I’ve spent the last couple of years realizing that my digital life is a long-winded series of subscriptions and microtransactions for the assortment of services I’ve signed up for.
Whether it’s Google holding my photos hostage, or Microsoft with OneDrive. There’s also file sharing and documents to work with.
There’s little getting around the stranglehold that the Big Tech experience has on how you work, and the data you own.
Recently, I decided it was time for a change. I’m moving my data to open source alternatives and the switch over has been more seamless than I thought it would be.
Here is how I’m doing it, what I’ve learned and why you might consider doing the same.
Breaking away from the Google ecosystem
Convenience versus control
For the longest time, I’ve been using Google Workspace for all the flexibility it offers.
It’s been easy, as between Google Docs, Sheets and Drive, I’ve built my productivity system around the apps.
But with the advent of AI being everywhere, I’ve not been very comfortable with the idea that all my data is being used in one way or another, even without my knowledge.
Plus, the constant changes in UI and that I don’t hold the keys to my own ecosystem has been irking me.
One of the first things I switched out was Google Photos. It’s arguably Google’s best app, which makes it hard to leave.
Between the cross-platform availability, incredible search, and easy sharing, it’s hard to find an alternative.
But the price of being locked into Google’s platform is giving it all up for training facial recognition algorithms.
So, I’ve made the switch to Immich. It’s a self-hosted, open source photo management app that looks and feels exactly like Google Photos, right down to the layout.
It has the same maps view, similar enough facial recognition, albeit running on your own server, and a very good mobile app experience.
The difference is that the files stay entirely on your own server.
Yes, it requires a bit of a setup and backups are entirely your own headache, but the effort is worth the peace of mind knowing that your personal memories are securely in your control.
Similarly, for Google Drive and file sharing, I’m using a combination of services like NextCloud and even the file sharing built into my NAS.
Most of us depend on Google Drive when it comes to sharing large files.
However, Google is known to randomly flag perfectly safe files as being infected, or potentially dangerous.
Not just that, it’s not unknown for the company to delete files either.
I didn’t want that uncertainty or the anxiety of knowing that my account could get locked down at any point because of no fault of my own.
Running my own file sharing infrastructure means that’s no longer in question.
My files are entirely under my control, so are permissions and even who has access to them,
Moving on, the hardest part was replacing Google Docs.
There’s Office 365, but that’s jumping from one corporate giant to another. That’s a no-go.
I tried LibreOffice, but wasn’t the biggest fan of the interface.
So, looking for alternatives, I ended up on OnlyOffice. It’s an open source, self-hostable office suite that gets as close to Office 365 as I’ve seen yet.
It handles all your usual docs and Excel files just as well as any other office suite, which means transitioning across isn’t hard at all.
Rethinking everyday dependencies
From Notion to Logseq, and entertainment too
On the topic of productivity, Google’s suite isn’t the only thing I’m dependent on.
Take, for example, Notion. It’s a tool that I use practically every day.
But I’ve found an alternative in Logseq. It’s a privacy-first open source tool that stores everything locally.
Unlike Notion, which is essentially a giant database in the cloud with minimal local support, Logseq lives entirely on my computer.
Plus, it supports Markdown files, which makes the files easy enough to move around whenever I want.
Productivity apps aren’t the only ones that I’ve switched over from. Streaming services are another pain point.
Between Netflix constantly raising prices and the constant need to jump across apps and services to find the content I want to watch, I’ve been looking for an alternative.
Instead, what I’ve done is set up my own Jellyfin server complete with movies and TV shows ripped from my library of DVDs.
Do I have the absolute latest viral show on hand? Not really. But I have thousands of hours of curated, quality content that is entirely on my server, free to stream wherever I want and there’s value in that.
Switching away from Big Tech isn’t frictionless, but the tradeoff is worth it
I wouldn’t lie to you and say that the switchover was perfectly seamless and friction free. It wasn’t.
You will miss certain features and conveniences, but that’s to be expected. What you earn in return is full control and autonomy.
Reclaiming your data is a slow process, but after you start seeing the open source alternatives, you’ll realize that it is doable and that, too, with a fairly limited amount of work.
