I prefer Comaps over OSMand.

Obsidian is closed source or not fully open source iirc. Try Notesnook if you need sync.

People will agree and disagree on individual choices, as we can see by the other comments, but I think that is an excellent start.

A message for others, improving your privacy can be a gradual process, you don't need change everything at once, since that would be overwhelming. Start with one or two, and if that works for you, move on to other items.

Maps is the hardest thing to replace. I like comaps but it's hard to find any businesses on it. They should probably start scrapping google maps because there no way to get ahead at this point.

For passwords, you can use the same KeepassXC database on multiple devices. It's encrypted, and you can have the passphrase file locally on multiple devices, and the cloud provider cannot access it even by brute forcing. The database itself would not be reliant on the cloud service, you can easily switch between any provider (I currently use dropbox)

As others have pointed out, having so many Proton apps might be an issue. However, that line of thought only works if you’re really concerned about having a single point of failure. Most people value convenience much more than that.

The way I see it, this setup is somewhat noob-friendly, but relying heavily on Proton makes it a lot more convenient for many people. Using a greater variety of providers would make sense, but you can’t expect everyone to be ready for a hassle like that. People seem to expect you to be a hard-core privacy warrior who is willing to make significant sacrifices for philosophical reasons.

Most people aren’t like that. Just switching to DDG is hard enough for them, but at least it’s a step in the right direction.

If you take only 1/10th of this diagram, you get the simplified newbie version. Take all of it, and it’s for a person who is clearly interested in security and privacy. Modify a few things here and there, and you get a version for a serious security enthusiast. Different versions for different audiences.

In my honest opinion? Nothing. There is nothing worth changing here, all the other advice is just different kinds of extreme.

based on your selection and the fact that you asked this question is good a indicator that any other alternative people would suggest won't do you that much benefit while carrying a much higher chance of being highly inconvenient.

You got great choices, actually. I'd only recommend to be as little dependent on multiple fronts on one company. So I'd change a few of Proton to something else. As long as Proton doesn't replace their CEO with an explicitly antifascist one, I don't know if they re a good spot.

Depending on how private communications must be, Threema might be better than Signal.

If you don't need to synchronise with others and your threat model is not physical attacks/theft, then agendas can be just on paper. Same for the calendar.

As for distro...

Mint is great (and honestly what I'd rec for people brand new to Linux). If you want to harden privacy/security more though, the following Linux distros might be better:

• Fedora (any of them). It's an international upstream distro from Red Hat (American company, parent company is IBM). In other words, it's developed by the community, which is gathered in the Fedora Project. Their headquarters is in NC, USA. Red Hat then uses the community distro to make their own distro, and in return, finances Fedora. Linus Torvalds, the creator of Linux, uses it. If he trusts it, I trust it.
• OpenSUSE Tumbleweed -, developed by the OpenSUSE community, backed by OpenSUSE from Germany. Pretty good all-arounder.
• Arch Linux, developed internationally, but most devs are spread across Europe. Has an extensive wiki (that also is good for other distros), though it's not exactly "plug and play" and I'd rec it only if you know what you're doing.
• Debian is another option if privacy is less of a concern for you, than it being FOSS. It's one of the most FOSS distros out there, and also highly independent and international.

I assume you want to use your distro as daily driver, and that your threat model isn't too severe. So the above ones should suffice.

If the threat model calls for it, or you're willing to sacrifice some usability for slightly more security, you could try QubesOS (arguably one of the most secure distros since it sandboxes everything as if they were a separate computer). Tails is another alternative, that's on a USB and forgets itself after usage.

For search engines...

... go for Qwant (French) or Ecosia (German). Both are European-owned and are busy constructing their own indexes (currently they still use Bing and Google). There's Mojeek (UK-based) which is independent.

I don't know how to block specific sites from popping up on them though, since I notice a certain trillionnaire's personal ""wiki"" pops up a LOT. Probably he's cheating and search bumping to spread his desinformation. It should be blocked.

Presearch also exists, which is decentralised and uses its own indexes. If you want OSS, there's SearXNG and YaCy which have metasearch options. Be careful in which instance you pick, though.

Depends on how much privacy you need and how much tinkering to get things to work that you're willing to put up with.

In general, using a variety of services will be more private than going with a single entity like Proton.

Bitwarden is self-hostable, which makes it potentially more private than Protonpass... assuming you actually set up the self-hosting.

Signal isn't a good long-term plan, as it's entirely hosted in the US. I don't think there are currently any known compromises to the encryption model, but iirc the company can see all your communications metadata (which means the government could potentially as well). I don't mind it for talking with friends, but I would recommend against it for extreme privacy needs (e.g. the government starts getting overzealous with who it counts as enemies of the state, and you or your friends become targets).

Arent you using too much proton

Duckduckgo -> selfhosted searxng… startpage has also not yet been involved in any controversy for a non selfhosted option.

Copy paste of why duck duck go is a problem:

https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/security/duckduckgo-browser-allows-microsoft-trackers-due-to-search-agreement/

Now I little after this came out they do claim they removed them (odd how that suddenly changes after it was no longer secret) But then much more recent as listed on wikipedia, verifying they still have some long term deals with microsoft in **2025**… microsoft is not going to make a deal with a perceived competitor for nothing in return.

By August 2025, Bing planned to cut off access to its search APIs in a push to sell more AI-related APIs, though **DuckDuckGo believed that larger companies like it with long-term deals would not be affected** 62 Bing had dramatically raised rates for its search API in 2022 after ChatGPT debuted. 62

There is also more general proof that while duck may technically use other sources also. It really is mostly bing:

During a Bing API outage in 2024, DuckDuckGo stopped showing results, indicating that Bing provided a substantial portion of DuckDuckGo's results.69 70

I literally do not understand how they managed to take such foothold in real privacy communities. I used to love brave till the i was repeatedly pointed to the scandals that many people are aware of and informing others about… but considering ddg i rarely see anyone pointing this out. It actually smells like a huge successful marketing adventure to sell bing to privacy enthusiasts, but for that i obvio do not have proof. I often imagine this meme with bing instead of google and a cute duck go as mr incognito

Gmail - > tuta mail

Also you use way too much proton. Don't put all your eggs in one basket

As others have said, remove all proton stuff that you can. You are just replacing one centralized service with another. Google started out good too and look where we are now. Never put too many eggs in one basket.

I don't trust proton.

Get a 5$/ month Nextcloud instance on Hertzner or selfhost it. You'll get 1 tb drive, calendar, notes, office suite, sync with phone, and much much more.

I use proton for a lot of stuff. The calendar is useless IMO since their custom bridge doesn't support linking anything else in. Same with contacts. For those two I use a self-hosted radicalev3 container, works like a charm.

Does someone have suggestions for what proton provides with its passmail? I think their implementation and usage experience with this entire reverse-email feature is pretty great and I dont want to give this anonymity up, selectively being able to send from those passmails is also a great feature that works really well in the rare case of getting something I need to reply to.

Maps - > CoMaps Photos - > Immich (if you can self host) Passwords - > Bitwarden (May change in the future)

I agree with others on trying to not have one service for everything, which proton is trying to become. An alternative to Proton Mail and Calendar would be Tuta, though I haven't used them.

If I'm being very picky and perfectionist, Obsidian.

It's closed source, and there are open-source alternatives, be it Trilium, Zettlr or whatever strikes your fancy

Isn't google auth an OTP service? Proton Pass also supports that btw! Haven't heard about Ente before and what purpose it replaces a gallery with, but again you can upload and view photos to Proton Drive as well. Although I have not yet tried it myself because I like to keep them local.

Kagi is one of the search engines I actually trust, but it is paid. I can give you trial if you want to try it out. Oh and it being US based might also be drawback.

Pretty solid list I'd say!

Would CoMaps be a better recommendation than OSMand?

For those who are familiar with Ente, how are their apps? I use something different for 2FA and photos, but I need recommendations for people who don't want to deal with selfhosting and backing up Aegis

Anyone have thoughts on mailbox.org? I have been thinking of switching. Anyone with experience with the service?

• ChatGPT -> llama.cpp
• Dropbox -> Syncthing + ZFS
• PayPal -> Atto
• Google Home -> Home Assistant
• Google Docs/Sheets -> Collabora Office

Some of these require self-hosting, so you might need Headscale or WireGuard to connect to them

Have you heard of Privacy Guides? They have a whole community of people there and provide privacy focused software and service recommendations, with lots of details explaining their reasoning.

I'd add criteria, e.g.

• GDPR compliant
• no link with advertising companies
• free software or open source
• self-hostable
• security audit

etc and overall have a reasonable default option but not hide that there are alternative. We want everybody to move away but if everybody moves to Proton as a suite and they enshitify then we are (nearly) back to square one. So I think showing that good alternatives exist is great. Helping people who already use an alternative others, maybe even better one for THEIR criteria also exist, is even better.

I'd also add a Github (or better CodeBerg or self-hosted Gitea) link at the bottom to https://github.com/ente-io/privacypack with the license (MIT) visible.

Just to give more unique feedback (although everything you have is good) if your willing to self host, add immich to google photo replacements since it'll back up photos across devices (I haven't personally looked at ente photos) and depending on how important hiding your traffic from your ISP is, consider replacing a VPN with TrackerControl which helps to stop apps from phoning home.

This is really great, especially as a jumping off point. You might consider a ranked approach, like good, better, best. Most marginally privacy conscious services are going to be better than their Google analog, but some are better.

A little trick I use with obsidian is that if you use syncthing to sync the vault folder you can basically have a shared vault (in my experience the time to get edits from one device to another is like 10/15 seconds which is not bad at all)

Perhaps this one:

Proton Mail -> Tuta Mail

Why? I would be careful with Proton Mail b/c it presumably advocates the Swiss surveillance and security law, which allows to keep information for a longer period of time.

BTW, you can add:

GitHub -> Codeberg (or Forgejo)

Proton Pass. For privacy, either self host or use offline password managers.

Incoming Proton hate. This place has taken to that campaign exceptionally well.

• Consider Nextcloud instead of Syncthing. This gives you options for a Google Docs replacement, too.
• Nextcloud notes is a pretty good Keep replacement, too (if you just need simple notes)
• SearXNG is great for seach, and includes DDG
• Love Osmand for hiking/etc, but Organic Maps is a bit better for navigation unless you do some major config changes in Osmand

If self-hosting:

• Nextcloud can manage users/calendar, etc, too
• Immich is more battery efficient than Ente, since the AI is server side. But only for self hosting since no E2E
• Skip Proton for things like self-hosted Vaultwarden. Why use another centralized service?

Don't know Ente, but the GrapheneOS gallery works fine for basics, and pop Immich on Mint for the rest of google photos functionality. I'll suggest Bazzite for the distro, especially if they game or are likely to break things.

Contacts > the stock apps on GOS without network access.

Keep > Notesnook.

For Google keep replacement, check out Simple Notes Sync. I've been using it for a few months now 🙂

What is obsidian and signal note to self?

Rn I just add me wife to new chats and keep my notes there. Im sre she loves it.

What's with all the hoopla about Google nuking devices with GrapheneOS lately?