switching.software
switching.software
Ethical, easy-to-use and privacy-conscious alternatives to well-known software

A great resource that makes it quick and easy to find alternatives to Google, Amazon, Microsoft, Adobe and many more.

    • Lemongrab@lemmy.one
      5·
      3 months ago

      Not a fan of your variable formatting within that string. You are banished from the mickey mouse code house. /s

    • esty@lemmy.ca
      2·
      3 months ago

      Dunno if people consider apple “ethical” but the pixelmator apps on macOS have quickly replaced photoshop and lightroom for most of the light edits I do. Affinity’s apps are solid and cross platform but with a steep learning curve imo, but more comprehensive options. Always resolve on all platforms for video of course.

      • ag_roberston_author@beehaw.orgEnglish
        2·
        3 months ago

        Serif (which owns Affinity) was just bought out by Canva, so it’s only a moment of time before they are enshittified unfortunately.

  • Kissaki@beehaw.orgEnglish
    9·
    3 months ago

    In Advanced Users they link to computefreely.org for

    approachable and friendly for people curious about free and open source operating systems and Linux distributions

    which is definitely not the content there. Looks like the original website went defunct in 2022 between January and May. Their website repo is archived.

    /edit: I saw the website is open source and created a change request.

    Anyway, I’d be careful about how up-to-date this website is, and what it links to.

  • petrescatraian@libranet.de
    6·
    3 months ago

    For political issues, you should petition governments directly on issues.

    Not sure if this is a great alternative. This is a thing that is totally dependent from country to country. In my country, there is no such platform that I’m aware of (on the local or national level at least. Ok, I may petition the EU, but they may just have no responsibility into my matters).

    Many institutions do have email addresses though, and if, for example, you have a website, you can write an email template and point to an institution where people could send that email. Even that I don’t know how feasible it could be, but it could be more doable in more parts of the world, I think.

    Otherwise, for Romania there is declic.ro, a platform owned by an NGO who relies solely on donations to run it, and also runs its own campaigns.

  • Ark-5@lemmy.blahaj.zone
    5·
    3 months ago

    While this seems like a decent starting point I’ve got a few issues with this list. As others have mentioned there is little in the way of justification for these suggestions, and while I happen to agree with plenty of them, I’d personally like to see more reasoning, if not to appease people that already have opinions then to help newer users understand their options.

    On the topic of newer users I think an aggregate list like this should include a basic rundown on what adoption/migration/onboarding looks like for these services. Demystifying that process can lift a lot of the perceived weight non-“power users” might feel when faced with the leap from corporate platforms.

    Overall I think this is a good resource, and at least gives people some starting points, but it’s not without its flaws.

  • esaru@beehaw.org
    4·
    3 months ago

    They promote Ubuntu-based distros, which cannot be trusted anymore, and they forget to mention Fedora as a better alternative.

    Here is why you shouldn’t use Ubuntu:

    Canonical’s Ubuntu is not recommended because it contains Amazon ads and data leaks by default. GNU/Linux distributions based on Ubuntu are also currently not recommended due to several other reasons.

    Source: https://prism-break.org/en/subcategories/gnu-linux-operating-systems/

    • Vodulas [they/them]@beehaw.org
      6·
      3 months ago

      Is that still true? The article/github thread cited on Prism Break are from 2012 and 2013 respectively. It seems only to be true of Ubuntu 12.10. The only thing I can from from current Ubuntu versions is the ad in the command line when doing an apt upgrade, and that is from 2022. It does not appear to exist in other Ubuntu based distros since it is an ad for Ubuntu Pro. Not saying it is great, but it seems like non-Canonical distros should be OK.

      • esaru@beehaw.org
        3·
        3 months ago

        The problem with Ubuntu is that trust in a package manager is a basic criteria when evaluating a distribution. Once Canonical had violated that trust and shown its attitude with privacy violations, data collection, and default opt-in, you should stay away from anything that comes from Canonical. They didn’t get away with what they did, but the mindset behind their actions is part of how that company is run and what they might do in the future without letting you know. They were trying to establish an income channel by knowingly sacrificing the user’s privacy and security. That’s a no-go in my opinion.

        • Vodulas [they/them]@beehaw.org
          3·
          3 months ago

          That’s fair. I guess I give just a little bit of room for fucking up and fixing it. I am also not particularly loyal and will ditch companies at the drop of a hat.