Happy Fourth of July! I am in the process of moving away from big tech. Here’s what I’ve done so far.
For browser and search engine, I switched from Google Chrome to Brave with DuckDuckGo.
For email, I purchased a subscription to ProtonMail. My Gmail account is nearly inactive.
For cloud services, I canceled my subscription to Google One’s storage plan using instead my own solid state drives.
For office tools, I switched from Google Docs and Sheets to Apache Open Office.
For those interested in doing something similar, Sven Taylor provides a list of alternatives for Google products at the Restore Privacy site. There are more alternatives than I initially realized.
For social media, although I am currently inactive on Facebook and Twitter, my accounts remain open. I think it is worthwhile to interact with others in such environments. The same goes for places like Stack Exchange and Quora where I also have open, but inactive accounts. At the moment my social media focus is on MeWe and this WordPress blog.
Part of alt tech is to learn how to wear the whole armor of God (Ephesians 6). It is not just using open source software to protect one’s privacy or new platforms to avoid censorship. The user needs to get his act together. Without that armor I could still become corrupted and unwittingly corrupt others in turn.
By the next Fourth of July, God willing, I hope to be on Linux and know better how to wear that armor.
Weekly Bible Reading: Numbers (Audio) Deuteronomy (Audio)
Commentary: David Pawson, Numbers, Part 2 of 2, Deuteronomy, Part 1 of 2, Unlocking the Bible
Poetry, Short Prose and Walking 