The hope is that this guide and website can act as a simple way to introduce newcomers - whether it’s you, friends or family - into this space and try something else besides the default options!
There is also a community-driven, open-source site ( https://purchasewithpurpose.io/ ) that aims to make this even easier. This includes screenshots, ratings and a larger feature list.
Every time I post these guides, there is always feedback on things that can improve, or I got wrong. Please do share, as it is the best way for these to evolve.
What’s wrong with Thunderbird email? Since Firefox is there, you’d assume Thunderbird would make it too, no?
It’s a client, but it doesn’t do emails itself yet.
Im trying to like Sync but I don’t think it’s very good. It’s slow and the UI is so clunky. Also no desktop app for Linux.
No Nextcloud? No KeePassXC? No Startpage? Rubbish
These are all on the website. The guide is more geared towards less technical users. https://purchasewithpurpose.io/
I self-host Bitwarden and it’s been great. Used 1Password back in the day but their shift to SaaS has made it expensive and bloated with a bunch of crap I don’t care about. Made sure to set up a backup of the BW databases and auto-updating the docker image that it runs in. Set up secure access for my family, and even managed to host it for a couple friends.
Keepass has always interested me, but I haven’t been able to figure out if there’s a browser extension that supports accessing databases stored remotely as I use my passwords on a few computers I can’t install applications on, but I can use extensions.
How hard is self hosting for someone who is a completely Linux noob? I have an extra PC that I’d love to use for it, but I have no idea how to start. Searching the web seems to only return guides for people who are used to using CLI on Linux already, which I’m not used to.
This is the list with my annotations. A lit of things missing there where there are good alternatives, but it’s a good start.
Thanks for the feedback! I had to limit the options presented to avoid making the guide overwhelming. Most of those options are listed on the website - https://purchasewithpurpose.io/
Out of interest, you circled a few options. Any reason? Or are those the tools you use?
I like the site, it’s clean and straightforward
I appreciate your work!
Thanks! Put a lot of effort in making it as user friendly as possible. More updates to come!
Those are which I actually use, the ones which were available I circled, if not ai added the name of the one ai use.
I also prefer your recommendations. I would add Debian and OpenBSD in the operating systems. Also Lemmy in “social media”. I also believe Lagrange gemini/gopher client should be widely used.
I prefer PieFed over Lemmy. .what are you using Gemini/gopher for?
let’s not forget Brave - the best browser in the world right now
like a combination of Chrome, Librewolf and TOR browser
Anyone aware of any issues with Filen? I’m interested in giving it a shot.
Web:
- add LibreFox because it’s the most paranoid out of the box, and it’s good
Email:
- Fastmail should be removed. They have the best UI ever, but their servers are still in the USA and they don’t have any E2E encryption
- I don’t see Posteo here: https://purchasewithpurpose.io/category/email/, it should be added (if that’s you)
Passwords:
- 1password had a few controversies in the past, I would never use it
Search:
- Qwant sucks, that’s all, they have sucked since the beginning
- add Searx https://metasearx.com/ which could be good for some people
Music:
- Deezer hates VPN, I don’t know how you could show that but it drove me away
1password had a few controversies in the past, I would never use it
Can you link to the controversies?
All I see is that people download unrelated malware, which obviously gives access to everything on the system.
I’m still looking for a Microslop Teams and Office replacement. It needs to be usable in a business context. I had a look at Nextcloud Talk for the Teams part but it looked like an absolute nightmare to set up.
Infomaniak/OnlyOffice might be a good bet. I’m personally giving MobiOffice and have been pleasantly surprised.
Alright comments, let’s hear it. Why do all these tools suck? Why are they the wrong thing?
haha been pleasantly supportive
That’s a nice change of pace.
Can you please share how you created the guide? I would like to make one myself.
I used canva.com - feel free to post to [email protected] once you have put it together
I would love to find a low-effort meme and “fun” pics stream like Imgur. Pixelfed is too serious photographer, and while lemmy has plenty of meme pictures, the UI makes it awkward to just scroll at breakfast and send something funny to fam. Just a wall of images and short videos, and no comments unless you click them.
Is Orion legit for Apple users? https://orionbrowser.com/
Yup! An excellent option for Apple users.
Vivaldi is Norwegian, not EU.
Funny how reddit isn’t on the list (or maybe I’m blind), but I guess it doesn’t really have to be since we’re already here anyway.
It’s unfortunate but I’d recommend removing Firefox, Protonmail, Duckduckgo.
- Librewolf is better, SearXNG is more trustworthy than DDG.
I personally wouldn’t recommend ZorinOS, Ubuntu, and Pop!OS.
- Linux Mint is a solid recommendation.
- EndeavourOS is also pretty good.
- Arch Linux (base) is getting really good due to improvements to archinstall.
What’s wrong with DDG? I noticed that the result quality deteriorated in the last months. It now displays a lot of garbage results that are based on the most common of the entered search terms and completely ignores the rest, just like Google does. They also have an AI that gives answers which are actually related to the search query. This seems to be an effort to push AI by artificially worsening search results. Even with quotes its almost impossible to find anything that isn’t completely trivial.
