this post was submitted on 27 Jul 2023

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Google alternative (lemmy.world)

submitted 1 year ago by jasonbcfcufc@lemmy.world to c/technology@lemmy.world

57 comments fedilink hide all child comments

what are the best Google alternative apps ?

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[–] techgearwhips@lemmy.world 18 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (9 children)

Google Voice - Cheogram

Search - Duck Duck Go or Start Page

Contacts - NextCloud

Calendar - NextCloud

Tasks - Task.Org

Keep - Joplin

Maps - Magic Earth

Passwords & Sign In - Bitwarden or Keepass

Docs & Sheets - Open Office

Gmail - Proton or Tutanota

Dialer - Simple Dialer

Files - Material Files

Chrome - Firefox

YouTube - Peertube

Photos - NextCloud

Bookmarks - NextCloud, Floccus, or XBrowsersync

I use all of these but I still have to use Google Voice and Maps because they are just superior to everything else that I have tried imo. And I sometimes use gmail too because certain website logins are locked to my old Gmail's.

[–] someguy3@lemmy.ca 16 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

Not open office, use libre office.

[–] techgearwhips@lemmy.world 5 points 1 year ago

Actually I use only office (not open office) with collabora apps on my android and iphone. I always get the two names mixed up.

[–] fmstrat@lemmy.nowsci.com 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Not Libra Office, Only Office. After all we are replacing Google, so we need integrated collab (without an RDP hack).

[–] someguy3@lemmy.ca 3 points 1 year ago (3 children)

OnlyOffice is run by Russians.

[–] kenbw2@lemmy.world 4 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Is everyone in Russia responsible for the actions of their government?

[–] danielo515@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

No, but totalitarian governments tend to get into everything, and a popular piece of software is something they will be interested in.

[–] kenbw2@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I always find it amusing how everyone makes these statements for Russian/Chinese software but never look at the government interest in Facebook, Google etc

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM

[–] sorrybookbroke@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 year ago

... no shit bud, we're litterally discussing alternatives to these platforms here. We know my dude. That's why we're finding alternatives.

Russia has one hell of alot more ability to do this to random pieces of tech in their control than the US by the way, same with china. That's public and written into their laws. Not as much in the US.

Though, yes, finding a company outside of the 5 eyes is a good idea, we are not the "everyone" you're talking about. Fuck man, we're on lemmy for gods sake

[–] Luckyfriend222@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Nope. I have met the team from OnlyOffice. Really good people. Always helpful and always friendly. And nothing is beneath them when it gets to support.

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[–] AdrianTheFrog@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

onlyoffice is much more polished than openoffice or libreoffice but a bit less open

[+] PrivateOnions@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

[deleted]

[–] techgearwhips@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Good list but let me respond to a few of those.

Calendar -NextCloud is needed to sync. On my Android I use simple calendar and the dav5x app connects it to my NextCloud to sync to it. The stock Calendar syncs to NextCloud on my iPhone.

Contacts - same exact setup as how I do Calendar. NextCloud is needed to sync. On my Android I use simple contacts and the dav5x app connects it to my NextCloud to sync to it. The stock contacts app syncs to NextCloud on my iPhone.

Maps - I absolutely loath organic maps. It never worked for me. I would put in a street name and address and it would never find it. I need stuff that works. So it's Magic Earth most of the time and Google Maps if I'm really serious about getting somewhere and scared to get lost. Like if I'm in a sun down town or some shit like that.

Weather - I also use Geometric weather. Fantastic app!!!

Google Play store - When I first started degoogling, I tried to completely cut out the play store but then some apps that I paid for would never work. And they refused to accept any other form of payments. So I use the play store to download certain apps and then I block it with afwall+. I mostly use Obsidian and F-Droid

Google authenticator - I use 2fas. I like the browser extension and it just works seemlessly between my android, iphone, and desktop. It's also now recently been open sourced.

Google messages - I also use simple sms. I really like the simple suite and how simple it is. I even use their dialer and gallery.

Gboard - is probably the very last Google app that I'll get rid of. I've tried all the open sourced keyboards and none are as good. But I do have afwall+ blocking all outgoing connections on my Gboard. Gifs don't even work.

[–] EraNet@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

What about Collabora Office?

[–] spez_@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

Photos - Immich

[–] enbee@compuverse.uk 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

thank you so much for introducing me to cheogram. for maps try Magic Earth app based on openstreetmap.org

[–] techgearwhips@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

You're welcome. And yes Magic Earth is what I use. Maybe you skipped by it in my list. But sometimes I go back to Maps when I'm somewhere unknown and don't want to get lost in the sauce lol

[–] enbee@compuverse.uk 2 points 1 year ago

gotcha, I did skip to the bottom and see the bit about still using g00gly maps. been on graphene os for about 18-19 months now and Magic Earth keeps getting better and better.

[–] chandz05@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Nextcloud has a notes feature now that is pretty much comparable to keep. Has its own app too

[–] techgearwhips@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

There's many ways to do notes. Here's the 3 ways that I tried. Keep in mind that I have iPhone, Android, and Windows Desktop and Windows Laptop... So I like options where it will sync seemlessly across all of those.

Tried obsidian. There was a feature that it was missing that made me completely give up on it. I forgot what it was but I remember it being something that all note taking apps should have. Like a no-brainer.
Then I tried NextCloud notes (desktop). Quillpad (android). Notebooks (iOS). Syncing between the 3 was terrible.

3a. Joplin. There's an app for all 3 devices and so the user experience is the same everywhere. Used my NextCloud to sync and it worked amazing for a week. Then after that, I started getting sync errors every time.

3b. Made a free Dropbox account and switched my Joplin sync to that. Has been smooooooth sailing ever since. Also there's a Backup add-on that exports all my notes to a folder on my desktop daily.

[–] chandz05@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Interesting... Thanks for your insight! I'll experiment with Joplin.

[–] cyberpunk007@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Maybe something changed recently, but it's not like keep from what I remember. Keep has easy to use lists, embedded images, card layout. I do love the simplicity of markdown though.

I since converted to joplin, love it.

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[–] ghostermonster@discuss.tchncs.de 10 points 1 year ago

Instead of a fish, I'm going to give you a rod.

https://privacyguides.org https://gofoss.net https://european-alternatives.eu/ https://github.com/tycrek/degoogle

[–] Mubelotix@jlai.lu 8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

This is a bit off-topic but I have been working on a peer-to-peer search engine to index the decentralized web (ipfs). It's only a MVP as of today

[–] iopq@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago (1 children)

It works, but the top 100 results were from Wikipedia

[–] Mubelotix@jlai.lu 2 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Thanks for trying out! Very few websites are indexed yet because due its decentralized architecture, people need to run nodes and add the websites they care about themselves. There is no crawler

[–] nbafantest@lemmy.world 7 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I use duck duck go.

It's pretty good, but it's obviously not as good as google. And I'll frequently have to actually google something.

Things that are almost comically bad on DDG:

-maps/restaurants/businesses -news/current events

[–] sorrybookbroke@sh.itjust.works 1 points 1 year ago

DDG is a good bing proxy, but I do prefer Google's results so I use startpage which is to Google what duckduckgo is to bing. Neither have their own web crawler they both are simple proxies to another engine

[–] Myrbolg@lemmy.world 6 points 1 year ago (2 children)

For Search I use Duckduckgo (free).

For Mail, Calendar and Contacts I use Fastmail (free or paid, I use the paid version).

For file storage there's plenty of alternatives (Dropbox etc.)

For browser I use Edge, but it is also built on Chromium. I will make my choice once the recent Web Environment Integrity topic has become more clear.

[–] Kingofthezyx@lemmy.world 16 points 1 year ago

Why do you use Edge over Firefox?

[–] nehal3m@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

You're free to do whatever you want, but I think it's important to be informed and reading your comment about Edge I thought I might clarify: The reason WEI is a problem is because of Chrom(e)(ium)'s sheer market share. If it's easy for websites to assume a non-attested browser is a bot or a small minority of privacy-minded people they will simply not serve those.

Basically I'm saying by staying with your current browser you're helping Google push this through.

But again, you're free to do whatever you think is right for you.

[–] spez_@lemmy.world 2 points 1 year ago

For Google Photos, Immich

[–] Veedem@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I use DuckDuckGo for search. Has worked well for me.

Other than that, I’m mostly on Apple devices so I use their alternatives. Gmail is the one I haven’t been able to get away from. I use it in too many places now.

[–] luthis@lemmy.nz 2 points 1 year ago

I'm slowly migrating over to protonmail, but changing email is a long process.

[–] pacoboyd@lemm.ee 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Search - SearXNG - Has the option to self-host but is an aggregated search engine. Respects privacy, lots of configurable search engines.

https://github.com/searxng/searxng

Browser - Firefox - Really enjoying the mobile version with addon support.

Maps - OsmAnd~ - Honestly not as good as maps, but fits the bill.

[–] KLISHDFSDF@lemmy.ml 2 points 1 year ago

For maps check out Organic Maps: https://organicmaps.app/

[–] PaperTowel@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

I personally think Brave Search doesn't get enough love. It's surprisingly great, search results are fast and always get me relevant sites, and the AI summarizer is really good.

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