Leave big tech behind! How to replace Amazon, Google, X, Meta, Apple - and more

[Coventina]

There’s not much to love about big tech these days. So many ills can be laid at its door: social media harms, misinformation, polarisation, mining and misuse of personal data, environmental negligence, tax avoidance, the list goes on. Added to which, Silicon Valley’s leaders seem all too keen to cosy up to the Trump administration, to shower the president with bribes – sorry, gifts – and remain silent about his worsening political overreach. And that’s before we get to the rampant “enshittification”, as the tech writer Cory Doctorow describes it, which means that by design many big tech products have become less useful and more extractive than they were when we originally signed up to them.

We’ve entered into a Faustian pact with these companies: “While it’s brilliant to have access to high-quality products and software, very often for ‘free’, it’s important to remember that there is a trade-off involved – often of our personal data and privacy,” says Lisa Barber, tech editor at Which? We give these companies our attention and our information, which they then turn into big bucks and apparently unassailable monopolies.

But the good news is we can go elsewhere. The rest of the world is weighing up its reliance on US technologies, and in Europe especially we’re realising there are better alternatives to just about everything big tech is shilling, if by “better” we mean greener, more ethical, more independent, more respectful of your privacy or simply less disturbingly, monolithically powerful. Making the switch is easier than you might imagine. Here are a few pointers.

Google has cornered 90% of the search market for the past decade, but it is often no better, and sometimes demonstrably worse than its rivals, perhaps on purpose – Doctorow has called Google: “the poster-child for enshittification” citing its alleged strategy of worsening search quality so that users spend more time on the site. But changing the default search engine on any device is extremely easy.

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/feb/26/how-to-replace-amazon-google-x-meta-apple-alternatives

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Highly recommended!

[SheltieLover]

1. Kick

TY, Tina!

[RockCreek]

2. KnR

[pandr32]

3. We need to be on guard and pro-active to protect ourselves.

Thank you for the info.

[SunSeeker]

4. AI made Google searches worthless for me. I absolutely hate it.

I need a good list of sources, not AI telling me some bullshit. Now, I get a AI paragraph citing one or two sketchy sources. Sadly, DuckDuckGo seems to be doing the same.

[hunter]

8. It's possible to turn off most of DuckDuckGo's AI crap.

Go to their home page, click on the three line navigation thingie in the upper right corner, select settings, and then "AI features"

[FemDemERA]

12. Also, DuckDuckGo now has an easy "No AI" link

I kept forgetting to put “-noai ” at the end of my search but they made it easy for people like me…

https://noai.duckduckgo.com/

I made it my home page for searching and it’s working well. I love that I no longer see the AI overview.

[SunSeeker]

18. Bookmarked! Thank you!

[Delphinus]

20. Thank you!

I've been using DDG Preview, but it has some issues, so went back to regular DDG. I didn't know about this and it will be my go to!

[Wednesdays]

5. K, R, & B. nt

[progressoid]

10. ditto

[usonian]

6. Quick comments

The search suggestions are pretty niche. There are more popular ones that
• Don't keep your search history, whether logged in or anonymous (which uses your IP address in their logs, a la Google) I generally use DuckDuckGo, despite its bias for "current" stuff shit (1) or startpage.com

https://privacysavvy.com/security/safe-browsing/private-search-engines/

Firefox generally works well, with built-in privacy controls. (and extensions). Brave has a whiff of sleaze.

https://thelibre.news/no-really-dont-use-brave/#and-more
CEO Brendan Eich is a RW and crypto nutcase and opposed same-sex marriages in California. (Prop 8)

At Brave Software, Eich co-created the Basic Attention Token (BAT), a cryptocurrency designed for use in the Brave browser (Wikipedia)

WTF? My attention is my own GD business.

If you're REALLY worried, use Tor.
https://www.torproject.org/
or the Tails distribution (the entire OS, not just the browser, is safeguarded)
https://tails.net/

Email.
Few use encrypted email. Proton and Tuta seem good. Just remember, email is as safe as the weakest link. If you email to a gmail user, you might as well have copied DHS. the FBI, CIA and local rookie cops.

Signal (not mentioned)
Same applies to Signal. If a recipient "decides" to let cops log in (like under duress) they can access messages you sent to that person. Otherwise, I try to get everyone to use it (has group video chats no less) and they don't.

Office Software.
Libre Office highly recommended. Microsoft pushes you to their cloud (and they LOVE the government)

Phones
"Free as in Freedom" phones are still in an early stage, though promising.

Shopping
I try to shop local. Sometimes, it's not easy.

Social Media
I avoid all but DU and Hacker News. Period.
I suggest that DU post a warrant canary, not for content, which is open, but for doxing. But if user info was leaked (and warrants are secret) then nobody would use it. Life is tough.

My opinion on Bluesky: It had a chance to become a high quality alternative, but looks just like twitter in the substitution of screenshots for content that you can actually read (if you're over 35 years old).

AI
Just say no unless you're a programmer using Claude, or running something locally. It's still in the "OOPS" mode., IMO.

General info.
I just saw a link to a Proton piece on security at protests.
Of course, it promotes Proton products, but they are good, and there's a free tier.
https://proton.me/blog/how-to-protect-privacy-at-protests
The Proton guide to privacy at protests

I have posted similar guides in Activist Headquarters.
https://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=forum&id=1011


COMPUTERS.
Microsoft and Apple are agents of the Trump Regime.
I am recommending and adopting (again) Linux for all future work.

And since California has (stupidly) adopted age-verification for all operating systems and apps, a fantastic backdoor for the regime, It now seems a requirement to "roll your own" linux operating system in secret.
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2025/12/10-not-so-hidden-dangers-age-verification
https://spectrum.ieee.org/age-verification
https://edri.org/our-work/why-age-verification-misses-the-mark-and-puts-everyone-at-risk/




(1) If you are searching anything factual or historical,and if there is a recent movie (or bullshit product for sale) with the same name, you get overwhelming results based on that movie, which can be annoying, and DDG does display results/ads based on your guessed location (from IP address) which is kind of creepy. Like, Epstein never visited the local brew pub, but the latter turns up in results.

[Pinback]

11. Great post -- should be its own OP

Thanks for all these detailed recommendations.

[usonian]

15. I have posted similar articles in Activist Headquarters.

Some of this is opinion, and Brave users will disagree.
But I may just do that.
I like to post in Activist Headquarters because articles are easier to find there.
Stuff in GD gets very hard to find after about a day.

Glad to help.

[FemDemERA]

14. Great info, thanks!

[usonian]

16. Glad to help. NT

[nilram]

19. Great list. Though your caveat

"if a recipient 'decides' to let cops log in" applies to everything, not just Signal.

[Scrivener7]

7. Great! Bookmarking! I've been looking for some of these things.

[NNadir]

9. Interesting certainly. I'm kind of lazy in aeeking alternatives but we have cut Amazon

We received some gift cards, which we redeemed rather than leaving them with pure profit, but we will buy nothing else from them.

I do rely on Google scholar for many things and I'm not sure I can afford to break the habit.

[FemDemERA]

13. Thank you for this!!

Bookmarking.

[hunter]

17. I guess I'm some kind of Luddite.

Other than ebooks and streaming television I haven't contorted myself into any new "big tech" for thirty years.

My flip phone works the same as the first cell phone I bought. It's not connected to whatever email address I happen to be using. I only read my email as circumstances require. Email is not a good way to contact me.

The last radical change in my internet usage was precipitated by the introduction of HTML 3 in 1996. I've been on the internet since the later 'seventies and have had dozens of internet identities, "hunter" here at DU being the one I've maintained the longest. You can call me that in the "real world" too.

I'm a Linux guy. The last version of Windows I used on my personal computers was 98SE. I don't use Apple or Microsoft products unless someone is paying me to.

DU is my only social media.

I've probably got 90% of the internet, by volume, blacklisted. I don't see much advertising on the internet and none on television.

Whenever any shiny new technology comes along I ask myself "How will this make my life better?" My usual answer is "It won't."