
What can you use instead of Google and Facebook? - hhs
https://www.bbc.com/news/business-50460712
======
kerkeslager
Search: DDG is the obvious answer. But also reducing usage of general search
is a major life improvement. Wikipedia and Stack Overflow have reasonable
built-in searches, as do most sites I view as reasonable sources of
information. Most discoverability comes from feeds (blogs, HN,
Reddit)--searching limits you to terms you've already thought of. General
search seems to lead either to the places already mentioned in good cases, and
to low-quality results that waste time and mislead you in bad cases. You can
save time and improve thought process by going more directly to sources.

Email: Fastmail. But again, just using email less is helpful. My most common
form of communication is using text messages to set up meeting in person.

Facebook: Does this even need a replacement? I haven't made any intentional
effort to replace Facebook since I stopped using it, and don't feel any sense
of loss. The same goes for Twitter/Instagram. The only thing these services
ever did for me was make me feel angry, lonely, or inadequate.

Random side note: Stack Overflow has a serious content quality and up-to-date-
ness issue. An alternative is using documentation, reading code, and mastering
debuggers/REPLs. This gives you a much better understanding of your tools, and
gives you much better solutions as a result.

~~~
skyyler
>Facebook: Does this even need a replacement?

Do you go to parties? Serious question. It's hard to discover events without
Facebook these days. It's the only place some promoters advertise.

~~~
arexxbifs
I'm in a demographic that's very heavily invested in Facebook. FOMO was real
when quitting, and I'm sure I've missed some event, someplace, sometime. But
the neat thing is, people actually use other means of contacting me if they
really want to hang out. I mean, it's not even hard: a text, a mail, whatever.

What I've noticed is that I actually meet people IRL more often now, because
the events I get information about are the ones that really matter to me, and
they don't get lost in a constant buzz of less important but attention-
grabbing stuff.

I also realize I can miss talking to someone. It's a feeling I haven't had in
a long time, because people used to show up in my feed every day and it was
like they were there anyway. Now I can get a sudden urge to just shoot a few
texts back and forth with someone about something that's actually meaningful
and not just the usual facebook wall banter.

I'm quite introverted, so being selective is something that suits me well, but
facebook also made me even more socially lazy and avoidant than I really am.

~~~
claudiawerner
>But the neat thing is, people actually use other means of contacting me if
they really want to hang out. I mean, it's not even hard: a text, a mail,
whatever.

Maybe I just have friends who don't care too much, but I wouldn't expect any
of my friends to notify me if they're going to a run of the mill event without
me, but they would suggest it/notify on Facebook about it. It's a lot less
personal, I feel, to notify someone on Facebook than to message someone
personally and invite them. Chances are, they'd see I'm no longer on Facebook
and think I've gone into some kind of social seclusion.

It also doesn't help solve the problem of _me_ finding something I want to go
to (that my friends might be interested in) but they didn't see themselves.
There was recently a Studio Ghibli film showing in my city, and after I found
it on FB, I suggested it to two friends and we went. I wouldn't have found
that event without FB, and even if I did, it would feel awkward (for an
equally introverted person like me) to specifically message the two people and
ask - now they have some kind of obligation, and they can't claim they just
haven't checked Facebook in a while if I sent them a text/Telegram/whatever.

~~~
arexxbifs
I'm having a hard time writing a reply to this that doesn't come off as
unsolicited life advice from a stranger, so I'll just say that my positive
experience with quitting Facebook is of course highly personal. We all have
different life situations and, unfortunately, we have to make trade-offs
accordingly.

------
reaperducer
The article talks mostly about e-mail and search, but you know what's still
the best social network on the interwebs? E-mail.

When I dumped social media two years ago, I gave my "friends" my e-mail
address.

Now, instead of getting an endless stream of reposted political image captions
and photos of people's lunches I get messages about the things that are
actually worth seeing: news about family, friends, life events, funny stories
— all without the dross and anger-inducing cruft of a social media "feed."

E-mail has all of the benefits of social media: photos, group chat, near-
instant delivery; with none of the drawbacks: tracking, advertising, stalking,
third-party influences.

More importantly, what happened is that I found out who my actual friends are.
I think the whole social media "friends" button has cheapened the word. We
don't make a distinction between friends, acquaintances, associates, and
people we just know. Your real friends will e-mail you.

~~~
dwild
> The article talks mostly about e-mail and search, but you know what's still
> the best social network on the interwebs? E-mail.

I'm pretty sure if you replaced "social network" by "ticket tracker", you
would had made quite a bit of people laugh here, still here we are, unable to
accept that some tools are just much more efficient in a task.

For me Facebook is something where I can reach everyone that I need to reach
at once. The sad thing is the best social network is the one that people use.
Sure everyone got an email, as this is a requirement to even have a social
network account, but it's the usage that people does of it that make it
impossible to use it as such.

I remember at nearly every team project at my university, we tried to make
Slack happens, or Discord, or whatever else to communicate, instead of
Facebook, but the response was never as instant and each time we came back to
Facebook, simply because that's what most people in the group were online on
at the same time.

Personally my actual usage of Facebook is mostly to quickly organize events,
it's only useful to reach "everyone" at the same time. I remember one of the
best example of event we organized, it was mid afternoon, I was in class with
a friend and we decided to organize a friend gathering that night. We had
nothing, not even somewhere to do it. We simply created a Facebook event, we
invited about 20 friends to the event, 5 hours later we had a place, we had
food, plenty of board games and more than a dozens people present.

Sure we can send 20 emails or SMS, hope that everyone read them in the
afternoon, have everyone send a bunch of answers in random order, again hope
that everyone read the one that are important mixed with all the random "I'm
in". That's 20x more effort for each and everyone involved. At that event, my
friend and I were the organizer, and we only had to send an handful of
messages, the event was the source of truth easy to follow by everyone.
Minimum effort, quick and easy.

Sure we can text you on the side, but the truth is, that add friction for each
and everyone that aren't on Facebook. If something get updated and I forget to
tell you, well I'm now responsible for you missing the update.

The older I get, the less this kind of thing happen, so yeah Facebook is less
important, but that still why I used it, and it's still what makes it the best
social network. It allow you more easily, more quickly, and more efficiently
to be social.

> Now, instead of getting an endless stream of reposted political image
> captions and photos of people's lunches I get messages about the things that
> are actually worth seeing: news about family, friends, life events, funny
> stories — all without the dross and anger-inducing cruft of a social media
> "feed."

I would like you to have a talk to everyone grandparents. The amount of emails
chains I got from my family when I was younger...

I personally don't really follow people posts, in fact almost no one does them
in my friend circle, it's mostly stuff shared from the news, which isn't
important.

> none of the drawbacks: tracking, advertising, stalking, third-party
> influences.

Gmail and Hotmail don't track email and advertise?

> More importantly, what happened is that I found out who my actual friends
> are. I think the whole social media "friends" button has cheapened the word.
> We don't make a distinction between friends, acquaintances, associates, and
> people we just know. Your real friends will e-mail you.

That's kind of weird. Think a bit about it, why would a "real friend" e-mail
you? Are you a "real friend" by not sending a message to your friend over
Facebook because that's what he use? That would means you are not really a
real friend to anyone... I'm sure that's not the case. You didn't found out
who your actual friends were, you simply lost actual friends by making it
harder to contact you and you slowly made them become acquaintances.

~~~
fossuser
I think there's room for a Webservice/app focused on events only that defaults
to using sms for people that don't have accounts.

The idea being that people can optionally make accounts with just their
contact information which they can then give people access to (this way
contacts stay updated by everyone with access rather than local copies on
everyone's device that goes out of date).

The app would handle basics like RSVP, sending out SMS reminders for people,
tracking number of people coming etc. Right now handling this over SMS and
tracking it is a pain so people default to FB, but I think there's an
opportunity here to get a foothold.

------
kodt
When 90% of the people you email are on Gmail or GSuite does Proton mail
really help? Yeah you get end to end encryption for other Proton mail users,
but I don't know a single one. Google is going to have all of my emails
anyway.

As for Facebook it is best just to quit. I don't even use Facebook to keep in
touch with friends anymore. The value in Facebook is some of the groups. Local
neighborhood groups seem to be the best source of information or things
happening around your area if you care to know about it. Also different
hobbies/interests have local FB groups that are the most active place for
discussion with far more users than a small subreddit or dying forum
community.

Perhaps I am old but I don't know a single person that uses Whatsapp or
Signal. Everyone just uses old fashioned SMS or iMessage if they have iPhones.

~~~
fasicle
WhatsApp is massive in Europe, I'm currently in Spain and nobody uses anything
else.

~~~
lucasverra
Argentina Brazil and France also are very Whats app dependent

~~~
benhurmarcel
France is actually a bit mixed between SMS, Whatsapp, and Facebook Messenger.
My impression is that it's been shifting slowly to Whatsapp but it might be my
environment.

------
dogma1138
A better question is how you use or create an alternative to X without
becoming X in the long run.

Facebook is kings because of its market share which is why people use it.

There are ways of communicating with a close group of friends that don’t
involve social media but for people who want to keep in touch with a large
social circle there is really no alternative.

And far as the gmail replacement goes then it’s by far the easiest thing to
find an alternative for and also probably the least important one.

I have a feeling that people who rely heavily on emails to stay in touch also
probably don’t use social media so Facebook isn’t an issue for them.

However the problem is that due social pressure it’s a most impossible to drop
from a platform without having it affecting your relationships.

Sure people switch as groups and slowly migrate from one platform to another
but overall trying to drop X for Y tends result in you using both or quickly
switching back.

------
have_faith
I'm actually building an alternative to Facebook for people fed up with
Facebook and just want to stay in touch with people and not much more. I would
go as far as calling it a glorified address book with some extra features for
having up-to-date contact details for everyone that has granted you the
privilege of having them and a very cut down version of the feed.

Which brings me to the question of monetisation. I don't want ads or data
collection of any kind so my first thought is to have a basic free account and
a cheap premium account that lets you upload and share photo albums and that
sort of thing. Thoughts on this strategy or possible privacy respecting
alternatives?

~~~
newscracker
I’d prefer people working on making existing alternatives better in terms of
features than have yet another “Facebook killer” that doesn’t survive. Check
out the Fediverse, help the alternatives for Instagram and Twitter thrive. If
you want to create something independently, I’d suggest a perfect replica and
replacement for Facebook Groups. We need what’s not yet supported by the
current crop of FOSS alternatives and keeps people tied to Facebook.

~~~
mxuribe
100% on the fediverse!

------
JohnJamesRambo
DuckDuckGo is really changing my world. It’s like I’m seeing a whole other
internet I was missing before with Google search results. I get much more
relevant answers and less SEO targeted garbage that says all the right words
usually while saying nothing at all. I was skeptical, but I encourage you to
give it a try if you haven’t before.

~~~
TheRealDunkirk
I'm consistently surprised that this comment comes up _here_ so often. I've
tried DDG at length, many times, and I always go back to Google because I find
it SO much better for programming-related questions. Maybe the denizens of HN
are accustomed to using SO's built-in search? But that's still only a piece of
the larger puzzle. I get a lot of mileage from blog posts as well.

~~~
s_dev
You're not missing anything. Google is far better than DDG and I'm shocked
people claim otherwise because it's so fairly self evident.

That said I try to use DDG when I can but I don't lie to myself that I'm using
it because it has better results -- it doesn't. It has better approach to
privacy and thats why I use it. The fact that they know less about the
searcher intrinsitcally means the results of searches will be worse.

~~~
Crash0v3rid3
I sometimes feel that we are in this echo chamber.

These threads always follow the same patterns, someone asks if they know of an
alternative search engine and a HNer quickly mentions they have gone to DDG
and haven't looked back.

DDG is decent but not even close to the search quality of Google. I know the
folks here want to see Google dethroned but DDG won't do it.

------
anderspitman
Google is relatively straight forward to replace. Inexpensive 80% solutions
exist for most of their services. Maps is a notable exception.

As for Facebook you're fighting against the greatest network effects in the
history of mankind.

~~~
arkitaip
I had zero issues quitting Facebook but replacing Gmail and Android? That's
going to be really tough considering Gmail is my online identify hub and
Android facilitates so many utility services (banking, electronic
identification, money transfers, etc).

~~~
anderspitman
Register a domain if you don't already have one and get Fastmail for 5 USD/mo
(includes a calendar as well). If Gmail.com is your online identity hub, then
you're not in control of your online identity.

~~~
arkitaip
Right but what about Android? What's the point of setting up email at my own
domain - which I already have - when Google can track everything through
Android?

~~~
anderspitman
Hey you're not wrong there. It's atrocious what Google has done to Linux on
Android. We badly need an alternative smartphone that's actually built to be a
tool rather than an ad optimization platform. Apple is better on that front,
but they also want to ram their vision of what a computer is down your throat.

------
freeAgent
Unfortunately, it's a lot more difficult to fully switch away from Google than
this article gets into. If you use a smartphone, your only real options for OS
are Apple and Google. Sure, one can install a custom ROM on an Android phone,
but that is well beyond the scope of most people's interest or ability, not to
mention that it would lead to warranty issues. If you're using a stock Android
phone, Google will know where you all at all times with extreme precision.

------
ogre_codes
After ditching Facebook for the past month I’ve realized it doesn’t really
_need_ a replacement for it’s primary features. For talking to friends I just
use messenger and email more, plus I have a blog and I do occasionally cross
post blog posts to Facebook.

Google is fairly easy to replace. Aside from occasional second-opinion
searches the only google service I use is Gmail and that only from remote
clients... I should replace it but I’m just a bit lazy.

~~~
aquaticsunset
I'm in the same boat. Left Facebook years ago and realized I was naturally
going to keep up with people in my social circles anyway. Email, text, and
group messages make it a little bit harder, but the interaction is so
meaningful instead of an all you can eat buffet of "social interaction".

------
Priem19
He mentions Brave browser, but Vivaldi browser combined with uBlock Origin
(and uMatrix if you're savvy enough) works best for me as I want nothing to do
with ads. Telegram is another fantastic messenger.

Concerning social media, you don't really need it:
[https://www.quitfacebook.org](https://www.quitfacebook.org).

~~~
capableweb
Worth noting that Brave is a open source browser while Vivaldi is not.

------
muks
I wish well-done XMPP/Jabber clients that do voice come up. If you are an XMPP
protocol developer / implementer reading this, thank you for what is there so
far. Please don't stop.

If you have been watching the news this week about Jeff Bezos.. I don't like
that someone can share a message/picture/video on WhatsApp and crack into a
phone. There are too many closed source vendor components in an Android phone
even if you're using an open source phone OS like Lineage OS, and these may go
stale over time or have something vulnerable in them on purpose.

WhatsApp always seems to need a phone. It works in a web browser in an
inconvenient manner that still needs the phone to login. It is a centrally
controlled system. While Signal is open source, it is also centrally
controlled. I prefer and hope Jabber implementations get much better. Spam for
Jabber can be managed the way it is managed for email. Some spam would get
through, but it does on WhatsApp too.

Email hasn't gone away or lost its place because it's federated (distributed).
It works on multiple platforms, and if you don't like a particular way of
doing email, there are a lot of choices. Jabber is similar for instant
messaging, but it can do with a renaissance. (I use Jabber at work and home,
but the clients I use such as Conversations don't have the features and
experience that WhatsApp/Telegram do.)

The oldest and most used services are federated - HTTP, email.. and at the
start of a communication - DNS.

WhatsApp, Facebook, etc. are very entrenched services. It's not enough that
you move from WhatsApp - your family, friends, businesses that you work with,
all have to use the new service you are switching to, so you can chat with
them on that other service.

It's easier to switch your search engine. :) DuckDuckGo has worked very well
for web search for me. I use it about 95% of the time and Google Search the
other 5%.

------
dbingham
We need a replacement for the universal public forum. In my community,
Facebook has essentially become the public square. It's where most of the
local public political dialog happens. It's where I get my local news, it's
where I find out what my local representatives are doing, and it's where I can
converse with them - and the rest of the community - about what local
government should be doing.

This is all so valuable that I just can't walk away from it. I would be
completely cut out of local events. The news media does an extremely poor job
of reporting - and we have an unusually vibrant local news sector (I think in
no small part because we have such an active political and governance
community on Facebook).

So much of it is network effect, I just don't even know how we'd go about
creating it in a new service, even if a new service were created that served
the purpose better.

~~~
lazyjones
Your local news sector has no community/forum functionality?

------
iamdamian
Here’s a question: How do we adopt a replacement _and_ avoid creating an
identical situation in 10 years?

I wonder how many people donate to/pay for/enable ads on DuckDuckGo, for
example.

~~~
anderspitman
Incentives have to be aligned. Open protocols at a minimum.

~~~
codebook
This. Why ppl can move to another email provider? Because email protocol is
public! (even some tricky protocols are added such as DKIM)

So, I hope any new social platform or communication platform has a public
interface.to communicate with its replica. Mastodon can be an example but it
is not widely spread yet .

------
neiman
For IM there are too many alternatives to count.

For search there are a few, DDG is the best known imo, however, none of them
is as good as Google's search engine, especially when it comes to Hebrew (my
mother tongue).

As for Facebook itself, the problem is that it's offering now a combination of
social media, photo storage, discussion groups and an IM platform - to name a
few. It's not easy to make an alternative to something so complex.

------
auiya
If you use the Internet, you'll never fully cut Google out of your life. They
have their tendrils in damn near every aspect of the Internet whether you know
it or not. [https://gizmodo.com/i-cut-google-out-of-my-life-it-
screwed-u...](https://gizmodo.com/i-cut-google-out-of-my-life-it-screwed-up-
everything-1830565500)

------
lloydde
I’m excited by the [https://planetary.social/](https://planetary.social/)
announcement this week.

“We’re building an open and humane alternative to Facebook”

[https://mobile.twitter.com/rabble/status/1220075601337315328](https://mobile.twitter.com/rabble/status/1220075601337315328)

~~~
subpixel
> Revenue for creators

> Keep some posts back for paid subscribers.

This is not what I want in a Facebook alternative.

------
paulhodge
It's pretty hard to 100% replace Facebook, but a more feasible strategy is a
gradual/piecewise approach. Opt for non-Facebook alternatives for certain
tasks when you can. Like if you're going to share a photo album with family,
you could always email them a link to Flickr/Dropbox/etc instead. Anything
that reduces Facebook usage is good.

------
westpfelia
Title mentions alternatives to Facebook, but then doesn't list one?

For anyone looking for something there is Diaspora.

For a twitter alternative check out Mastodon.

~~~
snisarenko
Also If you have hard time figuring out which mastodon instance to join, I am
working on a mastodon aggregator, to help you browse through the content
without registering.

[https://mastodonia.club](https://mastodonia.club)

------
DayDollar
How can you escape network effects? Not at all. Thats what they are. You cant
force the public to leave this abusive relationship with a privately owned
main street.

The only thing that could do that- is another layer around the whole eco-
system, that subverts it and surplants it. I can not see anyone of the
alternatives trying this. Those who pose a real danger (instagram, using the
want for generational different medias) are bought.

The only way to escape, is to encourage institutional blindness in big
companys. Convince microsoft that a desktop windows needs to be on there
cellphones and tablets.

Convince google that no product except of search is actually viable- and these
little turtles should all die fast before even reaching the ocean.

Tell facebook, that all that is longterm sellable is user-data, not user-
usefullness.

The best way to archieve a new competitor, is internal self-sabotage of market
dominant forces.

------
stiray
Switch to own hosted searx instance.

[http://asciimoo.github.io/searx/admin/installation.html](http://asciimoo.github.io/searx/admin/installation.html)

One search is sent to multiple search engines and results shown as one. Just
go to settings and select qwant and ddg.

~~~
DavideNL
If it's own hosted, what's the difference?

Whether i send queries to Google from my browser, or from my own hosted Searx
instance, it's the same thing: a query from one of my static ip-addresses to
Google (or other search engines.)

It seems to only make sense if this Searx instance is public and your queries
are mixed with others. And in that case you have to trust whoever runs this
Searx instance won't sell your data just like Google does.

~~~
stiray
You got point in your scenario it is just convinient (it still prevents
fingerprinting) In mine it mixes 5 people search, is using proxy that goes
over vpn to shared ip on other side of europe. And it agregates results, sorts
them by results on multiple search engines not just one.

~~~
DavideNL
> it still prevents fingerprinting

I seriously doubt that, because the % of people using Searx is very small
compared to for example Chrome. This should make you very unique in terms of
fingerprinting.

Also note that simply changing the User Agent is possible in a browser as
well, you don't need a self hosted Searx for that.

~~~
stiray
The search engine has no way of executing any script on you side, 5 people
times 2 for two devices per person on my instance means you cant distinct
them. Tens of users on other side of vpn, doesnt allow you to distinct on ip
and none of useragents pass the proxy (actually squid randomizes them). And
generation of random search queries prevents fingerprinting based on search
terms. It doesnt allow fingerprinting.

(And no, in my house nobody uses chrome or any google account. They dont need
to, they have all the infrastructure, but one of members is complaining from
time to time why he doesnt have google play on his phone... :D)

------
irrational
I've never used Facebook (or Instagram or any other Facebook technology - as a
web developer I've even eschewed React in favor of Vue), so I'd say you don't
need anything instead of Facebook. Google on the other hand is a bit tougher
for me. I use Firefox instead of Chrome. DuckDuckGo instead of Google Search.
iPhone instead of Android. Apple Maps instead of Google Maps. I still use
Google Docs, but only for working on files with coworkers - I don't have
anything personal in Google Docs (I use a variety of other tools like Evernote
and Excel for personal stuff). The one I'd like to move away from, but haven't
found a good replacement, is Mail.

------
annadane
It's not fair to the public that FB bought up Insta/Whatsapp. That is a true
lack of choice. If it were just FB, fine, ignore it, don't use it, use
Whatsapp. But no, they get to buy up competition whilst telling us how much
our privacy and integrity is taken seriously

~~~
fredley
Facebook and Insta I can (and do!) live without. Whatsapp though, is the main
method of communication, and particularly group communication for all of my
friends. It's almost impossible to leave.

~~~
aloukissas
I've converted most of my friends to Signal. Easy switch.

[edit] The native desktop app is even better than WhatsApp's (doesn't stream
data from your phone).

~~~
h4waii
I've also got most to switch to Signal. On Android, it's much easier as it can
handle both SMS and Signal messages, so there's much less friction for usage.

Group chats are also fairly decent on Signal, I just wish there was a way for
an "admin" to exist to moderate users in the group.

~~~
johnchristopher
> I've also got most to switch to Signal. On Android, it's much easier as it
> can handle both SMS and Signal messages, so there's much less friction for
> usage.

Except my friend's gf could never really see when messages were using data or
SMS. And my friend put a stop to the experiment because the linux client was
leaking RAM like a dam and we both had sync problems between the phone and the
desktop client (we are both huge telegram users for the smooth experience when
connecting to your account and for syncing. We both despise the privacy risks
though).

------
nif2ee
How many organized shilling posts for DDG are enough, @dang? isn't 3 in the
top page within 72 hours enough for you or you people too get paid for it?

I am really not surprised that this journalist, just like most who get paid
under the table, shilled for 3 of the most disgusting tabloid-tier tech
companies of our time with the most aggressive marketing and astroturfing
techniques in one article.

------
StreamBright
I am pretty much planning on stopping to use the web at all. The only two
sites I would really miss are Wikipedia and StackOverflow. Google's search
results got shittier and shittier over the years, and facebook took content
filtering to the next level of stupidity while making it possible to spread
anti-vaxing propaganda on an unprecedented scale.

------
8bitsrule
I started thinking about blocking Google shortly after I (think it was on
Google Earth) got shown my current location as a picture of the parking lot
outside the apartment I was sitting in. The pix looked like it was taken from
50 feet up.

The clincher: G+ insisting I start using my real name on a 4-year-old Blogger
account. SiyoNAHra.

------
laurex
(As someone working on an actual alternative to Facebook,) this article seems
to _mention_ FB but only really present Google alternatives. That said, I've
switched all my default search engines to DDG, which would be even more great
if I didn't have to type -yelp for most of my searches.

~~~
have_faith
> working on an actual alternative to Facebook

Ditto, would love to hear what direction you're taking it in?

~~~
laurex
The product (not "mine," I'm a part of the team) has millions of users and
ridiculously high review scores. We don't have ads or sell user data, but we
make it possible for families and close friends to have real relationships
despite scheduling issues or different time zones. If you haven't heard of
this product, it may be because it's a family-oriented app with less tech-
world adoption than mom-adoption. But fundamentally, it's not about feeds,
because there's really not a way I can see that that type of UI doesn't take
you down a rabbit hole rather than into a positive feeling about yourself and
your relationships.

------
pramodzion
I know this is not an exact replacement for Facebook, but y'all should check
[https://storry.io](https://storry.io) We are also planning to add a lot of
cool features including end-to-end encrypted chat system.

------
acd
Alternative to social media. See real people in the real world. The social
interaction will make you and others happier. Call people via voice instead of
texting them its more personal.

Alternative to Google: Use Duckduckgo and a VPN+privacy extensions.

------
VikingCoder
I'm pretty sure the next thing I want to use is very similar to sandstorm.io,
but instead of apps being centralized, they're federated. The OS will moderate
the connections between services. The services will just see messages and
contacts.

------
fuball63
I'm attempting to start a forum for my friend group using good ole phpbb. Its
been an interesting challenge trying to get adoption, but as more of us are
dropping facebook, we need a place to coordinate events.

It's been a fun experiment so far.

------
muzani
Social media is about the social aspects, the media aspects, or a little of
both.

HN and news aggregators covers the media aspect just fine.

Social is a lot harder - you want to know what your old classmates are up to
and what interests them.

~~~
choward
> you want to know what your old classmates are up to and what interests them

Honestly, no I don't.

------
tyfon
My extended family and I are using diasp.eu (a diaspora pod) with paid
accounts.

So far it's been working fine, we only need it to share photos in a closed
environment.

I haven't had an account at facebook since around 2012.

~~~
capableweb
How to you convince the entire extended family that they should use a paid
account for something they can do for free, working (functionally on the
surface) the exact same way?

------
Damogran6
Increasingly, all Google is learning about me is the junk mail. I get 150
emails a day and one legitimate one everty two to three days. The rest of it
is Youtube notifications and newegg sales.

------
rajasimon
I don't have Facebook account and I'm happy with it. Now I"m using only
Whatsapp because of all our family in there. I will get rid of whatsapp in few
months.

And I'm okay with duckduckgo.

------
josefresco
As much as I appreciate DDG getting more press, this article is low quality.
No alternatives to Facebook are mentioned, only that you can use Signal, &
ProtonMail instead of WhatsApp.

~~~
anderspitman
There's still no realistic alternative to FB. It's a social network, not a
service.

------
hellofunk
> Google knows everything you have ever searched for

I thought this was an optional setting. It shouldn’t be saving or collecting
this data if you have that turned off in your Google account. Hope so!

~~~
zakember
I would assume that while they don't tie your search with your username (when
you turn it off), they would still store it anonymously to your location, IP
address, browser, etc. to 'improve their results using Machine Learning'.

Theoretically, this could be used to identify you if all those parameters were
unique to you

------
hkai
People I know are switching to Chinese messaging apps and social networks.
There's less negative coverage about them even though their privacy practices
may be slightly worse.

------
known
[https://prism-break.org/en/all/](https://prism-break.org/en/all/) is
comprehensive

------
silentsea90
How does search work for end to end encrypted apps/email? If they can't read
it, they can't index it either. Does the index live locally?

~~~
chillacy
Before IMAP, people stored their own mailboxes locally. I imagine you'd just
build local search indexes like Thunderbird back in the day.

------
riffic
News media (the bbc, for one huge prime example) can put resources behind its
own implementation of ActivityPub. It would be smart to do so.

------
bananamerica
For me, Facebook is useless I could easily avoid Google if I had to. But
WhatsApp is frequently unescapable.

------
based2
[https://framalab.org/](https://framalab.org/)

------
0xff00ffee
[https://runyourown.social/](https://runyourown.social/)

------
jonathankoren
A google alternative to gcal would be great

------
progx
Why must i use facebook?

A search engine, ok, but facebook?

~~~
newscracker
So you can avoid using a search engine and just ask your “friends” on Facebook
whatever you want an answer for and benefit from their collective wisdom? The
answers may not be instantaneous, but you’d be connecting with humans instead
of with machines.

/sarcasm

------
suyash
what's a good alternative to gmail?

~~~
prophesi
For email clients, Thunderbird on desktop, FairEmail on Android. All open-
source. It should be pretty straightforward for them to deduce what your Gmail
SMTP settings are, and you'll be able to add your emails from other providers
as well.

If you mean actual email providers, that'll be a bit harder to find. Most of
the good ones don't have a free tier. FastMail is solid. ProtonMail has a free
tier, but you have to pay to access the IMAP/SMTP bridge (which lets you use
it with Thunderbird/FairEmail).

~~~
gravitas
One thing that many don't talk about - what about Contacts, presuming we're
using the Google Contacts integration? Email for me is kind of useless without
being able to manage Contacts right alongside it, which Google integrates
extremely well on Android.

~~~
prophesi
Yeah, that's very true. I'm not sure what good alternatives there are for
Contacts/Calendar/etc. You'd need to find a good service that can sync your
CalDAV/CardDavs, as the best part about Google's Contacts is that you simply
need to login to your account to get them all back on a new device.

I personally run my own NextCloud instance for that, which is obviously not a
viable option for those without the time or technical skills to maintain that.

------
u801e
DuckDuckGo, IRC, and usenet would work.

~~~
zzo38computer
Yes, I use IRC and Usenet; I suggest these and also Unusenet (which, like
Usenet, is based on NNTP and can be used with NNTP software). Search is the
only function of Google that I use, although I do not need to make searches on
Google much. Sometimes I find what I want on Wikipedia, sometimes in local
documentations (in man pages and so on), sometimes bookmarked stuff, etc. So,
I do not need the Google search so much, but sometimes it is helpful (and
sometimes it is worthless; I try to find something but whether I try Google or
DuckDuckGo, I cannot find any).

------
snpriyanshu
What can we use instead of the BBC and NYTimes?

------
fortran77
DuckDuckGo and nothing.

~~~
chewz
Nothing is actually very decent alternative to facebook. I am using it for
seven years now.

------
senthil_rajasek
Why are Google and Facebook in the same jail?

What breach of privacy is Google guilty of?

~~~
prophesi
Historically speaking, Google is the one who innovates ground-breaking
privacy-violating technology, and Facebook copies them a year or two later
with much less tact.

~~~
senthil_rajasek
Name the privacy violating technology. How and please be specific. I can give
examples of FB violating user privacy. Cambridge Analytica.

~~~
newscracker
There are too many to list. An online search is a better idea.

Here are two instances:

Google was (and probably still is) tracking your location on Android even when
you turned off location services and storing it against your account.

Google signed you in automatically into Chrome whenever you signed in to a
Google property. This change removed the ability to keep your Chrome browsing
data strictly locally. After some Internet outrage, this was reversed.

------
FpUser
Google maps with Street View, Translate and Search are 3 things I would not
want to loose.

FB - If it disappears tomorrow I would not even notice.

~~~
pgcj_poster
If it supports the languages you use, deepl.com is as good or better than
Google Translate these days.

