Introduction

Stop exchanging your humanity for digital convenience.

The internet isn't what it used to be. What used to be an exciting land of new technology and fun sites is now a corporate hellscape filled to the brim with ads, ecological disaster, genocide, war, and greed. It may seem impossible to retain your humanity online when, in order to participate in modern life, it is required to engage with companies like Google, Microsoft, OpenAI, Amazon, Oracle, and Apple who all pollute, arm genocidal and imperial regimes, weaponize our attention spans, decrease our bargaining power, revoke our privacy, outsource our thinking and creativity to robots, take away our control, and more, but in this site I will show you how you can do just that. With how much time is required for us to spend online nowadays, it is crucial we stay aware of the kinds of people and companies we're giving our time, money, and attention to. Along the way you'll create a better space for you to exist online by blocking ads and finding cool tools. Personally, I'm tired of exchanging my humanity for digital convenience. If you are too, explore this guide and learn how you can take back control on your internet experience by ad blocking, increasing privacy, freeing yourself, and customizing while distancing yourself from our corporate overlords.

The next page, "Why is this important?", will go into detail about the corporations and systems that make the world the wonderful place it is today before we get into the actual tutorial part of the site. The Blocking Ads and Internet Privacy page includes info on taking control of your online experience by blocking ads and increasing your privacy. I highly recommended to read that page first before doing anything else, as those methods are a lot more effective then the other pages' info due to most of them applying across the internet rather than just with one specific corporation or platform. The Streaming page has ways you can limit your support of corporations while still enjoying content from your favorite creators and artists. The De-Googling and Rejecting Corporations page includes info on removing yourself from corporate ecosystems by moving to more ethical, private, and superior alternatives. The Useful Products and Services page includes info on niche but useful things that aren't necessarily a form of protest, but that I think could benefit a lot of people if only they knew about them.

The hardest part about anything in this list is knowing it exists. Not once did an algorithm recommend me one of the services shown or did an ad get served to me about them - I had to found out about these things manually. That's why I wanted to do the hard part for everyone and compile everything I've found.

Feel free to share or reach out for more info or additional resources. I made this because I wanted to do something to try and fight against the crazy corporate hellscape we live in today by helping my peers, so I'm doing it with something I'm passionate about. I had fun making this, so hopefully it can benefit someone. If you're feeling lost and hopeless with the state of the world, try too to use your expertise to help others.

I tried to make the guide as approachable as possible regardless of your level of tech proficiency, but I am assuming you are at least somewhat capable of navigating around your devices. I think the content in this guide, maybe with the exception of some things on the De-Googling and Rejecting Corporations page, are things everyone would benefit from regardless of your stance on the issues I will soon raise with big tech companies. Things like blocking ads and increasing your privacy should theoretically be helpful to anyone.

You can use the sidebar or the left ← and right → keys on your keyboard when applicable to navigate across the pages. You can also use the "← Previous" and "Next →" buttons at the bottom of every page to navigate. You can get a link to a specific section by copying the link from any header or the sidebar. If there's anything I should change, improve, or clear up (especially if there is a barrier to accessibility), let me know.

Key

Free/Paid Status

Notes about a product's free/paid status will be highlighted in yellow.

Open-Source

If a product/service is open-source, it will be highlighted in blue. If something is open-source, it means the code is publicly accessible. This is important as people can ensure the code is safe to run and isn't doing anything fishy. It also means that the creator(s) likely made the project out of passion rather than greed, since there is little stopping someone from creating a rivaling service. I've found more success with free and open-source (FOSS) services than whatever will come up when you search for something on an app store or online, as the FOSS versions won't be for profit or filled with ads.

Platforms

• "Most PC/desktop platforms" includes Windows, Mac, and Linux
• "Most mobile platforms" includes iOS and Android.
• "Most browsers" includes at least Chrome and Firefox.
• "From any browser" means it's available from a website.

Code and Commands

Code or commands will be inside code blocks, for example print("Hello World"). I avoided them as much as possible, but for yt-dlp it was just unavoidable.

Links

Things I recommend are hyperlinked. Things I don't recommend or things without obvious links are linked to Wikipedia. Links that link outside of the site open in a new tab. Links to other parts of the guide are in purple, apart from links to privacy and security so the site isn't a purple mess. There are even links inside quotes and code and commands, although they are hidden unless you hover over them so they look nice.

Links to YouTube videos don't link to YouTube, instead they link to https://redirect.invidious.io/. Simply pick any of the listed instances to see the video. For more information, see Invidious.

Sources

I tried to include sources to claims or quotes when necessary. I used in-text citations, mostly following MLA format, within parenthesis at the end of the sentence that requires the source containing a hyperlink to that source. When applicable, I used the the company's name that the source is speaking on behalf of, even if the source has a defined human author, for clarity as to what company the source is from. Everything else uses the author's last name(s), or the organization's name(s) when lacking a credited human author. I cited Wikipedia as a source for when there are simply too many instances of what I'm describing for me to list or cite them all (for example, a list of a specific company's privacy concerns). If there are any claims you think are lacking in sufficient evidence, please let me know.

Disclaimers

About Me

I am by no means an expert, nor do I have any relevant security or tech credentials. I am just sharing the products that I've found across years of searching that I use on a daily basis to make my digital experience more secure, private, enjoyable, and ethical.

I am anything but unbiased on issues with things like tech and the society. I believe I cited sources whenever I made claims, but my personal anti-corporation, anti-system, and anti-billionaire bias is sure to be evident. I am from the US, so the things I'll talk about and the services I suggest will lean towards there. Regardless, I think this guide will be relevant and helpful regardless of where you are on the globe. Hopefully that assumption is true.

About You

This guide is intended for general audiences. I tried to make it as simple and as straight forward as possible so that anyone who is somewhat proficient on their devices could follow it. If you are someone with experience in tech, you may find the guide too simple or you may use a different thing than the one I suggest. The things I suggest are what I think a general user would be comfortable using and maintaining.

My goal here isn't to change your political opinions on corporations or the world, it's to give you the reasons and tools you need to create the change you want to see in the world. My main goal was to get people who already dislike groups like Google to finally have the motivation and the resources needed to actually do something about it. If you're coming into this guide as a person who is already upset at the way things are going, whether you are or aren't sure of how to fix it, or as a person who already wants to remove billion dollar corporations from your life but you just don't know how, you're more or less the target audience. If you're coming into this guide as a person who thinks the environment isn't something that deserves to be protected, that marginalized groups deserve the hate and abuse they receive, that politicans have our best interests at heart, or that billionares work hard to earn everything they have and deserve to sit at the top of the world while they watch it burn beneath them, I'm not going to spend time and effort to change your mind when it likely wouldn't work (Bellizzi).

About the Site

This info may not be up to date. Given the fast-paced nature of the tech industry, this info can change often and drastically. All it takes is one good or bad update or one new revelation to completely rewrite the rankings in a given category. For example, for a while I recommended Brave Search as my search engine of choice before someone in an Instagram comment section made me aware of Peter Thiel's investment in the company.

This is very much still a work in progress. I'm adding new things every day, both to the tech I recommend and to the reasons to go through this process. There's still a lot of things I want to research so I can add them.

This is not a guide on operational security. This guide is not designed to help you stay private from the governments of the world. This guide exists mainly to help you make more ethical choices online.

I am not a lawyer, and nothing here is legal advice. This site for informational purposes only.

About Services

These services are not necessarily the "best" options when it comes to privacy or security. The most functional products are often going to be the least private and ethical and often the most private and ethical products can be worse than their billionaire-backed counterparts. I tried to pick the most ethical options, but for some things there just isn't one. I understand it is frustrating when there are no ethical and functional options for a given thing, but you need to remember that is isn't about you. People are dying, the planet is burning, and we are helping it happen. I think we'll be fine if we spare a little convience to stop it. Let anyone get mad at you for not having RCS or not using Instagram, then show them this site and make them mad at themselves.

There may be a lot more good options that I don't mention. I tried to only include my favorite option, the most used option, and/or the option I think non-techy people would be comfortable using. I tried to limit most things to just one option so people don't need to do their own research as to what option to go forward with.

If you're going to do anything from this list, I would recommend getting NextDNS. It blocks most ads across all devices, sites, and apps. This means you won't be constantly bombarded with ads, you'll be more secure and private, and you'll take away a source of money for the corporations making the world what it is today. They have really easy to follow instructions on how to set it up, no matter what device you're on.

About Terms

Within the context of tech, the words secure and private can be easy to confuse. The word "secure" means the data is secure to outside sources (think passwords and banking info), while "private" means if your information can be accessed by the service you're using (think browsing habits and things advertisers want to know about you) (Aragon et al.).

The terms "company" and "corporation" have different meanings. A company is a more general term for groups that conduct business for a profit, while a corporation is a specific type of legal entity (Indeed). I more or less use them interchangeably, so note that some groups mentioned (including Samsung, a chaebol, and OpenAI, a hybrid organization) are not corporations.

Some groups and brands listed are owned by a parent corporation with a name that is different from the name people call them in common conversation. Examples of this include Google - which is actually owned by Alphabet - and Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and more - which are owned by Meta Platforms. I often use the more recognizable name, like saying Google instead of Alphabet even if I'm referring to Alphabet, for clarity.

Additional Resources

Articles about things like privacy often have bad info or are even being paid to promote certain products. Most articles I've seen promote the most commercially successful products as the best ones, even when any credible expert would disagree. For example, this article about what VPN to pick by PC Gamer lists NordVPN as the best. Upon clicking the link, you'll see that it's an affiliate, meaning someone makes money when you make a payment. This is why I suggest advice from trusted individual or organizational experts for things like tech. Reddit is also an amazing resource, as it's real people helping real people. Big subreddits like r/Piracy have amazing guides and wikis on how to do certain things. Of course, it's still unverified and often wrong as it's just random people doing their best, so use it with caution. I understand Reddit has a certain reputation when it comes to the people on it, but in my experience, the people on digital freedom, piracy, and anti-corporation-based groups are helpful.

I also wanted to specifically thank the journalists who I cited multiple times: Damian Carrington from The Guardian, Joseph Cox and Jason Koebler from 404 Media, Caolán Magee from Al Jazeera, and Conor Murray from Forbes.

Below are some helpful pieces of info, databases, news sources, organizations, communities, and creators that have helped me or that I think you should check out in, alphabetical order. My favorites/the ones that I especially recommend you to check out are in bold.