Blog.

Introduction

This page is a collection of switches that help you regain control over your digital life. Every switch is a step away from the big tech companies and towards more private alternatives. The goal is to reduce the amount of data you give away, and to make it harder for companies to track you across the web.

The switches below are sorted by effort, not by how much they help. Level 1 takes an afternoon at most, level 3 can take a weekend and some patience. Level up your journey, do what you can and stop wherever it stops being worth it to you. Every switch on its own already makes a difference, there is no need to do all of them.

The checkboxes remember what you already did. They are stored in your browser only and never leave your device.

Level 1

Almost no effort. Nothing here changes how you work, you only change the thing you click on.

• No ad blocker → uBlock Origin for Firefox | for Chrome/Edge/...
• Chrome, Edge → Firefox Instructions

Most people spend most of their time working on a computer in the browser. Switching the browser is a big first step. An ad blocker does more than remove ads, it cuts off a large part of the tracking that follows you from site to site.

• Amazon → European Shops Instructions
• Default DNS → Private DNS Instructions

  DNS is the phonebook of the internet. Every time you visit a website, your device asks a DNS server for the address of that site. The default servers usually belong to your internet provider or to Google, and they can log every request you make. Private DNS providers do not keep those logs, and some block ads and trackers before they even load.

• iCloud → iCloud with Advanced Data Protection Instructions

  End-to-end encrypted means that only you can read your data, Apple cannot. Apple does not turn this on for you, you have to enable it yourself.

• Google Search → DuckDuckGo, Brave Search or Ecosia Instructions
• Revoke unused app permissions, starting with contacts for WhatsApp

  A lot of apps on your phone want to know many things, and a lot of it is unnecessary. From your contacts alone, an app like WhatsApp can construct a social web of whom you interact with. By allowing apps to read your contacts you do not only expose your own data, but also that of the people in your address book, who never agreed.

• Google account → turn off activity, location and recent places Instructions

Level 2

Medium effort. These take an evening each, and you have to bring other people or your old data along.

• WhatsApp → Signal Instructions
• Google Calendar → CalDAV at a European provider Instructions

  Depending on how well you maintain your calendar, companies know who you are, what you do and who you meet with, just by looking at your upcoming events.

• Google Contacts → CardDAV at a European provider Instructions
• Gmail → European Mail Instructions

  Posteo and mailbox.org are solid European providers, but they store your mail so that they could technically read it. Of the options only Tuta and Proton encrypt your mailbox at rest (End-to-end encryption), which also means your mail is only readable in their apps.

• OneDrive, Google Drive → European cloud storage Instructions
• Delete old accounts and the cloud data left in them Instructions

  Even if you do not want to switch cloud providers, deleting old data and photos already reduces your digital footprint. There are lots of services where this applies, think of old chat histories in AI chatbots.

Calendar and contacts are one switch in practice. Both speak the same open protocols, CalDAV and CardDAV, and every provider worth using supports them. Pick the provider you move your mail to, then point your devices at it once. On Android DAVx⁵ handles both, iOS and Thunderbird can do it without extra software. Because CalDAV and CardDAV are open protocols, the next move after this one is a matter of changing a server address. Note that Proton and Tuta do not offer CalDAV/CardDAV, but they offer end-to-end encrypted Calendar and Contacts.

Level 3

A lot of effort. You replace an operating system here, so plan a free weekend and make a backup first.

• Google Android → LineageOS or GrapheneOS My setup or LineageOS Site

  GrapheneOS only runs on Pixel devices. I wrote down my own setup in a separate article, including how to keep push notifications and banking apps working without Google Play Services. LineageOS runs on a wider range of devices.

• Windows → Linux Instructions

  Linux Mint installs in about twenty minutes and looks familiar enough that most people stop noticing after a week.

More Resources

The following links are a good starting point if you want to go deeper into digital independence.

• Digital Independence Day: step-by-step recipes for every switch on this page, and a few more.
• European Alternatives: a searchable directory of European services, sorted by category.
• Privacy Guides: goes deeper on the privacy side, with actual reasoning behind each recommendation.