Awesome Privacy
List of free, open source and privacy respecting services and alternatives to privative services.
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[!IMPORTANT] Anonymity, Privacy, and Security are often used interchangeably, but they actually represent distinct concepts. It is important to understand the differences between them. Read more in this section below.
The primary focus of this list is to provide alternatives that prioritize privacy. These alternatives give you control over your data and do not collect or sell it.
Contents
- 2FA
- Analytics
- Android
- Artificial Intelligence
- Bookmarking
- Captchas
- Commenting Engines (disqus)
- Cloaking
- Cloud Storage
- Creator Tools
- Databases
- Dating Apps
- Design Tools
- Developer Tools
- Domain Registrar
- Download Manager
- Encryption
- File Management and Sharing
- Fitness and Health
- Fonts
- Forms
- Games
- Home Assistants
- Instant Messaging
- Link in Bio Tools
- Link Shorteners
- Location tracking
- Mail Services
- Maps and Navigation
- Media Streaming Platforms
- Music Recognition (Shazam-like)
- Notes and Tasks
- Office
- Online Phone Providers (SMS)
- Operating Systems
- Password Managers
- Pastebin and Secret Sharing
- Payments
- Personal Finances
- Photo Editing and Management
- Photo Storage
- Privacy Tools
- Remote Access and Control
- Search Engines
- Social Networks and Platforms
- Speech to Text
- Teamworking Tools
- Text To Speech
- Translation
- Uncategorized
- Utilities
- Version Control
- Video and Audio Conferencing
- Video Editing
- Virtual Private Networks (VPNs)
- Web Browser
2FA
Avoid using apps that won't let you export your keys easily.
Instead use
- Aegis - A free, secure and open source app for Android to manage your 2-step verification tokens. Supports variety of imports from other apps (Google Authenticator, Authy etc.), vault encryption and exporting keys (plaintext or encrypted).
- ente Auth - A free, cross platform, end-to-end encrypted and open source app for managing your 2-step verification tokens. From the makers of ente Photos, and uses the same battle tested infrastructure. Needs an ente.io account.
- Owky - Free and Open Source Two-Factor Authenticator for IOS users.
- FreeOTPPlus - Enhanced fork of FreeOTP-Android providing a feature-rich 2FA authenticator.
- Authenticator Pro - Two-Factor Authentication (2FA) client for Android + Wear OS.
Analytics
Avoid any analytics service that comes from Google, Facebook, Microsoft or any private service. These kind of analytics hurt user privacy.
Instead use
- Ackee - Self-hosted website analytics.
- Aptabase - Open-source, privacy-first and simple analytics for mobile and desktop apps.
- Cabin - Privacy-first, carbon conscious web analytics.
- GoatCounter - Privacy aware, lightweight and open-source analytics platform.
- Matomo - Google Analytics alternative that protects your data and your customers' privacy.
- Nullitics - Zero-effort open-source cheap analytics.
- Pirsch - Pirsch is a simple, privacy-friendly, open-source alternative to Google Analytics — lightweight, cookie-free and easily integrated into any website or backend.
- Plausible - Simple and privacy-friendly alternative to Google Analytics.
- Shynet - Modern, privacy-friendly, and detailed web analytics that works without cookies or JS.
- Swetrix - Privacy-focused, fully cookieless and opensource (and selfhostable) web-analytics service.
- Umami - A simple, fast, website analytics alternative to Google Analytics.
- Unidentified Analytics - Naive ip-based tracking that works everywhere (web, command-line, email, etc). No account required. Developer friendly.
Android
Android App Store
Avoid
Instead use
- F-Droid - F-Droid is an installable catalogue of FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) applications for the Android platform.
- Droid-ify - Lightweight F-Droid client with Material UI.
- Aurora Droid - Aurora Droid is a modern FOSS client for F-Droid.
- Foxy Droid - Unofficial F-Droid client in the style of the classic one.
- FossDroid - Fossdroid's aim is to promote free and open source apps on the Android platform: newest, trendiest and the most popular ones.
- SkyDroid - Decentralized App Store for Android
- Obtainium - Get app updates directly from the source.
- Accrescent - A novel Android app store focused on security, privacy, and usability.
Alternative Google Play Store clients
- Aurora Store - Aurora Store is an open-source alternative Google Play Store frontend client with privacy and modern design in mind.
Android Dialer
Avoid
Third-party dialers found on the play store. They may contain ads/trackers and may ask for unnecessary permissions.
Instead use
- Koler - Uniquely stylized phone app with customizable features.
Android File Manager
Avoid
Preinstalled file managers and third-party file manager apps found on the play store. They may contain ads/trackers and may ask for unnecessary permissions.
Instead use
- Amaze File Manager - Simple and attractive Material Design file manager for Android.
- Material Files - An open source Material Design file manager, for Android 5.0+.
- Ghost Commander - Dual-panel file manager.
Android Keyboard
Avoid
Instead use
- AnySoftKeyboard - The only Android keyboard you'll ever need. Free as in speech and Free as in beer.
- FlorisBoard - FlorisBoard is a free and open-source keyboard for Android 6.0+ devices. It aims at being modern, user-friendly and customizable while fully respecting your privacy. Currently in early-beta state.
- Futo Keyboard - A modern keyboard that respects your privacy and security, with features such as offline voice input, swipe typing and smart autocorrect.
- Heliboard - A privacy-conscious and customizable open-source keyboard, based on AOSP / OpenBoard with many additional features and improvements, including support for custom dictionaries, themes, and glide typing.
- Indic Keyboard - Indic Keyboard is a versatile keyboard for Android users who wish to use Indic and Indian languages to type messages, compose emails and generally prefer to use them in addition to English on their phone.
- OpenBoard - OpenBoard is a 100% foss keyboard based on AOSP, with no dependency on Google binaries, that respects your privacy. It is no longer updated, but still works.
- Simple Keyboard - Simply keyboard and nothing more.
Android Gallery
Your phone gallery is a deeply personal aspect of your life, it may contain images and videos that capture intimate moments, locations, and people important to you. Protecting its privacy is essential to prevent misuse of this information, not only for you, but it also ensures the privacy of friends and family captured in these photos, who may not consent to having their images shared.
[!NOTE] For a private way to store and backup your photos see Photo Storage section.
Avoid
- Google Photos has privacy issues. They collect a lot of data about you, which you can see in their privacy policy. Google can scan your photos and might flag them for different reasons, as shown in this incident. They also use your photos to improve their AI technology.
- Amazon Photos also has similar privacy problems. Like Google Photos, it gathers a lot of information from your photo gallery. You can see a bit of what kind of data they collect in their examples list.
- Samsung, Huawei, Xiaomi, etc. Gallery
Instead use
- Aves - Beautiful gallery and metadata explorer app, built for Android with Flutter.
- Fossify Gallery - Fork of Simple Gallery. Browse your memories without any interruptions with this photo and video gallery.
Android Launcher
Avoid
Third-party launchers found on the play store. They may contain ads/trackers and may ask for unnecessary permissions.
Instead use
- Lawnchair - No clever tagline needed.
- OpenLauncher - Customizable and Open Source Launcher for Android.
- KISS - Lightning fast, open-source, < 200kb Android launcher.
- Olauncher - Minimal AF (ad-free) launcher app for Android.
- Posidon Launcher - Posidon launcher is a minimal, one page homescreen with a vertical scrolling feed.
- Pie Launcher - Android home screen launcher that uses a dynamic pie menu instead of fixed positioned icons.
- Rootless Pixel Launcher - The Launcher3 fork known as "Rootless Pixel Launcher".
- Bliss Launcher - The default launcher of the /e/ Android-based OS. It allows users to easily create and browse group of apps and it displays notification badges on app icons.
Artificial Intelligence
When using cloud-based AI services, the data you input is often collected and stored by the service provider. This may include not only the content of your requests but