSP / OpenBoard with many additional features and improvements, including support for custom dictionaries, themes, and glide typing.
  • Indic Keyboard - Indic Keyboard is a versatile keyboard for Android users who wish to use Indic and Indian languages to type messages, compose emails and generally prefer to use them in addition to English on their phone.
  • OpenBoard 💀 - OpenBoard is a 100% foss keyboard based on AOSP, with no dependency on Google binaries, that respects your privacy. It is no longer updated, but still works.
  • Simple Keyboard - Simply keyboard and nothing more.

Android Gallery

Your phone gallery is a deeply personal aspect of your life, it may contain images and videos that capture intimate moments, locations, and people important to you. Protecting its privacy is essential to prevent misuse of this information, not only for you, but it also ensures the privacy of friends and family captured in these photos, who may not consent to having their images shared.

[!NOTE] For a private way to store and backup your photos see Photo Storage section.

⛔ Avoid

  • Google Photos has privacy issues. They collect a lot of data about you, which you can see in their privacy policy. Google can scan your photos and might flag them for different reasons, as shown in this incident. They also use your photos to improve their AI technology.
  • Amazon Photos also has similar privacy problems. Like Google Photos, it gathers a lot of information from your photo gallery. You can see a bit of what kind of data they collect in their examples list.
  • Samsung, Huawei, Xiaomi, etc. Gallery

✅ Instead use

  • Aves - Beautiful gallery and metadata explorer app, built for Android with Flutter.
  • Fossify Gallery - Fork of Simple Gallery. Browse your memories without any interruptions with this photo and video gallery.

Android Launcher

⛔ Avoid

Third-party launchers found on the play store. They may contain ads/trackers and may ask for unnecessary permissions.

✅ Instead use

  • Lawnchair - No clever tagline needed.
  • OpenLauncher 💀 - Customizable and Open Source Launcher for Android.
  • KISS - Lightning fast, open-source, < 200kb Android launcher.
  • Olauncher - Minimal AF (ad-free) launcher app for Android.
  • Pie Launcher - Android home screen launcher that uses a dynamic pie menu instead of fixed positioned icons.
  • Bliss Launcher - The default launcher of the /e/ Android-based OS. It allows users to easily create and browse group of apps and it displays notification badges on app icons.

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Artificial Intelligence

When using cloud-based AI services, the data you input is often collected and stored by the service provider. This may include not only the content of your requests but also metadata, such as timestamps or IP addresses. Third-party servers may grant access to your data to their employees, partners, or even other users, depending on their privacy policies. Data may be used for various purposes, including model training, research, or even marketing activities. Your requests to a third-party AI service may be tied to your user information and payment details, linking your data to your identity.

ChatGPT

  • Jan - Jan is an open source alternative to ChatGPT that runs 100% offline on your computer.
  • llama.cpp - Inference of Facebook's LLaMA model in pure C/C++ so it can run locally on a CPU.
  • LocalAI - Self-hosted, community-driven simple local OpenAI-compatible API written in go. Can be used as a drop-in replacement for OpenAI, running on CPU with consumer-grade hardware.
  • ollama - Get up and running with Llama 2 and other large language models locally.
  • PasteGuard - Privacy proxy for LLM APIs that masks PII and secrets before they reach cloud providers. Self-hosted, OpenAI-compatible, and restores original data in responses.
  • Shimmy - Privacy-focused AI inference server with OpenAI API compatibility, zero cloud dependencies, and local model processing.
  • Tinfoil - Verifiably private AI Chat and OpenAI-compatible inference in the cloud. Uses NVIDIA confidential computing and open source code pinned to a transparency log for end-to-end verifiability.
  • Open WebUI - Self-hosted web interface for Ollama and other local models that gives you a private ChatGPT-style chat. BSD-3 licensed.
  • LibreChat - Self-hosted chat interface that connects many AI models behind one private UI you control. Open source, MIT licensed.

AI Coding

  • Continue - Open-source autopilot for VS Code and JetBrains—the easiest way to code with any LLM
  • Cline - Open source AI coding for VSCode. See every decision and use your own models.
    • Zoo Code - Cline fork with some improvements; community successor to the discontinued Roo Code.
  • OpenCode - The open source coding agent. Connect local models or any providers of your choice.
  • Aider - Terminal AI pair programmer that edits code in your local git repository using your own API keys. Apache-2.0 licensed.
  • Tabby - Self-hosted code completion assistant that runs on your own hardware as an alternative to GitHub Copilot. Apache-2.0 licensed.

Text to Speech

  • Kokoro FastAPI - Dockerized FastAPI wrapper for Kokoro-82M text-to-speech model w/CPU, ONNX and NVIDIA GPU support, handling, and auto-stitching.
  • MeloTTS - a high-quality multi-lingual text-to-speech library by MIT and MyShell.ai.
  • Piper - A fast, local neural text to speech system that sounds great and is optimized for the Raspberry Pi 4.
  • Espeak - eSpeak NG is an open source speech synthesizer that supports more than hundred languages and accents. Voices will sound rather robotic.
  • Chatterbox - Local text-to-speech model with voice cloning that runs entirely on your own machine. Open source, MIT licensed.

Speech to Text

  • Models

    • Moonshine - Fast and accurate automatic speech recognition (ASR) for edge devices.
    • OpenAI Whisper - Whisper is a general-purpose speech recognition model that can be run locally offline. It can transcribe audio from and to multiple languages.
      • whisper.cpp - High-performance inference of OpenAI's Whisper automatic speech recognition (ASR) model.
      • faster-whisper - Reimplementation of Whisper using CTranslate2 that transcribes locally up to four times faster. MIT licensed.
    • ParakeetTDT - Efficient audio transcription. Convert speech to text with unprecedented speed and accuracy using NVIDIA advanced AI speech recognition model.

  • Apps and services

    • OpenWhispr - Voice-to-text dictation and productivity app with AI agents, meeting transcription, notes, and local/cloud speech recognition. Privacy-first and available cross-platform. Open source alternative to wisprflow.
    • Sasayaki - Tiny android dictation app that turns speech into clear writing.
    • Speaches - OpenAI API-compatible server supporting streaming transcription, translation, and speech generation.

Image Generation

  • ComfyUI - ComfyUI lets you execute advanced image generation pipelines using an advanced interface. Available on Windows, Linux, and macOS.
  • Stable Diffusion Web UI - A browser interface for Stable Diffusion and other models.
  • InvokeAI - Generate and create stunning visual media using the latest AI-driven technologies locally.
  • SwarmUI - Local web interface for Stable Diffusion and other diffusion models, built on a ComfyUI backend. MIT licensed.

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Bookmarking

⛔ Avoid

✅ Instead use

  • 42links - Open-source, self-hosted, minimalist bookmark storage service.
  • Floccus - Sync your bookmarks privately across browsers and devices.
  • Grimoire 💀 - Modern, open source, self-hosted bookmark manager.
  • Karakeep - (previously Hoarder) Open source "Bookmark Everything" app that uses AI for automatically tagging the content you throw at it.
  • LinkAce - Open source, self-hosted bookmark archive that monitors and organizes your saved links (GPL-3.0).
  • LinkDing - Open source, self-hosted bookmark manager built to be minimal, fast, and easy to run with Docker (MIT).
  • Shiori - Open source, self-hosted bookmark manager written in Go, usable as a CLI or web app (MIT).
  • Wallabag - Open-source, optionally self-hosted, read it later server. Provides paid hosted service with privacy in mind.
  • Linkwarden - Self-hosted bookmark manager that saves and archives full copies of the pages you collect (AGPL-3.0).
  • Readeck - Single-binary self-hosted read-it-later app that saves and archives articles for offline reading (AGPL-3.0).

Book and web annotations/highlights management

  • Blasta - A collaborative bookmarks manager for organizing online content.
  • Hypothesis - Annotate the web, with anyone, anywhere.
  • Kobuddy - Get your Kobo e-reader device bookmarks and annotations in a .txt file.

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Captchas

⛔ Avoid

Google captchas use cookies to track users and rank their IPs.

  • Google reCAPTCHA
  • hCaptcha

✅ Instead use

  • Altcha.org - Free, open-source and self-hosted CAPTCHA alternative using proof-of-work mechanism.
  • mCaptcha (repo) - An open-source CAPTCHA system with seamless UX. mCaptcha uses SHA256 based proof-of-work (PoW) to rate limit users.
  • Private Captcha - Privacy-first and self-hosted Proof-of-Work CAPTCHA alternative, made in EU.

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Calendar

⛔ Avoid

  • Google Calendar - Tracks your events, integrates with Google's advertising ecosystem, and your data is stored on Google's servers without end-to-end encryption.

✅ Instead use

  • 🤖 Etar - Open-source calendar app for Android that works with any CalDAV server.
  • 🤖 Fossify Calendar - Simple offline calendar app for Android with widget support.
  • 🤖 KashCal - Offline-first Android calendar with iCloud/CalDAV sync, full-text search, recurring events, and home screen widget. Apache 2.0 licensed.
  • Nextcloud Calendar - Calendar app for Nextcloud with CalDAV support. Self-hostable.
  • Proton Calendar - End-to-end encrypted calendar from Proton. Part of the Proton privacy ecosystem.

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Commenting Engines

⛔ Avoid

  • Disqus - Many trackers are in their sites. Disqus collects (as per their Privacy Policy): IP address, unique Cookie ID, Device ID, your login data, browser type and version, time zone setting and location, browser plug-in types and versions, operating system and platform and other technology on the devices you use to access the Service.

✅ Instead use

  • Commento - 💀 Commento is a fast, privacy-focused commenting platform. Can be selfhosted or use their SaaS.
  • Comentario - Tiny, Privacy-focused, Open-source web comment engine, which adds discussion functionality to plain, boring web pages.
  • Cusdis - Lightweight, privacy-friendly alternative to Disqus.
  • Disgus - Embeddable comments for your website, backed by Nostr. Like Disqus but Nostr.
  • Isso - A lightweight, self hosted, commenting server written in Python and JavaScript. It aims to be a drop-in replacement for Disqus.
  • Remark42 - Self-hosted, lightweight, and simple (yet functional) comment engine, which doesn't spy on users.
  • Giscus - Commenting system that stores discussions in GitHub Discussions, with no database, ads, or tracking. Open source, MIT licensed.

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Cloaking

Images

Text

  • Stegcloak - Hide secrets with invisible characters in plain text securely using passwords (repo).

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Cloud Storage

⛔ Avoid

  • Google Drive - Google owned, so privacy policy is very bad. The data is stored in their remote servers where you lose control of it. They use trackers. No encryption available.
  • DropBox - Bad privacy policy. The app has various trackers and requires many permissions.
  • OneDrive - Microsoft owned, privacy policy is very bad. The data is stored in their remote servers where you lose control of it. They use trackers. No encryption available.

✅ Instead use

  • Nextcloud - The open source self-hosted productivity platform that keeps you in control.
  • Seafile - High performance file syncing and sharing. It includes a Wiki, WYSIWYG editing and other knowledge management features.
  • Peergos - Secure and private space online where you can store, share and view your photos, videos, music and documents. Also includes a calendar, news feed, task lists, chat and email client. Open source and self-hostable.
  • Proton Drive - End-to-end encrypted Swiss vault for your files that protects your data. Read this article over Climate activist arrest.
  • PrivateStorage - Accountless, privacy-focused cloud storage and folder synchronization with client-side encryption.

Other useful tools

  • Cryptomator - Cryptomator encrypts your data quickly and easily. Afterwards you upload them protected to your favorite cloud service
  • Syncthing - Continuous file synchronization program. It synchronizes files between two or more computers in real time, safely protected from prying eyes.
  • Rclone - Rclone is a command line program to manage files on cloud storage. It is a feature rich alternative to cloud vendors' web storage interfaces and like the tools listed above enables encryption for encrypting files in the cloud.
  • Restic - Restic is also command line program to manage files on various cloud storage providers. Restic uses encryption by default. Few noteworthy features of restic include browsing through storage as git like snapshots at no extra storage cost, deduplication and significant savings through compression.

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Creator Tools

Opt for open-source and P2P alternatives that prioritize data privacy, eliminate third-party interference, and offer transparent, community-backed functionalities over mainstream tools like Riverside.fm, Restream and Camtasia.

  • vdo.ninja - Powerful tool that lets you bring remote video feeds into OBS or other studio software via WebRTC.
  • OBS Studio - Free and open source software for video recording and live streaming.
  • Screenity - A screen recorder that's free, private, and friendly.

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Databases

⛔ Avoid using privative databases which you don't control such as Google Firebase.

✅ Instead use

  • Appwrite - Secure open-source backend server for web, mobile & Flutter developers.
  • Supabase - Open source Firebase alternative (Limited self-hosting)
  • Pocketbase - Open Source backend in 1 file written in Go.
  • TrailBase - Open source, single-executable Firebase alternative built on Rust and SQLite, with type-safe REST and realtime APIs, auth, and an admin UI. OSL-3.0 licensed.
  • CondensationDB [Inactive] - Condensation is an open-source zero trust, distributed database enabling to build modern applications while ensuring data ownership and security.
  • Baserow - Self-hosted no-code database and spreadsheet that works as an open source Airtable alternative. MIT licensed core.

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Developer Tools

  • Beekeeper Studio - Open Source SQL Editor and Database Manager with a privacy commitment in their mission statement.

IDEs

⛔ Avoid using privative IDEs that are full of trackers and telemetry.

✅ Instead use

  • Neovim - Hyperextensible Vim-based text editor.
  • VSCodium - Free/Libre Open Source Software Binaries of VSCode. Vscode source code is open source (MIT-licensed), but the product available for download (Visual Studio Code) is licensed under this not-FLOSS license and contains telemetry/tracking.

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Dating Apps

Apps such as Tinder collect and sell your personal intimate information. Tinder in particular has been found to charge users up to five times more for same service, extrapolate estimations on your intelligence and other psychometrics and sell it to third-parties, it may know more about you than yourself, and many more bad things you can find on the internet.

⛔ Avoid

  • Grindr
  • Badoo
  • Lovoo

✅ Instead use

  • Alovoa - Free and open-source dating platform that respects your privacy.

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Design Tools

Adobe's dominance in design tools restricts designers' choices and compromises their privacy. Its lack of Linux support, confines designers to Windows or macOS. Plus, Adobe's data collection via Creative Cloud and trackers further amplifies privacy concerns. They also may be using users' work to train their AIs, potentially causing intellectual property problems. For these reasons, designers can consider using open-source, privacy-respecting alternatives, bypassing most of these issues.

InDesign

✅ Instead use

  • Scribus - a free and open-source desktop publishing (DTP) software available for most desktop operating systems. It is designed for layout, typesetting, and preparation of files for professional-quality image-setting equipment. Scribus can also create animated and interactive PDF presentations and forms.

Photoshop / Illustrator

✅ Instead use

  • GIMP - A free and open-source raster graphics editor used for image manipulation (retouching) and image editing, free-form drawing, transcoding between different image file formats, and more specialized tasks. It is not designed to be used for drawing, though some artists and creators have used it in this way.
  • Inkscape - A free and open-source vector graphics editor for GNU/Linux, Windows and macOS. It offers a rich set of features and is widely used for both artistic and technical illustrations such as cartoons, clip art, logos, typography, diagramming and flowcharting.
  • Krita - A free and open-source raster graphics editor designed primarily for digital art and 2D animation.
  • Excalidraw - Virtual whiteboard for sketching hand-drawn like diagrams.

Figma

✅ Instead use

  • Penpot - Penpot is an Open Source design and prototyping platform for product teams.

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Domains & Hosting

⛔ Avoid using domain registrars who are privacy invasive.

✅ Instead use

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Download Manager

  • Persepolis Download Manager - Persepolis is a download manager & a GUI for Aria2. It's written in Python. Persepolis is a sample of free and open source software. It's developed for GNU/Linux distributions, BSDs, MacOS, and Microsoft Windows.
  • uGet Download Manager - uGet is a lightweight yet powerful Open Source download manager for GNU/Linux developed with GTK+, which also comes packaged as a portable Windows app. It is also available for Android.
  • Motrix - A full-featured download manager.
  • Xtreme Download Manager - Xtreme Download Manager (XDM) is a powerful tool to increase download speeds up to 500%, save streaming videos from YouTube, DailyMotion, Facebook, Vimeo, Google Video and 1000+ other websites, resume broken/dead downloads, schedule and convert downloads.
  • axel - Lightweight CLI download accelerator. It supports HTTP, HTTPS, FTP and FTPS protocols.

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Encryption

Remember: Without strong encryption, you will be spied on systematically by lots of people.

  • Veracrypt - VeraCrypt is a free open source disk encryption software for Windows, macOS and Linux.
  • Shufflecake - Free open source, plausible deniability for multiple hidden filesystems on Linux
  • Hat.sh - A Free, Fast, Secure and Serverless File Encryption.
  • Cryptomator - Cryptomator encrypts your data quickly and easily. Afterwards you upload them protected to your favorite cloud service.
  • Stegcloak - Hide secrets with invisible characters in plain text securely using passwords.
  • Picocrypt - A very small (hence "Pico"), very simple, yet very secure file encryption tool.
  • Photok - Photok is a free Photo-Safe. It stores your photos encrypted on your device and hides them from others.
  • age - Modern command line file encryption tool with small keys and no configuration or keyring to manage. Open source, BSD-3 licensed.

OS Encryption

  • Cryptsetup - Full disk encryption for Linux. Cryptsetup is a utility used to conveniently set up disk encryption based on the DMCrypt kernel module.

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File Management and Sharing

⛔ Avoid

  • WeTransfer - Bad privacy policy. Files are not e2e encrypted. Website has many analytics and trackers.
  • SendAnywhere - No e2e encryption. Website has loads of analytics and trackers from Facebook, Google, Cloudflare...

✅ Instead use

  • Blaze - A fast, p2p and radically different way to transfer files.
  • Blindsend 💀 - Open source tool for private, end-to-end encrypted file exchange.
  • Croc - Easily and securely send things from one computer to another.
  • Dat-cp 💀 - Copy files between hosts on a network using the peer-to-peer Dat network.
  • Destiny - Send files directly to the receiver in real-time. Developed for and with HROs as a free Privacy Enhancing Technology alternative.
  • Gokapi - Lightweight selfhosted Firefox Send alternative without public upload. AWS S3 supported.
  • Lufi - Let's Upload that FIle — File sharing software.
  • Localsend - Share files to nearby devices. Free, open source, cross-platform.
  • Magic Wormhole - Get things from one computer to another, safely.
  • OnionShare - An open source tool that lets you securely and anonymously share files, host websites, and chat with friends using the Tor network.
  • Paperless-ngx - A community-supported supercharged version of paperless based on paperless-ng
  • PairDrop - An improved version of Snapdrop that also allows you to pair devices and share files outside your network.
  • Portal - A command-line file transfer utility for sending encrypted files from any computer to another.
  • QRcp - Transfer files over wifi from your computer to your mobile device by scanning a QR code without leaving the terminal.
  • Send - Simple, private file sharing. (Mozilla Send Fork)
  • Sharik 💀 - Sharik works with Wi-Fi connection or Tethering (Wi-Fi Hotspot). No internet connection needed. Available for Android, iOS, Linux, MacOS & Windows.
  • Snapdrop - A Progressive Web App for local file sharing inspired by Apple's Airdrop.
  • Winden - A convenient version of Magic Wormhole you can use from within your browser. No need to install an app.
  • Yopass - Secure sharing of secrets, passwords and files.
  • scrt.link - End-to-end encrypted file transfer. Up to 100GB and 30 days retention. Stored in Switzerland.

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Fitness and Health

⛔ Your health is a very important piece of your private data and you should care a lot about it. Also, health related data is among the most coveted. Please don't use apps from Google, Fitbit, Huawei, Xiaomi or any company that seeks the gathering of your personal data.

If you need an app for menstrual cycle tracking please don't use any apps like Clue, Period Tracker, etc. Those cute pink apps are greedy for your menstrual cycle and intimate life data and will sell it for sure, protect your private life. Check the list below and you will find nice alternatives.

✅ Instead use

Fitness trackers

  • 🤖 Fitotrack - A privacy oriented fitness tracker for Android.
  • 🤖 OpenTracks - OpenTracks is a sport tracking application that completely respects your privacy.
  • 🤖 Gadgetbridge - A free and cloudless replacement for your gadget vendors' closed source Android applications.
  • FitTrackee - Self-hosted web app to record and analyze outdoor activities from GPS files, as a Strava alternative (AGPL-3.0).

Workout planners

  • wger - A free, open source, self-hosted web application that manages your exercises, workouts and nutrition.
  • workout.lol - A small web application to create workouts based on your available equipment and the muscles you want to train that you can selfhost.

Food

  • OpenFoodFacts - Open Food Facts is a food products database made by everyone, for everyone. You can use it to make better food choices.
    • OFF Apps - Open source Android and iOS apps to scan food barcodes and read ingredient, additive, and nutrition data.

Menstrual cycle trackers

  • 🤖 Bluemoon - Open source, privacy friendly menstruation tracking app. Your period, your data!
  • 🤖 Drip - Menstrual cycle and fertility tracking. Everything you enter stays on your device.
  • Euki - The period tracker that doesn’t track you.
  • 🤖 log28 - a (very) simple no-frills period tracker for Android.
  • 🤖 Periodical - A calendar to track your menstruation and calculate possible fertile days
  • Poppy - Poppy is a private period tracker that runs in the browser. It stores data locally, and can sync and backup through Nostr relays without a Poppy server or account, all encrypted end to end.

Medical health

  • Fasten - Fasten is an open-source, self-hosted, personal/family electronic medical record aggregator, designed to integrate with 1000's of insurances/hospitals/clinics.

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Fonts

⛔ Avoid

  • Google Fonts (no selfhosted)

✅ Instead use

Google Fonts Replacements

  • coolLabs Fonts - A privacy-friendly drop-in replacement for Google Fonts.
  • Bunny Fonts - Bunny Fonts is an open-source, privacy-first web font platform designed to put privacy back into the internet.

Foundries

  • Velvetyne - French type foundry distributing libre, open source typefaces free for personal and commercial use.
  • OpenFoundry - Curated platform showcasing open source typefaces that are free to use and modify.

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Forms

⛔ Avoid

  • Google Forms

✅ Instead use

  • TypeBot - Open-source conversational forms.
  • CryptPad Forms - Part of the Cryptpad end-to-end encrypted and open-source collaboration suite.
  • FramaForms - Design your online surveys easily while respecting your audience.
  • Formbricks - Self-hosted survey and form builder for collecting responses without handing your data to a third party (AGPL-3.0).

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Games

Mario Kart

Nintendo collects user data, and if you disable it, they can turn it back on. Also, it has a paid plan that is not accessible to everyone economically.

✅ Instead use

  • SuperTuxKart - A 3D open-source arcade racer with a variety characters, tracks, and modes to play.
  • Sonic Robo Blast 2 Kart - SRB2Kart is a classic styled kart racer, complete with beautiful courses, and wacky items.

Minecraft

The game is owned by Microsoft. If this is not enough, you need a Microsoft account to play Minecraft since March 11th, 2022. Microsoft locks accounts some time not long after account creation and forces the user to provide a phone number. See: Minecraft FAQ, 1, 2

The game has telemetry embeded in it since v21w38a which you can't opt-out. Also, it is tied to the Microsoft privacy terms which are a privacy nightmare.

✅ Instead use

  • Luanti - An open source voxel game engine with many features.
    • Mineclonia - Survival sandbox game inspired by Minecraft. Fork of MineClone2 with focus on stability, multiplayer performance and features.

Plugins for Minecraft

If you still want to play Minecraft, you can add some plugins that can help you preserve a bit your privacy. But still consider that you are supporting Microsoft this way.

✅ Instead use

  • No-Chat-Reports - A spigot plugin strips cryptographic signatures from player messages, but it breaks any chat plugin by design.
  • FreedomChat - A great alternative to No-Chat-Reports, since it does not break any chat plugin by design.
  • No-Telemetry - Mod that disables the usage data collection, aka telemetry, introduced in Minecraft 1.18 (snapshot 21w38a).

Pokemon

Nintendo collects user data, and if you disable it, they can turn it back on. Also, it has a paid plan that is not accessible to everyone economically.

✅ Instead use

  • Pokete - A small terminal based game in the style of a very popular and old game by Gamefreak.

Sonic the Hedgehog

  • Sonic Robo Blast 2 - Sonic Robo Blast 2 is a 3D open-source Sonic the Hedgehog fangame built using a modified version of the Doom Legacy port of Doom.

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Home Assistants

Don't use Google Home or Alexa. Please don't. Don't gift them to anyone. They open the homes doors to surveillance. They can turn these auto-updating devices into surveillance devices at will.

Interesting articles: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7.

  • Google Home
  • Alexa
  • Cortana
  • Siri

✅ Instead use

  • Mycroft 💀 - The Private and Open Voice Assistant.
  • OpenVoiceOS - Open source voice assistant and the maintained successor to Mycroft, running fully offline on your own hardware. Apache-2.0 licensed.
  • Home Assistant - Open source home automation that puts local control and privacy first.

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Instant Messaging

*Check out this site for comparisons.

⛔ Avoid

  • WhatsApp |
  • Instagram DM |
  • Facebook Messenger |
  • Skype |
  • Zoom |
  • Google Hangouts / Chat |

✅ Instead use

Decentralized

No single point of control or failure. A decentralized network operated by different servers from different volunteers around the globe. You choose where your data stays or you can self-host your own server. Somewhat more complex protocols (because of federation between servers) and some extra metadata is added to the messages (without compromising privacy).

  • Matrix (Protocol) - An open network for secure, decentralized communication.
    • Element - All-in-one secure chat app for teams, friends and organisations. Keeps conversations in your control, safe from data-mining and ads. End-to-end encryption.
    • Cinny - A Matrix client focusing primarily on simple, elegant and secure interface.
  • Jabber / XMPP (Protocol) - The universal and open messaging standard. Tried and tested. Independent. Privacy-focused. E2E encrypted.
    • 🤖 Conversations - Jabber/XMPP client for Android 4.0+ smartphones that has been optimized to provide a unique mobile experience.
    • AstraChat - Another XMPP client.
    • Dino - Modern XMPP desktop client for Linux with OMEMO and OpenPGP end-to-end encryption. Open source, GPL-3.0 licensed.
    • Gajim - Cross-platform XMPP client with OMEMO encryption, running on Linux, Windows, and macOS. Open source, GPL-3.0 licensed.
    • Snikket - One-command self-hosted XMPP service that bundles a server with matching mobile and desktop clients. Open source and Docker-based.
  • DeltaChat - Chat over encrypted e-mail.
  • Session - Extreme focus on privacy and anonymity. Blockchain technology.
  • SimpleX Chat - The first chat platform that is 100% private by design - it has no access to your connection graph
  • Status - Status is a secure messaging app, crypto wallet, and Web3 browser built with state of the art technology.

Centralized

The service is in charge of running the servers that allow users to communicate. Single point of failure and control, but still 100% safe and trustworthy if the protocols and code are open and audited.

  • Threema - The messenger that puts security and privacy first. Pay once, chat forever. No collection of user data. Open Source client.
  • Signal - Extreme focus on privacy, combined with all of the features you expect. Strong encryption by design. 100% Open Source.
    • 🤖 Molly - Signal-compatible fork client with some security enhancements.

P2P

No servers involved. Everything goes directly from one peer to the other peer. No point of failure or control. The features are reduced because of the lack of server, messaging can be slower. Best option for critical chats.

  • Tox - Tox is easy-to-use software that connects you with friends and family without anyone else listening in.
  • Briar - Peer-to-peer encrypted messaging and forums.
  • Tinfoil Chat - Onion-routed, endpoint secure messaging system.
  • Berty - The privacy-first messaging app that works with or without internet access, cellular data or trust in the network.

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Link in Bio Tools

  • Keyoxide - A modern, secure and privacy-friendly platform to establish your decentralized online identity.
  • LinkStack - Self-hosted open-source Linktree alternative.

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Link Shorteners

⛔ Avoid

  • Bit.ly

✅ Instead use

  • MagLit - An encrypted and privacy respecting Link Shortener service that also supports Magnet Links.
  • Dub - You can self-host Dub.co for greater control over your data and design.
  • Yourls - Self hosted URL shortener in PHP.
  • tnyr.me - A zero-trust URL shortener with paswordless end-to-end encryption.
  • Kutt - Self-hosted URL shortener with custom domains and password-protected links. Open source, MIT licensed.
  • Shlink - Self-hosted URL shortener that keeps its own click analytics on your server. Open source, MIT licensed.

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Location tracking

⛔ Avoid

  • Google location history
  • Google FindMyDevice

✅ Instead use

Tracking

  • Nextcloud Phonetrack - Nextcloud app to track location history with an Android app (other apps also supported). Supports caching positions offline and sending them to the server in batches. The first-party app has good battery saving options.
  • OwnTracks - Location tracking for displaying the current location only (limited location history functionality).
  • Traccar - Location tracking software made for dedicated GPS logging devices.
  • Dawarich - Self-hosted alternative to Google Location History.

Find My Device

  • Find My Device - Find your Android Device via SMS.
  • GPSlogger - Lightweight GPS Logging Application For Android. No servers, no internet. Saved to a simple file to local storage.

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Mail Services

⛔ Avoid

  • Gmail
  • Outlook
  • Yandex Mail
  • Yahoo! Mail

✅ Instead use

Third-Party owned

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MARKDOWN METRICS
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0code blocks
MDRSS ASSESSMENT
Scam / risk5/100low
Evidence94/100medium confidence
Why MDRSS assigned this score
  • Imported from the curated MDRSS source catalog.
  • Curation tier: core.
  • Reuse policy: auto.
  • Content is pinned to Git commit 775c5af85fd62fd67a17a9036369fb4070b6f38b.
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