Digital Independence Day: What I Use
Initially created on
Today marks the first Digital Independence Day, which will be held every first Sunday in 2026. The idea is to move at least start using one more privacy respecting non-big tech alternative each month. I have been slowly but steadily moving all my digital life away from big-tech over the past year already, but still a few steps to go.
Inspired by a great talk about volunatry privatly organized censorship in Germany by the CUII by Lina and Elias Zeidler (Northernside), I switched to DNS4EU:
| Type | IPv4 | IPv6 | Description |
|---|---|---|---|
| unflitered | 86.54.11.100 | 2a13:1001::86:54:11:100 | no filter at all |
| protective | 86.54.11.1 | 2a13:1001::86:54:11:1 | blocks malicious domains |
| protective + ad-block | 86.54.11.13 | 2a13:1001::86:54:11:13 | blocks malicious domains and some ads |
| protective + child protection | 86.54.11.12 | 2a13:1001::86:54:11:12 | blocks malicious domains and has children-friendly content filtering |
| protective + ad-block + child protection | 86.54.11.11 | 2a13:1001::86:54:11:11 | all filters active |
Apart from that, these are the tools that I currently use:
- social media: Twitter → Mastodon
- picture management: Apple Photos → Immich (self hosted)
- email: Gmail → Proton Mail (I am thinking about moving to Tuta)
- calendar: Google Calendar → Proton Calendar
- password management: 1Password → Proton Pass (soon to be switched to Bitwarden with self-hosted Vaultwarden instance)
- RSS reader: Google Reader / Feedly → FreshRSS at private.coffee
- read it later: Pocket → Readeck (self-hosted)
- search: Google → StartPage (thinking about switching to Kagi)
- browser: Chrome → Waterfox & Zen
- hosted git: GitHub → Forgejo at private.coffee
- static site hosting: GitHub Pages → Forgejo / Codeberg Pages at private.coffee
- messenger: WhatsApp → Signal
- cloud drive: Google Drive → Proton Drive (to be changed in the future)
- office suite: Google Docs → Cryptpad at private.coffee
- database: Airtable → NocoDB (self-hosted)
- DNS server: Cloudflare → DNS4EU
- music: Spotify → Jellyfin (self-hosted), files are being legally downloaded from Qobuz1
- ebooks: Amazon Kindle Store → KOReader (still on Kindle) using Calibre, and then buying the books from Beam Shop
- cab hiring app: Uber → Taxi 40100 App in Vienna2
Qobuz is based in France and offers high-quality files, I can only highly recommend this store! ↩︎
Taxi drivers mentioned that all apps are a burden, no matter what app I use. The 40100 app dumps prices even lower to what Uber and Bolt are doing. Unfortunately, if I travel with my dog, I need a cab hiring app, as most taxi driver won’t take me otherwise. ↩︎