De-Google Your Life - Part 2: Ad-Free YouTube!

[Guest]

De-Googling is hard, but Proton, Tresorit, 1Password, Ente, OpenStreetMap, FreeTube, and more want to help you break Google’s monopoly over your digital life. How do they work, and why should you trust them?

 

 

Password Managers

• Bitwarden - https://bitwarden.com/
• KeePassXC - https://keepassxc.org/
• 1Password - https://1password.com/
• Proton Pass - https://proton.me/pass

Authenticators

• Ente Auth - https://ente.io/auth/
• Authy - https://authy.com/

Maps

• OpenStreetMap - https://www.openstreetmap.org/
• Magic Earth - https://www.magicearth.com/
• OsmAnd - https://osmand.net/

Cloud Storage

• Cryptomator - https://cryptomator.org/
• Proton Drive - https://proton.me/drive
• NextCloud - https://nextcloud.com/
• OwnCloud - https://owncloud.com/
• Tresorit - https://tresorit.com/

Adblock

• Pi-Hole - https://pi-hole.net/ - Our video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KBXTnrD_Zs4
• uBlock Origin - https://ublockorigin.com/
• AdGuard - https://adguard.com/

YouTube Downloaders

• JDownloader - https://jdownloader.org/
• ezytdl - https://github.com/sylviiu/ezytdl
• tartube - https://github.com/axcore/tartube
• Stacher - https://stacher.io/
• Parabolic - https://github.com/NickvisionApps/Parabolic

YouTube Alternative Frontends

• FreeTube - https://freetubeapp.io/
• LibreTube - https://libretube.dev/
• Yattee - https://github.com/yattee/yattee
• Invidious - https://invidious.io/
• GrayJay - https://grayjay.app/
• Newpipe - https://newpipe.net/

Get a subscription to our preferred VPN: Private Internet Access. Get a special, exclusive deal at https://www.piavpn.com/Linus

[Senzelian]

I won't ungooglify my life, but a few alternatives to these services/apps from Google could be cool:
 

• Google Lens
• Google Assistant
• Google TV
• Google's  Find Device Network
• Google Wallet
• Google Home

 

[GodAtum]

Very annoyed you missed the obvious ... a calendar.

 

And the map options you give are useless, no public transportation. I would recommend Citymapper.

[Nat4Sail]

What's the process of selecting the suggested safari blocker? Wipr is a lot less expensive & does the same job. It's more popular on ios store currently too

[smcoakley]

Glad to see KeePass(XC) recommended -- I've been using it for quite some time and like it. I don't know I'd recommend it to the average non-techy person, but if you are even a little bit technical, it is a good option if you can set up syncing. Personally I store my KeePass vault on my NAS, and on desktop the NAS is synced offline already, and on Android I use Keepass2Android which has a built-in feature to sync the vault. It's just about as convenient as any other password manager, but is entirely private, portable, and works offline.

 

If you have a spouse or have passwords that need to be shared with multiple people, then Bitwarden is a better choice because KeePass necessarily has no solution to that, since its a local file model instead of a client-server model. At work, we use 1Password and I am also extremely impressed with it. Not as open as Bitwarden is, but the 1Password team has adopted a lot of Rust code and has been giving back some to open-source there so I'm a fan of their approach, even if the product itself is closed.

[Hawknite]

As someone who still memorizes every password, I have a dumb question. I'm considering using a manager because I've been forgetting some of them, so what's the difference between using Bitwarden's free plan and using Firefox's manager? I assume a Firefox account is not a target like Google is and is not shared with other people.

[ARandomPerson]

The funny thing is that the handle for LTT forums at 3:53 @TransisterCount was made on the 9th of this month, meaning that it was a lucky coincidence or actually made for this video.

[Zorro]

So is the Linus tech tips Rumble channel legit?

[Zorro]

7 hours ago, Senzelian said:

I won't ungooglify my life, but a few alternatives to these services/apps from Google could be cool:
 

• Google Lens
• Google Assistant
• Google TV
• Google's  Find Device Network
• Google Wallet
• Google Home

 

Install Project Ivy launcher on your google tv. It works amazingly.

Samsung wallet works great.

Bixby works for controlling your smart home.

Samsung find or trend micro a has find built in.

Samsung smarttag.

 

[Zorro]

Here wego maps deserves a mention.

[seumelhoramigo]

I found the inclusion of JDownloader as the #1 YouTube downloader odd.

They are known to ship adware (they say so themselves: https://support.jdownloader.org/en/knowledgebase/article/adware-during-installation), are only partially open source, with even the parts that are open source being difficult to access. They don't interact with the open-source community through GitHub or a GitLab instance, but instead just provide a random SVN server, which results in almost no outside contributions or code auditing. 
I also think they have a questionable business model of being primarily funded through referrals by pirate file lockers.

[bluehawk]

I wouldn't mind exploring yubikey for security as well

[BobVonBob]

1 hour ago, Hawknite said:

As someone who still memorizes every password, I have a dumb question. I'm considering using a manager because I've been forgetting some of them, so what's the difference between using Bitwarden's free plan and using Firefox's manager? I assume a Firefox account is not a target like Google is and is not shared with other people.

Any important account is a target, especially emails or password managers, no matter what service it's with.

 

To be honest, Firefox's password manager is very well featured, the Firefox mobile browser has the option to turn on autofill for other mobile apps, and if you turn on the option to add a primary password to access the password manager it's basically just as secure as any other cloud password manager (assuming they're following good security practices, but I'm sure they are).

 

The biggest omission I can see is no support for notes or custom fields. I use those for things like recovery keys or security questions (which I also choose to randomly generate, no amount of social engineering will get me to tell you my first car was a wX3f}E=p). I don't think it has a solution for password sharing either, but if you don't plan on sharing any passwords that's not an issue.

[Skipple]

So I very recently attempted to move over from Google search to DuckDuckGo search. I switched my browser to default the search to DuckDuckGo and I've used it for about a month now. I'm really sad to say the search capabilities simply are not on par with what Google provides.

 

For example, my company is switching over to using ServiceNow as their primary ITSM platform. Therefore, I've been doing a lot of searching for ITSM terminology as well as ServiceNow forum posts. Google is simply better for returning what I'm looking for over DuckDuckGo.

 

Bing is my next best option, but I'm not sure that Microsoft is the answer to my security concerns. If anyone has any comments or suggestions on what I should be doing different, I'm open to hear them. But at this point, Google is still the king of search, and I'm sorry to say that.

[unijab]

to degoogle my self... i setup lineageOS on my phone without installing gapps

 

 

[riwavi1347]

To manage youtube 'subscriptions' / get notified of new videos;

 

Use Firefox with the lightweight opensource extension 'Easy RSS' you can follow any youtube channel and get notified when they post a new video.

 

To get the RSS url go to the videos page like this:

 

https://www.youtube.com/@LinusTechTips/videos

 

View source and search for "rss"

 

href="https://www.youtube.com/feeds/videos.xml?channel_id=UCXuqSBlHAE6Xw-yeJA0Tunw">

 

Add the RSS url to 'Easy RSS' 

[Monkey Dust]

8 hours ago, bluehawk said:

I wouldn't mind exploring yubikey for security as well

They are great for sites & apps that support them. But the support isn't very wide, though.

[MadAnt250]

Linus the strawman. You know what I'm talking about.

[Bramimond]

Did I miss the mention of yt-dlp?

 

I "subscribe" to Youtube via RSS in newsboat and then just watch videos using mpv which uses yt-dlp to download videos.

 

As for in the browser, I have a redirector addon for youtube links to an invidious instance, so I haven't navigated to youtube.com in nearly a decade.

[pt1997]

for google maps a great alternative is mapy, it's based on osm and I use it on the desktop in a browser.
It is also available for iOS and android.
https://en.mapy.cz/

 

[pt1997]

11 hours ago, Skipple said:

So I very recently attempted to move over from Google search to DuckDuckGo search. I switched my browser to default the search to DuckDuckGo and I've used it for about a month now. I'm really sad to say the search capabilities simply are not on par with what Google provides.

 

For example, my company is switching over to using ServiceNow as their primary ITSM platform. Therefore, I've been doing a lot of searching for ITSM terminology as well as ServiceNow forum posts. Google is simply better for returning what I'm looking for over DuckDuckGo.

 

Bing is my next best option, but I'm not sure that Microsoft is the answer to my security concerns. If anyone has any comments or suggestions on what I should be doing different, I'm open to hear them. But at this point, Google is still the king of search, and I'm sorry to say that.

I used to use DuckDuckGo as well, but I have since then switched to brave search https://search.brave.com/search?q= (even though I'm using Firefox) I find it better for what I search.

If you want the results from Google without using google, use startpage https://www.startpage.com

This is how I use Google search filters using startpage when using brave search

!sp state-label inurl:home-assistant.io

https://search.brave.com/search?q=!sp+state-label+inurl%3Ahome-assistant.io

[pt1997]

50 minutes ago, Bramimond said:

Did I miss the mention of yt-dlp?

 

I "subscribe" to Youtube via RSS in newsboat and then just watch videos using mpv which uses yt-dlp to download videos.

 

As for in the browser, I have a redirector addon for youtube links to an invidious instance, so I haven't navigated to youtube.com in nearly a decade.

I do the same, but I use the RSS from the other platforms the creators I flow post to like odysee or peertube, if they don't do that I use a invidious RSS.

[nico_bizz]

@Emily Young or anyone tried Zoho OneAuth for 2FA?

I found it out recently, but never tried it.....

 

[kuro68k]

On 8/21/2024 at 3:42 PM, pt1997 said:

for google maps a great alternative is mapy, it's based on osm and I use it on the desktop in a browser.
It is also available for iOS and android.
https://en.mapy.cz/

 

 

The problem with most of these alternatives, including that one, is that the display is just so, so terribly bad. In urban areas they are unreadable.

 

They tend to be poor with transport options as well. Car and walking might work, but public transport often doesn't, and even if it does it's got out of date data and no live updates.

 

Google Maps isn't perfect for those things either, but I have yet to find anything else that even comes close.

[pt1997]

2 hours ago, kuro68k said:

 

The problem with most of these alternatives, including that one, is that the display is just so, so terribly bad. In urban areas they are unreadable.

 

They tend to be poor with transport options as well. Car and walking might work, but public transport often doesn't, and even if it does it's got out of date data and no live updates.

 

Google Maps isn't perfect for those things either, but I have yet to find anything else that even comes close.

I don't have problems reading OsmAnd https://f-droid.org/de/packages/net.osmand.plus/ while walking in urban areas.
For public transportation I like to use Öffi https://f-droid.org/de/packages/de.schildbach.oeffi/ it works well in Germany, if you travel in only one region you can select the city/regional public transport provider, and it will use the API from them, providing you the same data that would be used in their native apps. Otherwise, you can use DB . I know that it also works in some other countries.