1.Email

FastMail, IceDove (GNU debranded ThunderBird), FairEmail

2.Cloud storage / file sync

Syncthing, Nextcloud for sharing and browsing files, I store my files using TrueNAS and a RAID Z2 configuration with Backblaze B2 for backup

3.Maps & navigation

OsmAnd with Brouter (FastBike-VeryLowTraffic profile) for ebike, my local transit app for public transit, Magic Earth the rare occasion I use a car, Uber rarely, I still use Google Maps for searching because everything else sucks

4.Search engine

Kagi, nowadays I usually use Deepseek R1 model with either Kagi Assistant or OpenRouter but might self-host LibreChat

5.Web browser

LibreWolf for searches, FireFox and FireFox PWAs for sites I regularly visit but planning to switch to Floorp. On Android, Cromite for random sites, Vanadium for sides I stay logged in to, IronFox with extensions for searches.

6.Calendar

Etar synced with Nextcloud using DAVx5

7.Contacts management

GrapheneOS contacts app synced with Nextcloud, the Fossify app has given me problems

8.Notes / to-do lists

Tasks.org synced with Nextcloud, Logseq for random notes, Markdown or comments in Typst documents in certain contexts

9.Office suite (docs, spreadsheets, etc.)

Typst or LaTeX for documents I make myself. LibreOffice or Collabora app for MS office documents.

10.Messaging / chat

Signal (Molly) and Discord (Vesktop, Revenge) most of the time

11.Video calling

Signal or Discord for personal, Teams for business stuff

12.Social media / microblogging RSS reader / news

Lemmy, Reddit, Instagram

13.Music streaming / podcast app

Tidal for my own playlists, Spotify for playlists from other people, YouTube when I want to randomly listen to something, ListenBrainz and Last.fm for scribbling. I want to set up Navidrome again but last time I did it was a disaster.

15.Password manager

Bitwarden/Vaultwarden

16.VPN / DNS / Firewall

InviZible Pro and Privoxy (uses Tor and I2P). I should probably get Mullvad or AirVPN.

17.Launcher / Android OS (if you use custom ROMs)

Kvaesitso

18.App store / APKs

Obtainium for FOSS, Google Play for proprietary

19.Photo backup / gallery

Syncthing-Fork, Aves Libre

20.Weather

Weather.gov, Windy which tends to be more accurate for more specific locations

Never used googol. It was garbage from the get go.

Moved to Zoho (specifically Zillum (zoho for families)). That takes care of email, cloud storage, calendar, contacts, online office suite.

I use linux on my laptop (manjaro). Firefox for browser. Searxng for search. Selfhosting FreshRSS. 1Password for password manager.

Good luck on the process!

1. Proton
2. Proton (Sync leave a lot to be desired)
3. Organic Maps
4. Kagi
5. Firefox (LibreWolf)
6. Proton
7. Contacts are kind of a mess. A combination of Proton & my phones Google Contacts library. Though I use the Fossify app
8. Standard Notes / Tasks.org
9. LibreOffice
10. Had to go back to Google Messenger when my new phone wasn’t receiving work MMS and group messages.
    I use Signal with my closest friends and family
11. Signal / Zoom
12. Fediverse almost exclusively (~90% Lemmy)
13. AntennaPod for podcasts
14. I still use Youtube for videos and streaming since I’m still grandfathered into the $8 original Google Play Music All Access intro offer. They are contractually obligated to never increase the price on me.
15. BitWarden (Not a fan of the updated interface, may switch to Proton)
16. Proton
17. Lawnchair
18. Droid-ify with Play Store as fallback
19. Proton
20. Breezy Weather
21. Too picky for an assistant, AI or otherwise

1. Protonmail though thinking of going to tuta
2. None, does a flash drive count?
3. OsmAnd+
4. Kagi
5. Fennec f-droid (firefox)
6. Fossify calendar
7. Aosp contacts
8. Fossify notes
9. None
10. Molly (signal), matrix, SimpleX. SimpleX and Molly most though
11. None
12. Lemmy (daily), Nostr (mostly daily), Mastodon (sometimes), ReadYou RSS (DAILY)
13. ANTENNApod and VLC
14. Peertube and Odyssee (NewPipe for YT content)
15. Keepassdx
16. ControlD.com DNS blocks ads, tracking, and malware (via private dns setting in system settings. DoT)
17. Launcher3 i think its called on LineageOS 22
18. F-droid (frequently) and obtainium (rarely)
19. See #2 / fossify gallery
20. Wx and Quickweather (fdroid for both)
21. None
22. Cant think of anything right off the bat

Email

Mailbox.org + Thunderbird

Cloud storage / file sync

Filen

Search engine

i switch between DuckDuckGo and Brave for the Goggles feature

Web browser

Firefox! Iceraven on my phone

Calendar

Fossify Calendar

Contacts management

Fossify Contacts

Notes

Obsidian

to-do lists

1List

Office suite (docs, spreadsheets, etc.)

OnlyOffice or CryptPad

Messaging / chat

Signal

Video calling

i don’t lol. but if i did, Signal.

Social media / microblogging

Akkoma & Bluesky

RSS reader / news

FreshRSS + Read You

Music streaming

Spotify for now. considering Deezer, but i’m on a shared plan.

podcast app

AntennaPod

Password manager

Bitwarden

VPN / DNS / Firewall

DNSNet (for adblocking)

App store / APKs

F-Droid & Obtainium

gallery

Aves

Weather

Rain

1. Protonmail (would like to find a better alternstive)
2. Syncthing/SMB over Tailscale
3. OpenStreetMap (Organic Maps)
4. Searxng (still pulling results from Google among others)
5. Firefox
6. Self-hosted through nextcloud
7. Baikal
8. Obsidian
9. LaTeX, markdown and LibreOffice
10. Signal
11. Signal
12. FreshRSS through Capy Reader over Tailscale
13. Finamp/Audiobookshelf/Antennapod
14. Still youtube through Tubular (looking for a better service)
15. Bitwarden
16. Tailscale and Mullvad / PiHole and Quad9 / OPNsense
17. GrapheneOS
18. Obtainium
19. Restic to backup NAS and periodical cold storage/Immich
20. Pirate Weather and local weather station reporting over Meshtastic through Home Assistant
21. Home Assistant with local LLM
22. Media streaming - Jellyfin, push notification system - ntfy

So far:

Email - Tuta

Cloud storage / file sync - pCloud

Maps & navigation OsmAnd (OpenStreetMaps)

Search engine - Kagi

Web browser - Librewolf

Calendar - Nextcloud (on theGoodCloud)

Notes - Joplin

to-do lists - Todoist (cause integrates with HomeAssistant)

Office suite - LibreOffice

Social media - Mastodon/Lemmy/GroundNews

podcast app - AntennaPod

Password manager - KeePassXC

VPN - Nord DNS - PiHole Firewall - Ubiquiti ERX

App store - FDroid (if at all possible)

Photo backup - pCloud here too

Weather - (personal weather station) and Wunderground

Smart assistant - HomeAssistant

Liking all my choices so far… No real trade-offs (that I miss/notice).

1. Email: Migadu via Thunderbird
2. Cloud Storage/File Sync: I have Syncthing-Fork synchronising my wallpapers on my mobile devices. In a pinch I use a self hosted MicroBin or NextCloud.
3. Maps & Navigation: N/A
4. Search Engine: SearXNG
5. Web Browser: Firefox
6. Calendar: NextCloud via DavX5
7. Contacts Management: NextCloud via DavX5
8. Notes/To-Do Lists: BundledNotes
9. Office Suite (Docs, Spreadsheets, etc.): LibreOffice
10. Messaging/Chat: Telegram, Signal and RCS
11. Video Calling: Telegram via MercuryGram
12. Social Media/Microblogging: Mastodon via Moshidon
13. RSS Reader/News: Miniflux via CapyReader or ReadYou
14. Music Streaming/Podcast App: Navidrome via Symfonium
15. Video Streaming/Youtube Alternative: Jellyfin
16. Password Manager: Bitwarden
17. VPN/DNS/Firewall: Pi-Hole
18. Launcher/Android OS (if you use custom ROMs): N/A
19. App Store/APKs: F-Droid
20. Photo Backup/Gallery: Immich
21. Weather: N/A
22. Smart Assistant (if any): N/A
23. Anything Else You’ve Replaced? Home Assistant for Google Home and Kavita via Legado for Kindle

1. Email

I self-host my email using postfix, dovecot, rspamd and others. The only tradeoff I had to make here is that some of the entities I have to communicate with via email use an allow-list, so some of my outgoing mail is sent through a relay (SMTP2Go).

2. Cloud storage / file sync

I self-host a minio for cloud storage. I don’t need file sync, so nothing there. If I would, I would likely use syncthing.

3. Maps & navigation

OpenStreetMaps & CoMaps. Works much better than Google Maps did.

4. Search engine

Currently a self-hosted YaCy. I have my own index. Not entirely happy with this setup, will switch to something else (still self-hosted, I have no need for a general purpose search engine that indexes the entire internet of slop).

5. Web browser

LibreWolf

6. Calendar

I’m using Emacs & Org for most calendaring. Wife’s using GNOME Calendar & a Calendar app I found for her on f-droid (unsure which one).

7. Contacts management

Nothing on desktop, some random contacts app from f-droid on the phone. I do use EteSync to keep a backup, and potentially sync later. (EteSync syncs her calendar too)

8. Notes / to-do lists

Emacs & Org.

9. Office suite (docs, spreadsheets, etc.)

Most of my “office” needs are covered by a combination of Emacs, Typst and Zola one way or another. For the rare case where I need Office compatiblity: LibreOffice.

10. Messaging / chat

XMPP. Dino on Linux, Conversations on Android. I use Matrix too, from time to time (Element), and have Signal too. Not a big fan of the latter two, because it isn’t practical to self-host those.

11. Video calling

XMPP. Dino & Conversations. If I need to video call with someone else, I’ll use whatever they use, usually.

12. Social media / microblogging RSS reader / news

For social media, the Fediverse is my only social media. I’m using Tuba on desktop, Tusky on the phone for it. For RSS, self-hosted Miniflux. For Lemmy, the web ui on desktop, Voyager on phone.

13. Music streaming / podcast app

Lollypop & Shortwave.

14. Video streaming / YouTube alternative

FreeTube or yt-dlp if I need to watch youtube, PeerTube otherwise.

15. Password manager

Bitwarden (via a self-hosted Vaultwarden on the server side).

16. VPN / DNS / Firewall

The only VPN I use is WireGuard between my systems, but I don’t tunnel everything through it. For DNS, I’m using unbound on my VPS, which in turn dispatches to Quad9. Firewall? nftables.

17. Launcher / Android OS (if you use custom ROMs)

I haven’t de-googled my phone, because my bank app refuses to work on rooted phones, and I unfortunately need that for the bank’s 2FA. No, I am not changing banks. I do use a custom launcher (Nova), though.

18. App store / APKs

F-droid.

19. Photo backup / gallery

I manually copy photos from the phone to my PC, and it gets backed up with the rest of the stuff. I do my backups with restic, and save a copy on my own server, and another at BorgBase. I’ll have a third copy at a third place later.

20. Weather

wttr.in, mostly.

21. Smart assistant (if any)

My wife. <3

22. Anything else you’ve replaced?

Not strictly de-googling, but I’m using Codeberg & my own self-hosted Forgejo instead of GitHub. I replaced LibreWolf’s bookmark manager with Readeck. For push notifications on Android, I’m using a self-hosted nfty.sh.

Would love to hear about your setup — both what works well and any trade-offs you’ve had to make. Always looking for better FOSS or privacy-friendly alternatives

Oh dear. Strap in, for you’re in for a Journey! The entire configuration of both my desktop and the rest of my fleet (my VPS, my homelab server, and my Mom’s miniPC at the moment) are all free software. Based on NixOS, declarative configuration written in a literate programming manner using Org mode. There is a lot of documentation.

1. Fastmail
2. My Nas and Syncthing/rsync
3. Osm throught Osmand and a cheap Garmin Navi I got from a flea market
4. Duckduckgo
5. Librewolf/Firefox
6. Etar Synced via CalDAV
7. Contacts on my Sim card
8. A mix of etar and Fossify Notes
9. Libreoffice with Openoffice if it dosent work
10. Signal, Telegram
11. Signal/Zoom
12. Thunderbirds RSS, Lemmy and Pixelfed, I just look on Tagesschau every other day
13. Newpipe, Jellyfin, and Antennapod
14. TILvids and the instance The peertube App recommends videos from
15. KeePassCX, or at least im trying to make it work
16. Mullvad, PiHole with Mullvad VPN, Standard NAT wall
17. Kvaesito / Graphene
18. F-Droid, Aurora Store, Obtainium
19. My Nas, planning to switch to Nextcloud
20. FOSS weather, fetches from German Wetterdienst
21. None
22. None

I think you got your answer.

email, calendar, contacts

Fastmail. Migration to some European provider is planned. K-9 for email on phone. For email/calendar/contacts Thunderbird on desktop. Contact and calendar sync Davx5 on phone. Fossify for contacts and etar for calendar on phone.

cloud storage

Filen. Zero knowledge e2ee service from Germany

maps & navigation

OSM-AND+

search

qwant (from France) and sometimes DDG or startpage

browser

LibreWolf + uBlock origin

notes

just a text editor (Pluma)

office

Latex & LibreOffice when needed

messaging

Signal, some contacts are still in TG

video calling

Don’t use

social media

Lemmy & Mastodon

music streaming

Don’t use. I get mine either on physical media if possible (cd) or in flac format (Bandcamp)

video streamming

Nebula, Odysee and FreeTube for youtube content

password manager

keepassXC. DB is synced via cloud to other devices

vpn & dns

Mullvad

firewall

Linux built-in (netfilter) configured thru Yast

android os

Graphene OS

app store

F-droid and some via Aurora store

photo gallery

Digikam locally on desktop. Fossify gallery on phone.

weather

Finnish meteorological institution

smart assistant

Don’t use

anything else

I ditched google mostly years ago. Graphene OS is the latest one and that was only this year. FreeTube is also fairly recent (sometime last year). Before that I used piped but that was nuked by google. More precisely they made it impossible to use. On software I’ve been FOSS first for over 10 years. Using OpenSuse Tumbleweed on my desktop and laptop (Thinkpad L580).

ProtonMail for mail Nextcloud for cloud, self hosted. Here wego and Mapy for maps, but I still have Google Maps as a fallback:(((

For search I’m using a combination of DDG, Qwant and Startpage.

Web browser: Vivaldi and Firefox, Brave and DDG as backups. ProtonCalendar for calendar

Still using Google Android on my daily driver so haven’t moved contacts yet, but really looking for some recommendations!

Apparently my task list is an app just called Reminder, haven’t thought about it for years

Don’t really do office stuff myself much, but if I do and it’s just for me I just use any text editor (even Vim) and if I collaborate it’s almost always some Google Doc :(((

Messaging is still FB messenger and Discord, but I’m trying my best to move my best people over to Signal, it’s not a battle I think I’m gonna win any time soon tho.

Lemmy and chats for social media. Antennapod for podcasts. Qobuz and Bandcamp for music.

For youtube I just run the site in either Vivaldi or Brave on my phone without logging in since they allow for background playback (might have to change a setting for it to work), but I mostly just stopped watching TV/screen content for completly different reasons so 😅 I also host a Jellyfin server with some films.

Bitwarden for passwords. Only use VPN for work, haven’t seen any compelling reasons for having my own, but if I did I’d probably use Tailscale or Wireguard.

I have been testing e-OS on an old Samsung S9 for a few years and that’s a great alternative to Google Android, it’s on my list to consider when I feel like I can defend getting a new phone.

1. Tuta

2. Self-hosted Nextcloud

3. Organic Maps for lookups, Magic Earth for navigation

4. Self-hosted SearXNG

5. LibreWolf on desktop, Fennec on mobile

6. Tuta or Nextcloud, haven’t really settled yet and I barely use a calendar as-is

7. Android built-in with Nextcloud sync

8. Nextcloud

9. Nextcloud (Collabora) and LibreOffice

10. Trying to get my family on Signal, but due to some holdouts and RCS not being available on anything but Google’s messenger, I still keep their SMS app around. Mostly use Discord though realistically, likely soon to be Matrix.

11. N/A

12. Bluesky mostly. Not ideal but keeping up with active blocklists to shut out anyone right of center makes it much more usable.

13. Navidrome with Feishin (desktop, also have a self-hosted web player just because) and Symfonium (mobile). Beets for metadata management

14. Jellyfin for streaming, still use the “official” youtube app but Revanced really helps with it

15. Self-hosted Vaultwarden + Bitwarden

16. PiHole for DNS (need to set up Unbound still, maybe a weekend project). Mullvad VPN on everything. My Wireguard connection to my homelab actually routes out through Mullvad, so one VPN connection lets me access my LAN while protecting my outbound traffic.

17. GrapheneOS, Nova launcher

18. Split between F-droid, Aurora, and the Play Store for when the other two don’t work. I try to use it as little as possible

19. Self-hosted Immich. Aves Libre for local image management.

20. I swear everything I use just has its own weather integration with a random site I’ve never heard of LMAO. GrapheneOS recommends BreezyWeather for widgets which works pretty well.

21. None, never, fuck that shit.

22. Aegis for 2FA, Heliboard for a mobile keyboard. Set up a whole bunch of self-hosted tools which don’t replace anything for me but help me manage things I’ve been slacking on: ActualBudget, Paperless (digital file cabinet), Mealie (cookbook app), just to name a few.

I’m about 80% of the way there. I’ve been slacking on migrating things over to my Tuta email since I set up forwarding from my old Gmail accounts.

My last major holdouts are Fi (nothing else remotely compares price-wise in this area), Google’s phone and messenger, and the pixel camera. The very second third party apps start using RCS, messenger is out (or if I can get the rest of my family on to Signal). The screening features of the phone app are too good to give up just yet, and the same goes for the quality of the Pixel camera - nothing comes close to those just yet.