your phone is a place that can fit so many apps in it. use less google ones and more from secure, open-source, smaller places!!
in the spirit of the blackout, I'm gonna talk about some of the alternatives I use for various google services
just go download firefox now tbh. close this app. kill your chrome for everything you don't need it for. and use firefox. give them money if u can.
No, it's not Google related, exactly. But it is very important to have your messages be secure. If you can, use Signal and get your friends to do it too! it's free! they have giving links too, but no paid tier. it mostly works well, but there are some bugs/quirks that take getting used to - e.g., I often will notice my messages taking an extra second to send, and if I go to a different app in that split second, they won't send until I look at signal again. annoying, has caused me some miscommunications, but the app is ultimately worth using for end to end encryption
gmail, calendar, drive, photos - Proton - plus, a VPN!
ProtonMail is also very secure. I'm not even involved in like, organizing or anything sketch but I know those people have found refuge in proton.
Proton's calendar is pretty good, very similar to google calendar and you can make group calendars. Unfortunately, you can't have multiple colors in one calendar unless you're on a paid tier, and I think that's hugely limiting on the free version, but if you can do a monotone calendar for free, do it. my partner and I have proton duo for like $21.99/month or something (which is steep for a calendar alone, but also includes email aliases, a VPN, and 500 gb of drive space)
Proton drive... I don't get it yet. I just use it to back my stuff up. But it looks fine, and google drive is mid anyway. take your files off there. use a real word processor unless your collaborating or smth.
compared to keep, Notesnook has both upgrades and downgrades. Free and paid tiers.
there are so many more ways organize notes. you can organize by notebooks, the free tier gives you 20 of em, and tags. you only get 5 tags for the free tier which is limiting, though.
formatting wise, you can add tables, code blocks, math equations, and use a bunch of tools. it's practically a word processor
customizable light/dark UI. is pretty nice.
paid tier can attach pdfs
no collaborative notes yet :( - this is its BIGGEST drawback to me. I haven't been able to fully let go of keep yet bc collaborative & quick grocery lists etc are SO useful in my life. taking recommendations
one thing - those updates are proposed on notesnook's website and people can vote on which will be implemented by the devs first. They seem to prioritize based on an effort-to-votes ratio, so features that are easier get developed after a few hundred votes, while harder stuff with thousands of votes may sit longer.
Translate - Depends; Leo is good for German
depends on what language you're learning/translating. I used to use deepL but now I prefer Leo for German.
first app I saw that had police reports. it's got a pretty accurate ETA for me, ymmv
to me - it's fine. taking further alternative recs too :)
Honorable mention: Cosmos instead of Pinterest
it's just nice. not sure how applicable outside of like, drawing refs tho
What alternative apps do you use?? Any recs? Especially replacements for YouTube (I've heard good about curiosity stream but can't verify) and Spotify (Soundcloud?? bandcamp?? a bunch of apps?) ofc in the spirit of the times.
happy not-watching, yall!