My exit
Breaking free from bigtech.
In the wake of Trump's entry with his extreme actions and big tech's accompanying cheers, I choose to steal and rename Trump's quote into “Europe first!” 🇪🇺. Buy and support European products, apps and services as much as possible, as well as open source and privacy-friendly software and use as little bigtech as possible.
Before Easter, I attended a webinar with my labour union Tekna and Attac, where exit strategy and our dependency on bigtech and the big cloud providers was the topic. It was an inspiring seminar that led me to go further than I had already done, which ended up with me fixing dual boot on my PC 💻 during Easter 🐣 and now I almost exclusively run Linux Mint, a user-friendly and stable operating system that was highlighted at the seminar by one of the speakers, Hagen Echzell from Attac.
The apps and services I have completely or partially replaced are:
- Microsoft Windows -> Linux Mint
- Microsoft Office -> LibreOffice
- Microsoft OneDrive -> Jottacloud
- Google Chrome -> Firefox
- Google search -> Qwant
- Google Translate -> DeepL
- Google Maps -> OpenStreetMap
- Gmail -> Proton Mail 📧
- Google Calendar -> Proton Calendar
- Lightroom -> Darktable
- Photoshop -> Krita
- Google Chat -> Signal
- Facebook -> Hudd (🇸🇯 only)
- Messenger -> sms/Signal
- Instagram -> Pixelfed
- Twitter/X -> Mastodon and Bluesky
- ChatGPT -> Le Chat
- VS Code -> VSCodium
I am gaming some, and Steam for Linux can run many Windows games using Steam proton.
The only one I was unable to run on Linux was Microsoft Flight Simulator, but I rarely used it anyway. What's more, with dual boot I can go into Windows if I want or need to. I've slimmed down OneDrive from 200 GB to 300 MB and therefore manage with the free version. The only thing left there is photo backup from my phone, which neither Proton Drive nor Jottacloud syncs as well as OneDrive does, unfortunately, since deleted files don't sync to the cloud, it would end up piling up with expired photos. I can't get away from the Microsoft ecosystem completely overnight, it seems.
For now, my gut feeling is very good. I can still work from home 🏡 without any problems, and the computer starts up, works and shuts down faster than before.
Financially 💶, I don't have to pay for subscriptions for Microsoft 365 and Adobe Photoshop/Lightroom, but I do pay for Jottacloud and Proton Pass and Mail. I'm also planning to support the open-source community with the occasional donation. Those developers contribute to a better world❤️️! In the longer term, I may save even more by being able to keep my PC for a few more years because Linux 🐧 does not require as powerful hardware as Windows.
Perhaps some of this can be an inspiration to others? Long live Europe, open source and privacy 🌱, and down with Donald and bigtech!🤛