I switched to indie apps for privateness, and now my workflow is a multitude

I simply wished to ship a file from my Android telephone to my Home windows 11 PC. It ought to have been simple, however I had de-Googled my life, and all of the sudden, I used to be caught. Fast Share was gone. Google Drive wasn’t an choice. Docs and Preserve had been additionally out of the image. My new setup relied on a handful of indie instruments, and so they weren’t cooperating. Microsoft’s Cellphone Hyperlink wasn’t working (once more), and my Canadian cloud service was as sluggish as molasses.

It was at that second I spotted escaping Large Tech solely sounds good in principle. The observe turned out to be way more tough than it ought to have been. Right here’s what I realized making an attempt to reside a Large Tech-free life, and why I’m nonetheless choosing up the items.

I’ve grown uninterested in handing over my knowledge to huge monopolies that deal with me like a product. Google reads my emails, Fb tracks me throughout the web, and Amazon is at all times spying on me.

I didn’t need that anymore. I wished to help impartial builders constructing considerate, purposeful software program. I didn’t wish to be a part of an algorithm or a data-scraping scheme for AI. So I set some floor guidelines for my new digital life.

I used to be in search of apps that weren’t US or Chinese language-owned. If there was an app within the US that I completely wanted, then it needs to be a nonprofit, like Firefox. If it was Canadian, my dwelling turf, it jumped to the highest of the listing, however Australian and European apps had been fantastic. Large Tech was an instantaneous no.

Right here’s what I ended up utilizing:

• Sync as a substitute of Google Drive
• Obsidian as a substitute of Preserve
• ToDoist as a substitute of Duties
• Elemental as a substitute of chats
• Kobo as a substitute of Kindle
• VLC as a substitute of YouTube Music
• Firefox as a substitute of Chrome
• Ecosia as a substitute of Google Search
• Fastmail as a substitute of Gmail

I didn’t count on perfection, however I hoped I may construct a contemporary, and personal, workflow that did 90% of what I used to do. What I ended up with was a fragmented, friction-filled expertise that price me some huge cash and useful time.

I went with Fastmail to interchange Gmail. It is a quick and clear electronic mail service from Australia. It’s non-public, it handles electronic mail in addition to Gmail, and it comes with a set of instruments included within the annual $50 price. I ended up falling in love with Fastmail, and it has fully changed all different emails in my life. I want I may say the identical for Sync. It is a Canadian cloud storage service with robust encryption and no monitoring. It felt good ethically, however virtually, I discovered it sluggish and clunky. File uploads from my Android took endlessly to seem on my PC, and the cell app seems dated.

I swapped out YouTube Music for my very own MP3 and FLAC recordsdata, saved regionally on my telephone. It felt good to return to the previous iPod days, and VLC has a stable music participant that may deal with just about any music file. I personal 1000’s of tracks from the previous days, and it felt liberating to cease renting my music from Large Tech. My swap to Kobo was related, though now I used to be shopping for my ebooks from Indigo, Canada’s greatest bookstore, as a substitute of Amazon.

Obsidian grew to become my substitute for Preserve and Docs, and it was not enjoyable. Obsidian is highly effective on desktop, however sluggish on cell. I by no means favored the way it regarded or felt. Whereas it received the job finished, there was at all times one thing lacking. I attempted the plugins, learn the boards, and watched the movies, however in the long run, I ended up by no means utilizing it. ToDoist, alternatively, has at all times been a pleasure to make use of, and I’ll proceed utilizing it till the day they take my Android from my palms.

I ended up falling in love with Firefox. Then, its homeowners determined to vary the phrases and declared possession over all the pieces I did within the app. I shopped round for a substitute and settled on Vivaldi, albeit reluctantly. Chromium nonetheless has Google’s palms throughout it, in any case.

The most important failure was messaging. I experimented with Ingredient, a decentralized, encrypted platform constructed with the Matrix protocol. It appeared like an excellent concept, however setting it up is a ache. In the end, getting anybody else to make use of it’s inconceivable. Good luck explaining decentralized protocols to my mother. She’s fantastic with Messenger.

Every little thing felt disjointed with out a unified ecosystem. Notifications had been delayed, or didn’t arrive in any respect. I’d create a process in ToDoist however it wouldn’t present up in my Fastmail calendar. Saving a file from Fastmail to Sync meant first manually downloading the file, then re-uploading it. No drag-and-drop, no auto-sync. Even copying a hyperlink from Obsidian into an electronic mail felt like extra work than it needs to be.

The monetary price alone proved to be complicated. I subbed to ToDoist, Fastmail, Obsidian sync, and Sync.com. None had been outrageous on their very own, however every one added up. I used to be nonetheless paying lots, and for a messier expertise.

That mentioned, I did acquire some privateness and was capable of help firms I believed in. However that easy, invisible infrastructure that makes instruments really feel like extensions of my mind was lacking, and it wasn’t any cheaper.

Large tech will get one factor undeniably proper: integration. For all its flaws, all the pieces simply works. You don’t typically discover how easily recordsdata sync throughout units, emails hyperlink on to calendars, and messages circulation to their recipient. Duties seem on calendars whereas attachments can save on to Google Drive or OneNote. This comfort is invisible till it’s gone.

There’s additionally a type of cognitive aid that comes from utilizing an ecosystem designed to carry your total digital life. You don’t should juggle instruments or rewire your mind each time you turn duties. Google, Apple, and Microsoft have spent years constructing methods that anticipate what you’ll want subsequent. It’s an expertise most indie apps simply can’t match.

I’m not strolling away from all the pieces. Fastmail is staying, as is ToDoist. These are two stable apps price each penny. I’m sticking with Vivaldi for now, utilizing Ecosia as my search engine. I’m additionally sticking with native music recordsdata, and even arrange a Plex server to stream movies and music from my PC to my Apple TV 4K. It simply works. I’ll maintain Kobo, for now. I ditched all the pieces else and went crawling again to Google. Preserve is great, and Google Drive has no equal.

What I’ve realized is there is no such thing as a such factor as a clear break when going indie. I do know Proton is constructing its personal ecosystem, with a easy single price. I could attempt it subsequent. Within the meantime, it’s exhausting to beat how good the massive tech ecosystems makes all the pieces really feel.