Office. For word processing, spreadsheets, etc., try LibreOffice. It's free, it's open-source, it's pretty, and it works great. It can mostly open your existing documents, but that's hit-and-miss. You're best off saving all new documents in Open Document Format and liberating yourself from the shackles of proprietary document formats.

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Messaging. For text, video, calls, disappearing messages, etc., use Signal. The company is a registered non-profit, existing purely to make communication safe and simple. It works on all devices. This is the app Edward Snowden relied on to communicate with journalists when warning us all about the growing surveillance state.

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News. The Intercept is still an independent haven for investigative journalism. Almost all other U.S. news is either softening any criticism of the government, or outright lying and selling propaganda. Update: Check out Ground News.

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Artificial Intelligence. If you need to use AI, the makers of Claude refused to let their system kill people—yes, like Skynet—or perform mass surveillance despite heavy pressure from the Pentagon. Then Claude's competitors immediately sold us out.

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Maps. I ran TomTom alongside Google Maps while driving and found they took me on nearly identical routes with respect to traffic. The app is simple to navigate and is focused on getting you places, not tracking you and selling your data. I tried several others (paid and free) including MapQuest.

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Email. Try Proton Mail. Not only does it work great, but paired with Proton Pass, it can automatically create anonymous email aliases for every site you join, protecting your main address from spam. If you have years' worth of important email saved in other platforms, you can use eM Client to drag all your old mail into Proton.

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Cellular. I switched to Cape for maximum privacy. They really mean it—I didn't even have to give them my email address nor create a password. As of right now (May 2026) they have an early adopter lifetime discount program. Additionally, everyone who uses my referral link gets $20 off their bill, and these stack up so you can get free mobile. The currently don't support RCS but that's on the roadmap for 2026.

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Social Media. I have no solid suggestions. I am on the W Social waiting list now. They adhere to strict privacy laws of the EU, which put U.S. privacy laws to shame. The company says their platform will be used by humans only (no bots).

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Web Browser. Use Vivaldi. This is based in Norway and Iceland, adheres to strict privacy laws, and follows the same web standards as the most popular web browser on the market today.

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Photos. I switched from Google Photos to Ente. It was painless, only took a few clicks and a few hours of waiting for the file transfers to complete. For the DIY crowd, I've heard great things about Immich​​.

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Music. TIDAL pays artists a fair share per stream, and 7digital offers high quality MP3 and FLAC downloads. Better yet, check out Bandcamp—mostly for independent artists like us—especially on Bandcamp Fridays where artists keep 100% of sale revenue. Fuck Spotify and their AI weapons investments.

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Search. Google complies with government requests for information about journalists and dissenting users. Incognito mode does not protect you. Switch to Brave, a completely independent search engine. (I previously recommended StartPage, but they were partly piggybacking on Google for search results.)

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​Shop. Amazon provides data infrastructure services to ICE. You can use Amazon to read reviews and discover products, but order them elsewhere, or just shop locally. Skip Whole Foods (owned by Amazon) and visit your local farmers market. The best shopping strategy will vary wildly depending on your location, but that's kind of the point.

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Authenticator. Proton Authenticator is hands down the best 2FA app I have ever used; better than Twilio, Google, and Microsoft. The desktop companion app sync means you don't need your phone for logging into desktop websites.

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Resist. You can scream with me on social media but the efficacy is questionable at best. The CIA published the Simple Sabotage Field Manual in 1944. Nobody wants to be a martyr, but absolutely everyone can neglect to adequately oil the machinery of the fascist state. Be the sand in their gears, the fart in their air, the idiot driving too slowly in their fast lane—be a fucking pain in the ass!​

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​​​​​​There's much more to be said—I'll update this page as I have time. Please contact me with any suggestions.