Introduction
I'm listing privacy respecting alternatives to products and services that track you. Most of the alternatives are open source. Open source software is developed by volunteers around the world and its source code is open to all. Those alternatives that are not open source are explicitly mentioned as such. Very few alternatives show advertisements. Those are explicitly mentioned as well. Alternatives are not listed in any particular order.
Legend
| Symbol | Meaning |
|---|---|
| ! | not open source |
| + | can be self-hosted |
| ^ | shows ads |
Privacy respecting alternatives
| Products or Services | Alternatives |
|---|---|
| Chrome, Edge, Safari |
Firefox, Fennec F-Droid (Get started with Firefox) |
| Microsoft Office | LibreOffice |
| Windows, MacOS, Chrome OS |
Linux Mint, Ubuntu, MX Linux |
| Google Search, Microsoft Bing |
Duckduckgo !^, Qwant !^, Searx + (Guide to self-host Searx) |
| Google Play Store | F-Droid Store |
| Microsoft Office 365, Google Docs, Sheets, Slides |
Collabora +, CryptPad +, EtherPad + |
| Android, iOS |
GrapheneOS |
| Windows Media Player | VLC Player |
| WhatsApp, Telegram |
Signal, Briar, Jami +, Element with Matrix + |
| Google Meet, Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Microsoft Skype, Cisco Webex |
Jitsi Meet +, Jami +, Element with Matrix + |
| Google Drive, Dropbox, Microsoft OneDrive |
Nextcloud + (Guide to self-host Nextcloud) |
| Microsoft Outlook, Windows Mail |
Mozilla Thunderbird |
| Google Maps, Apple Maps, Bing Maps |
OpenStreetMap, OSMAnd |
| Google Fonts | Font Squirrel ! |
| Google Blogger | Ghost +, Wordpress + |
| Google Analytics | Matomo +, Fathom + |
| Google ReCaptcha | hCaptcha !, Friendly Captcha, Lepture Captcha |
| CCleaner | Bleachbit |
| uTorrent | qBittorrent, Transmission |
| Wallabag + | |
| Google Photos | Piwigo +, Lychee +, Nextcloud +, (Guide to self-host Nextcloud) |
| 1Password, Dashlane, LastPass |
Firefox Lockwise, KeePassXC, BitWarden +, VaultWarden +, Pass |
| Google Authenticator, Microsoft Authenticator |
Aegis Authenticator |
| Github, Gitlab, Bitbucket |
Codeberg, Gogs +, Gitea +, self-hosted Gitlab + |
| Pastebin, Github Gist |
PrivateBin + |
| Adobe Photoshop | GIMP |
| Patreon | Liberapay, Open Collective |
| Chess.com | Lichess + |
Alternate email and VPN services
All the alternate email and VPN services listed here claim to not track you and provide privacy. They seem to be much better than the rest. But it's very hard to determine their open source nature because email and VPN clients can be open source but the servers are still under their control. So I'm not gonna comment on that. It basically comes down to which provider you trust the most. In the end, you just gotta do your own research.
Note : Wireguard is an open source software and a protocol that can be used by other VPN services or even by you if you want to self-host. It is not a VPN service provider in itself.
| Services | Alternatives |
|---|---|
| Gmail, Yahoo Mail, Microsoft Outlook.com |
Tutanota, Protonmail, Mailbox, Fastmail |
| NordVPN, ExpressVPN, PIA |
Mozilla VPN, Mullvad VPN, WireGuard + (Guide to self-host WireGuard VPN) |
Alternate privacy respecting front-ends
These are third party open source and non-tracking front-ends to popular services.
| Products or Services | Alternate Front-ends |
|---|---|
| Youtube website | yewtu.be, invidious.snopyta.org |
| Youtube app | NewPipe, SkyTube |
| Reddit website | Teddit, Libreddit |
| Reddit app | RedReader, Slide |
| Bibliogram | |
| Twitter website | Nitter.net, Twiiit.com |
Also, you can run your own instances of Invidious, Teddit, Libreddit, Bibliogram and Nitter by self-hosting them.