
Show HN: Ethical Resources – 300 ethical alternatives to mainstream stuff - mancuso5
https://ethical.net/resources/
======
dgellow
How is ethical defined here? I cannot see a definition and I don't see what is
the common denominator between all those tools. For example why isn't Telegram
considered ethical but Signal and Wire are? What is unethical about Word or
Excel (given that OpenOffice is mentioned as an alternative), is it the
ownership by Microsoft? Or the use of proprietary format in the past? What is
more ethical about Steemit or Mastodon than Twitter? I would understand if the
focus was on privacy and taking back some control/ownership, but that's not
really something I would consider to be an ethical argument.

~~~
mcv
I assume it's a mix of:

open source > proprietary

based in jurisdiction that respects freedom and privacy > based in
authoritarian country

empowering users > empowering corporations and governments

privacy > no or compromised privacy

powered by green energy > powered by coal

recycling > no recycling

paid by users > paid by targeted ads based on analysis of your behaviour

~~~
moocowtruck
interesting, one of the first apps is firefox...yet most of their funding
comes from as this page would characterize as 'unethical sources' so wouldn't
they then by guilty ?

~~~
takeda
So what you are saying Firefox is bad and instead it is better to use Chrome
that is owned directly by a company they are trying to avoid?

Creating and maintaining a web browser is not simple, Firefox is the freeest
usable browser.

~~~
moocowtruck
i'm definitely not saying it's better to use chrome...where did i say that?
What I'm saying is you can't label something ethical, if it gets all its money
from what this site would label as 'unethical'. I don't know what the
alternative browsers would be, dillo perhaps? I don't know they're the ones
searching for 'ethical' alternatives. So what I'm saying is, I expected to see
something different, not firefox.

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kerkeslager
Not every tool on here fits everyone's ethics, but SOME tools fit SOME
people's ethics. It's important to question what is ethical and what is not,
but the question becomes moot if we never attempt to put the answer into
action. Let's not hand-wring about "What is ethical?" so much that we never
make any attempt to behave ethically.

I don't agree that all the tools on the list are ethical, but there are a few
I plan to start using, because I do believe they are ethical and I didn't know
about them before.

~~~
mancuso5
Thanks for sharing, we've got this a lot, so kinda got used to it as the
default reply, especially in the tech community :)

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neilv
`ethical.net` is running a few third-party trackers (which I can't find on its
own list of purportedly ethical resources).

~~~
kn8
Because there's a barrier to entry with some of these "less ethical" tools,
especially analytics, hard to compete with free or having to self host. We
can/need to do better?

~~~
chmod775
Matomo (formerly Piwik) is an Analytics solution under the GNU GPL.

Website: [https://matomo.org/](https://matomo.org/)

GitHub: [https://github.com/matomo-org/matomo](https://github.com/matomo-
org/matomo)

Demo: [https://demo.matomo.org/](https://demo.matomo.org/)

You can both self-host or use their managed service. They are absolutely
competitive with Google Analytics.

------
mikestew
JFC, I skimmed top comments for something that wasn’t “but, but...”, and as of
this writing all I got it is either that, or the page won’t load with an ad
blocker.

To the page author, I for one appreciate the effort. No, your definition of
“ethics” probably doesn’t fit mine. But having just skimmed it, I think it
will give me something to chew on later. Like many, I’ll have my share of
“but, but...”s, but it’s the thinking about it and not the curated list, that
is important to me.

------
7u8Cpa2B
I am not sure how ethics is defined here. In fact, I can totally see how some
of these options can be considered unethical.

Before we proceed, recall that Facebook is now a "morally bankrupt liars"
because it "enabled genocide", "facilitate foreign undermining of democratic
institutions", "allow the live streaming of suicides, rape, and murders", and
"host and publish the mosque attack video".

Let's compare this with one of the ethical browsers listed here -- Tor. Tor
allowed Silk Road, which allowed dangerous drugs and fake IDs to be sold, and
other sites that hosted child abuse and pornography content.

But privacy! Well, how about PeerTube? Interestingly, PeerTube "viewers don't
have privacy" as it exposes the IPs of all viewers. Imagine if YouTube or
Facebook does this.

So what gives?

~~~
mancuso5
Hey, thanks for stopping by.

So better not bother even thinking about ethics at all?

More on the topic of ethics here: [https://ethical.net/ethical/future-ethics-
with-cennydd-bowle...](https://ethical.net/ethical/future-ethics-with-cennydd-
bowles-at-sustainableux/) [https://ethical.net/ethical/ethics-should-not-be-a-
luxury/](https://ethical.net/ethical/ethics-should-not-be-a-luxury/)

~~~
7u8Cpa2B
Definitely not. Precisely because I care about ethics that I bring these up.
The reason is that I think we as a society (well, at least a subset of the
tech community) romanticizes free (beer and speech), open-source,
decentralized, and non-profit projects so much that we automatically equate
them as being ethical. (Exhibit A: this website, ethical.net.)

The truth is that ethics is hugely complex and nuanced. For example, what is
your take on a super secure messaging app like Signal? Obviously, it is useful
because it allows people to communicate privately (e.g., allows confidential
sources to talk to journalists without being spied on). Now, what about the
cliched scenario where it is being used by criminals to coordinate their bad
deeds? Honestly, I don't know. I live in a democratic country whose government
respects its citizen's privacy. As such, I am perfectly willing to give up a
little bit of privacy (between myself and my government) if it means keeping
the society safer. On the other hand, there are people (lots of em) who are
not as fortunate as I am -- a wrong sneeze and you are dead.

Ethics is complicated. Even if we fully understand a product (or policy or
project), it doesn't mean we fully understand its ethical impact. And even if
we do understand its ethical impact, it is almost impossible for us to say if
its entirety ethical or not. Because of these complexities, any attempt to
consider ethics as a yes/no label (like this site, ethical.net) is almost
certainly wrong. In fact, it trivializes this very important issue.

------
ekzy
Thank you!

There's a lot of negative feedback in here (which I mostly agree with) but I
found a few gems on this page, and I wanted to thank the author and
contributors.

------
ekianjo
Ethical seems to be a very fuzzy expression here without any meaning
whatsoever. Even most of the claims made next to the service are not
supportable in any practical way (for online services owned by third parties).

------
fghtr
See also: [https://prism-break.org](https://prism-break.org), but there are no
"organizations" there.

------
fheld
mastodon on list, twitter in footer

~~~
mancuso5
As others have mentioned here, there's a strong barrier to entry for most of
things, including Mastodon :) We're still figuring things out, and that's
totally OK:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html](https://news.ycombinator.com/showhn.html)

------
glaurung_
This is really cool. I (and I think some others around here) would like to
move away from Google, etc, but sometimes it's hard to find other options.
It's great having a semi-comprehensive list in one place! I'll definitely be
looking into some of these.

~~~
mancuso5
Feel free to share your journey on dm or on the forum
[https://community.ethical.net](https://community.ethical.net)

------
krupan
Some of these services claim no adds, chronological timeline, etc., but that
was Facebook and Twitter in the early days too. How do we know these services
will remain add free?

~~~
freehunter
"Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty". One part of a company being
ethical is them letting you pick up and move out in the event that they do
start showing negative behavior.

------
JshWright
When it comes to ethics, I care way more about stuff like "not exploiting
workers or the environment".

Most of the "ethics" here are pretty academic, and don't have a real impact on
actual people. I'd love a version of this site that does the same thing for
ethically produced goods (there are a number of sites like that out there, but
none are this clean, and they tend to focus on specific niches (clothing,
etc)).

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nabeards
I'm surprised to not see keybase.io on here. Any ethical issues with their
service I'm unaware of?

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carnagii
Blank page with ad-block plus.

~~~
mancuso5
On it. I am on Chrome with ABP and I don't get this issue. Which browser are
you using?

~~~
smbullet
Hmm, Chrome doesn't appear to be on the list of ethically approved browsers :P

------
alien1993
Some categories show a blank page, selecting the category all works fine
though.

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rkbhochalya
Update: Adblock Plus was hiding body element as it had "headersocial" class. I
have fixed the issue and the site is accessible with Adblock Plus on Firefox
now.

------
asciimo
PLNKTN is a good carbon footprint calculator app. Great design
([https://plnktn.life/](https://plnktn.life/)).

------
nothis
I was skeptical but there's actually a few things in there I might try. I'm
very motivated to move away from Gmail, for example.

~~~
mancuso5
Thanks for sharing! I've been personally trying to move away from everything
google and it's SO difficult. Gmail and Maps are the last things I'm using,
but I am still hopeful. I feel it's more of an addiction than anything else
really.

------
bubblewrap
Wasn't there a YC company where you could buy CO2 neutralization for your
website? Anybody remember the name? Is it still around?

~~~
mancuso5
hmm not sure which one you refer to but there are quite a few carbon
offsetting projects like
[https://www.myclimate.org/](https://www.myclimate.org/)

~~~
bubblewrap
Thanks - it was something specifically for web hosting, iirc. You could then
add a little "CO2 neutral" banner to your web site.

------
imode
Blank page with uBlock Origin.

~~~
rkbhochalya
It should be working now.

------
hernan604
Runbox.com is missing from the email services

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rezeroed
bbc iplayer shouldn't be there. Great site though.

------
hernan604
Its missing runbox from email services

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nukeop
This resembles orthodox rabbis discussing what is considered kosher.

I half expected to see my music player on the list, given it's popular, GPLv3
licensed and has no tracking, but I have no idea what the approval process is.

~~~
NIL8
What music player?

------
return0
You and whose ethics?

------
minikites
I think one reason so many people in these comments are having issues with the
definition of "ethical" is the partial realization that there isn't a way to
ethically consume things, especially when capitalism is involved. You can use
Firefox, but that still supports Google. You can recycle, but an ocean
freighter burning bunker oil pukes out enough pollution in one voyage to
invalidate your entire life's effort. You can make better or worse choices,
but we live in a fundamentally unethical global economic system.

------
mruts
I don't like this idea, just like I don't like the idea of ESG ETFs and
whatnot. It presupposes what is ethical and what is not, despite the obvious
personal nature of the problem. The 300 "ethical" alternatives are just things
the OP thinks are ethical and it seems unlikely to me that such a personal
list of stuff is applicable to really anyone else besides himself. Or maybe it
is, but just not to me.

Or maybe it should be renamed to "Progressive alternatives to mainstream
stuff."

~~~
toastking
Yeah it would be more apt to say the list is "open source, environmentally
conscious software".

