decentralize and clean up your life!!!
use overdrive, libby, hoopla, cloudlibrary, and kanopy instead of amazon and audible.
use firefox instead of chrome or opera (both are made with chromium, which blocks functionality for ad-blockers. firefox isn't based on chromium).
use mega or proton drive instead of google drive.
get rid of bloatware
use libreoffice instead of microsoft office suite
use vetted sites on r/FREEMEDIAHECKYEAH for free movies, books, games, etc.
use trakt or letterboxd instead of imdb.
use storygraph instead of goodreads.
use darkpatterns to find mobile game with no ads or microtransactions
use ground news to read unbiased news and find blind spots in news stories.
use mediahuman or cobalt to download music, or support your favorite artists directly through bandcamp
make youtube bearable by using mtube, newpipe, or the unhook extension on chrome, firefox, or microsoft edge
use search for a cause or ecosia to support the environment instead of google
use thriftbooks to buy new or used books (they also have manga, textbooks, home goods, CDs, DVDs, and blurays)
use flashpoint to play archived online flash games
find books, movies, games, etc. on the internet archive! for starters, here's a bunch of David Attenborough documentaries and all of the Animorphs books
burn your music onto cds
use pdf24 (available online or as a desktop app) instead of adobe
use unroll.me to clean your email inboxes
use thunderbird, mailfence, countermail, edison mail, tuta, or proton mail instead of gmail
remove bloatware on windows PC, macOS, and iOS X
remove bloatware on samsung X
use pixelfed instead of instagram or meta
use NCH suite for free software like a file converter, image editor, video editors, pdf editor, etc.
feel free to add more alternatives, resources or advice in the reblogs or replies, and i'll add them to the main post <3
last updated: march 18th 2025
My additions:
- Use Linux. I know it sounds scary because people think Linux is just a black terminal screen and you have to type in a string of code to do anything. This hasn't been the case for like...decades at this point. Linux Mint Cinnamon has a desktop that looks just like Windows and you can learn anything you don't understand by looking it up. It has a robust community of supportive users and like 90% of Steam games work on it.
- Syncthing is a great alternative to Google drive or Dropbox or OneDrive. It's locally hosted so you don't have to rely on anyone's "cloud", you just set up a shared folder and you can view/move/edit files between multiple devices. You can even share files with other people if they also use Syncthing.
- You don't really need a PDF alternative to Adobe, Firefox opens PDFs just fine. Highly recommend alternatives to other Adobe products though.
- If you don't want to burn CDs you don't have to, but you should have "hard copies" of your music library stored locally. Like, actually saved on your device and not streamed. I recommend Stacher7 for ripping songs from YouTube.
- Proton is tempting but honestly the free plan is annoying. They constantly push a paid premium on you, ads and banners and "this feature is premium only" on every damn page. I use their email, but putting all of your eggs in the Proton basket feels just as ill advised as using Google for everything. I don't want to move everything over to Proton Mail, Drive, VPN, Vault, whatever only for them to also end up a piece of shit corporation that will sell my data to the highest bidder.
- YouTube Revanced for android phones. You'll have to look up the directions on how to install it on github but it isn't hard.
- Audiobookbay for audiobooks
