DISENGAGE PART 2: Opting Out—and Finding New Options—to Reclaim the Internet from Spammers, Scammers, Intrusive Marketers and Big Tech

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PART 4 DISENGAGE BY...

RECLAIMING YOUR CONTENT

We often say that we are the product of companies like Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, Google, and other sites—but that’s not quite correct: The product is the stock, and we are the unpaid workforce.

As Douglas Rushkoff writes in Survival of the Richest: Escape Fantasies of the Tech Billionaires:

We dutifully read, click, post, and retweet; we become enraged, scandalized, and indignant; and we go on to complain, attack, or cancel. That’s work. The beneficiaries are the shareholders.

A platform becomes more powerful the more people join it. Your free content draws new people into the fray, the platform locks them in (“all my friends and content are there!”), and it becomes that much stronger…all so its shareholders can rake in more dollars at your expense.

In this section, you’ll withdraw your content from Big Tech, and learn how to make it work for you instead.

CHAPTER 14 PROTECT YOUR POSTS

One type of content you’re donating to for-profit businesses is forum posts. Not only do your posts help attract more users and more engagement for the platform—but the business gets to harvest your data as well.

Do you really want data brokers, and the marketing firms they sell to, knowing that you belong to a personal finance forum, a community for people with diabetes, or a fan fiction discussion group? Going further, would you want them to know what you post on these sites? Just imagine your health insurance provider being privy to your posts on the diabetes forum.

I’m not saying anyone should feel ashamed about the forums they belong to or what they post there—I’m saying anything you share online can be scraped by businesses to enrich your profile…and possibly used against you.

Here’s what you can do to minimize the amount of unpaid labor—and data—you provide to these businesses.

Option 1: Erase Useless Posts

I discovered that in many cases, there was no point at all in my posts remaining online. For example, say I asked a question in 2015, it was answered, and the post has had zero views in the last five years—meaning no one is getting any value from it. Why not delete it?

Option 2: Delete Forum Accounts Altogether

If you want to disengage even more, delete some of your forum accounts altogether. This is another of those instances where it makes sense to balance your need for community with your need for privacy.

Maybe you’re okay with the world seeing the information you’ve shared on one forum, but not the juicy details you’ve spilled on another. Or you’re fine with sites that let you sign up with minimal personal information. Or a particular discussion group is simply so important to you that the benefits outweigh the disadvantages.

Note that deleting forum accounts may or may not also erase your posts; for example, if you delete your Reddit account, your posts will remain and only your username will be deleted. Check out the forum’s policies, and if they specify that posts are not removed when you delete your account, go through first and delete your posts one by one. This method isn’t foolproof—there are usually ways people can find deleted posts if they want to, such as by using the Wayback Machine or (for Reddit) platforms like Reveddit.

Again, we can never achieve 100% privacy and anonymity—even if it’s what we want to do. My philosophy is to just do as much as I can, and to be more careful in the future based on what I learned going through this process.

Option 3: Post Your Content on Your Own Website

If you really like to share, why not post your wisdom, advice, thoughts, and ideas on a platform you control? More on this in Chapter 16: Say Sayonara to Social Media.

CHAPTER 15 RETRACT YOUR REVIEWS

Another type of content we create for free—and that megacorps profit from—is reviews.

I’ll never forget this scene from an episode of South Park:

Barkley: Sir, it's midnight. Go home, get some sleep.

Sgt. Yates: There's no time to sleep when the city's counting on me.

Barkley: More Yelp reviews, sir?

Sgt. Yates: I had a bad experience at Red Lobster and if the people don't know about it, they could too. Folks deserve to know where to eat, Mitch.

Barkley: But does anyone even thank you for it?

Sgt. Yates: I don't need them to. I know they need me, and that's enough.

Barkley: God bless you, sir.

Sgt. Yates: I know.

We feel like we’re doing a good deed when we post a review warning people away from a restaurant whose servers just don’t care, or pointing them to a stellar gym. But whatever did we do before there were so many outlets for us to share our yays and nays? Somehow, we all survived.

When you spend time adding yet another review of the local skate park, you’re working for the review site more than your fellow citizens. Your Google reviews give Google data. Information from Yelp is used to train data analysts. Amazon reviews keep people on, well, Amazon—and unscrupulous sellers game the system with fake reviews anyway, so why bother?

Recall that one side benefit to disengaging is being able to see the world through our own eyes, without automatically framing all of our experiences for online consumption. Habitual reviewing trains us to see every experience as just more fodder for strangers’ eyes.

When I decided to disengage as much as I could, I deleted all my reviews. (Thank goodness, there were only about four of them.) Whenever someone asks me for a review, I ignore it; if they persist, I tell them I don’t write reviews as a policy.

If this resonates with you. I urge you to delete all your reviews from:

Google
Facebook
Yelp
Tripadvisor
Amazon
Goodreads (owned by Amazon)
Home services review sites like Angi and Thumbtack
The Better Business Bureau
General review sites like Trustpilot
Software review sites such as Capterra and G2 Crowd
Employer review sites like Glassdoor

Really, really want to write up a glowing review or to slam a business that did you wrong? In Chapter 16: Say Sayonara To Social Media, you’ll learn about a method for posting content to your own site and syndicating it on social media.

I inadvertently did this when, instead of complaining on Facebook or Twitter when a book marketing firm ripped me off to the tune of $6,500, I wrote a 5,000-word report about my experience, posted it on my business website, and then shared the link on social media. A well-known science fiction author retweeted the link, and my story racked up over 20,000 hits in one day. It also garnered media coverage and spawned 65 pages of comments. Things got even better when the culprit was caught using a fake name to post comments on my blog.

Can you imagine a review on, say, Trustpilot getting that much response? Sharing my content on my website ended up being a much better way to warn people than a handful of snippy reviews.

CHAPTER 16 SAY SAYONARA TO SOCIAL MEDIA

What a minefield: We know how bad social media is for our mental health. We know we are the product, and that these platforms mine, use, and sell our data ruthlessly. We know their algorithms serve us negative, frightening, or anger-inducing information—and sometimes just plain lies—because that’s what gets engagement. And yet we have such a hard time quitting!

For some of us, Facebook is the only way we can stay in touch with far-flung friends and families. We need LinkedIn for our jobs. We feel forced to use social media in order to sell our art (Instagram!), move our books (TikTok!), or generally promote our businesses (YouTube!). Reddit gives us a community to belong to when there are none near us IRL. And without Nextdoor, how can we passive-aggressively shame our loud neighbors, find out why there’s a white van in our driveway, or ask whether that snake is a copperhead?

That said, there are alternatives. Check out the ideas below to figure out whether it’s possible for you to disengage from social media, where to go instead, how to run an online business without these platforms, and how to use social media while giving up as little data as possible.

Get Real on the Pros and Cons of Social Media

If you’re interested in spending less time online, protecting your personal data, and saying FU to Big Tech, it’s worth it to take a good, hard look at whether social media is serving you. Some platforms may be indispensable to you, while others are a waste of your precious attention and life energy.

Here are some questions to ask yourself:

Question 1: How much does social media help me with my career?

Think about the millions of people screaming to be heard on social media. They all want you to look at, click, like, download, and buy their stuff. Your two daily business posts are swept into oblivion within seconds by the sheer number of new posts. Are you really getting any return on your investment of time and energy?

(If you do feel you need to be on social media for your career or business, check out “Option 2: You Want to Stay on Social Media” later in this chapter for tips.)

Question 2: Are there other ways to accomplish the tasks I use social media for?

Whether you’re using a social platform to communicate with friends, market your business, sell things, or just to be entertained, think about what other options are available for meeting these needs.

For example, instead of occasionally selling an item on Facebook Marketplace, can you save it all up until you have enough for a yard sale? If you have a side gig as a dog walker, would it make sense to ditch Instagram and instead post signs, ask local veterinarians to mention you to clients, leave fliers with local businesses, or write pet-related articles for regional publications?

Doubtful? Run a time-limited experiment to see whether an offline option works for you; you may even find you enjoy it more, which means you’ll do more of it. If we managed to do these activities before social media existed, there must be some ways to do them now without relying on those platforms.

Question 3: What am I missing by seeing everything through a camera lens?

In many cases, we feel the need to use social media because we’ve been trained to think we need everything we do and think to be visible to others, lest we not fully exist. You can probably guess who trained this into us, and how they benefit from our free content.

Until recently, I had an Instagram account to post my art. I’m not selling it…I just wanted validation from other people. When I realized how absurd this was and deleted my account, I was also freed from the tiny, insistent voice saying, “Ooh, I should post this!,” “I wish I had gotten that on film,” “I need to check for likes and comments!” and “I should probably interact with other people’s posts so it doesn’t look like I’m only here to post my own art…which I am.”

Are you missing out on life because you’re constantly thinking about how to frame everything you do, think, or see for social media?

It’s a nice feeling to experience something exceptional and not automatically think, “I should put this on Facebook.” Experiencing something in real life and not through the lens of a camera gives you a sense of quiet confidence, knowing you can do amazing things and not need to show them off to the world.

Question 4: Does anyone else really care if I’m on social media?

I opened an Instagram account after I retired just to post my art. As I mentioned, I was more interested in getting other people’s approval of my creations than in giving approval myself. And I’m not unique—so chances are, many other people feel the same way.

When I quit Facebook, Twitter, and LinkedIn in 2015, I had thousands of friends and followers. In the weeks following my departure, which I didn’t announce, I heard from only two people who noticed I was gone. I ended up creating a new LinkedIn profile around 2019 when I started a new business, but never reopened the others.

Question 5: Do I need the information I get from social media?

I have never seen anything on Nextdoor that has changed what I think or do. The same goes for Facebook memes, TikTok videos, and all the rest: When I see them, I wish I could get those seconds of my life back. (And yet it’s so hard to stop scrolling!)

Ask yourself when was the last time you actually heard or saw something useful or actionable on social media.

Question 6: Are the people on social media close enough friends for me to deal with the hassle?

I’ve come to the conclusion that if I learn from Facebook you got married or had a baby, we’re not very good friends. Real friends would call, or at least text, with the news. Sure, there are people in my life who are more than acquaintances but not quite good friends, but I don’t feel the need to invest hours of my time—not to mention my mental health—scrolling through my feed to make sure I don’t miss their posts. (And I wouldn’t expect them to do it for me, either!)

If you feel guilty quitting these platforms because you need them to stay connected with friends, consider whether they are close enough friends for you to want to deal with the data mining, invasions of privacy, misinformation, and blows to the self-esteem that are an inescapable part of social media.

And, again, when I quit social media in 2015, it was crickets. No one sent messages asking, “Where have you been? We miss your pet photos, humblebrags, homemade memes, and musings on the writing life!” Maybe you’re more popular than I am, but I suspect most people on social media are doing exactly what we’re doing—worrying about themselves.

Option 1: You Decide to Close Your Social Media Accounts

Let’s say your answers to the above questions have convinced you to leave social media. Here’s how to do it. (Later in this chapter, we’ll talk about what to do if you decide to remain on social platforms.)

Step 1 to Quitting Social Media: Let your friends know

No one likes those “I’m leaving Facebook forever, goodbye!” posts…especially when the person sheepishly reappears three weeks later. Instead of dramatically announcing your departure, inform the people you actually want to stay in touch with that you’re leaving the platform, and suggest alternate ways to continue communication—such as via text, phone, email, or privacy-oriented chat apps like Telegram.

If you belong to a group that uses the platform to make plans, share news, and so on, suggest moving the whole group somewhere else. Video platforms like Skype or Zoom, real-life meetups, and privacy-first chat apps are options.

Step 2 to Quitting Social Media: Download your data

Before you click “Close My Account” on any of these platforms, be sure to download any photos, posts, and other information you want to keep. Every site has its own procedures; for example, LinkedIn let me download my recommendations and some other data, but I had to copy and paste all my posts into a document by hand. (I’m sure there are apps to help with this, but I figured it would be easier to just do it manually and get it over with.)

Step 3 to Quitting Social Media: Start deleting

Here’s how to close accounts on the most popular social media sites. These instructions are for deactivating accounts using your computer, not your other devices; the steps for deactivating accounts from the apps may be different.

In some cases, your account will not be closed right away; for example, Facebook takes 90 days to delete all your data and Pinterest takes 14 days. If you log in again, your account will be restored.

Afraid to let go? Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest, and LinkedIn let you temporarily deactivate your account. (LinkedIn calls it “hibernating” your account.) When you start to follow the steps below to delete an account, the platforms will usually first ask if you’d like to deactivate it temporarily instead, and then walk you through the process.

How to close your Facebook account

If you use Facebook to log in to apps or websites, you’ll need to disconnect these first. Here are the steps:

Click on your profile picture.
Go to Settings & Privacy.
Select Settings.
Click on Apps & Websites; there, you can see a list of apps and sites with access to your Facebook account and remove the access.

Then, close your account:

Click on your profile picture.
Go to Settings & Privacy.
Select Settings.
If you see “Accounts Center” at the top left of the page, you can delete your account there. If “Accounts Center” is at the bottom left of the page, use Facebook Settings to delete your account.

Remember that Facebook owns WhatsApp as well! So if you want to wipe the slate clean, you may want to replace WhatsApp with Telegram or another privacy-oriented chat app.

How to close your Instagram account

Here are the instructions from Facebook’s Help Center (since Facebook owns Instagram):

Go to the Delete Your Account page.
Choose an option from the dropdown menu for “Why do you want to delete [account name]?”
Re-enter your password.
Click Delete [username].

How to close your LinkedIn account

LinkedIn provides a handy Close Account page. Done!

How to close your Twitter/X account

In the menu on the left, select More.
Choose Settings and privacy.
Under Your Account, click Deactivate your account.
Click Deactivate.
To confirm, enter your password and then click Deactivate account.

How to close your TikTok account

Click your profile picture on the upper right.
Choose Settings.
In the Manage Account tab, scroll down to the Account Control section and click Delete.
Click Continue.
Enter your password.
Click Delete Account.

How to close your Reddit account

When you delete your Reddit account, your posts and comments will remain there (but with the username hidden). If you want to delete your posts before deactivating your account, follow these steps:

Click on your profile icon on the upper right.
Select Profile.
Click Posts.
At the bottom of the post you want to delete, click the three-dot icon, then click the trash can to delete.
Repeat for each post.

These are the steps for deleting your comments:

Click on your profile icon on the upper right.
Select Profile.
Click comments.
At the bottom of the comment you want to delete, click the three-dot icon, then click the trash can to delete.

Finally, deactivate your account:

Log in to Reddit.
If you’re a Reddit Premium member, cancel your Reddit Premium subscription first.
Visit your Account Settings.
Scroll down to the Delete Account section.
Click Delete Account.
If your account was created with your Google account or Apple ID, scroll down to the Connected Accounts section and click disconnect next to the Google account or Apple ID you signed up with. If you don’t have a password yet, you’ll be asked to create one.

How to close your Pinterest account

Click the “down” arrow on the upper right to open the menu.
Click Settings.
Click Account management from the left-side navigation.
Click Delete account.
Click Continue.
Select the reason you’re leaving.
Click Send email to receive an email to delete your account.
Check the email address associated with your Pinterest account to confirm you want to close your account.

If you belong to any platforms not listed here—like Mastodon, Nextdoor, Discord, Snapchat, Tumblr, or anything new that pops up—search for “how to delete [platform] account” to find instructions.

Option 2: You Want to Stay on Social Media

Can’t say goodbye forever to social media? The ideas below will help you reap the benefits, while minimizing the amount of data, content, and attention these companies can extract from you.

Make your website your home base with POSSE

In some careers, building an audience is crucial; for example, artists, writers, and podcasters need to share their content to survive. However, social media platforms can kick you off, erase all your posts, or go out of business instantly and with no warning, taking your content and your audience with them. We saw, when Elon Musk bought Twitter, how quickly even an OG social media platform can be destabilized.

Instead, share your thoughts, creations, and content on a platform you own. One method is called POSSE: Publish (on your) Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere. With this strategy, you get to participate in social media while reclaiming some power from these exploitative digital platforms.

POSSE can be as simple as publishing posts on your own website and then manually copy-pasting them into the various social media platforms with a link back to your site. Or it can be as involved as setting up special tools to automatically syndicate your content to the platforms and “reverse syndicate” the comments and likes back to you.

The first step is to set up a website under your own domain; I’ve found the Wix website design platform to be the easiest and most intuitive, but there are many other options for quickly building a simple website as well.

Once you have your website ready, take a look at these helpful resources to learn how to get set up for POSSE:

POSSE (IndieWeb). This entry includes information on why you should go with the POSSE approach and has instructions on how to set it up. Warning: The instructions are fairly technical.
The poster’s guide to the internet of the future (The Verge). A thorough article for lay people.
Great article on #POSSE by @davidpierce.xyz (Tantek.com). This is an example of a POSSE; it’s a response to the Verge article above. At the end of the post, author Tantek Çelik lists many, many tools and resources you can dive into as you set up your own POSSE website—like Brid.gy, a free tool that connects your site to various social media platforms.
Çelik’s front page is a good example of how a POSSE site looks!
POSSE: Publish on your Own Site, Syndicate Elsewhere - Hacker News (Y Combinator) This thread tackles some of the disadvantages of POSSE; for example, if you use this method to post on social media without having to be there yourself, you won’t see your friends’ posts. Some commenters offer solutions for various issues.

Moving to a POSSE approach may seem complicated, but it’s no more difficult than learning the ever-changing ins and outs of each social media platform—from video orientation to post length to hashtags. Once you get through the learning curve, the experience should become much more streamlined and intuitive.

Choose your platform wisely

If social media is necessary for your job or business, and moving your content to your own website isn’t feasible, think about which platforms are best for your purposes. Usually, those are the ones you like enough to really work at.

For instance, when I ran a content studio, we realized the vast majority of our clients came through LinkedIn. So rather than spreading ourselves thin trying to reach audiences through LinkedIn and Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, and the rest, we doubled down on LinkedIn. It worked so well that until I deleted my LinkedIn account—two years after I retired—I was still getting reach-outs from prospects!

Set a limit

Like to relax on social media, but worry about getting trapped in the infinite scroll? Ask someone you trust to change the password to your account and only give it to you if you really need it (as defined by you). This works for any type of website you want to use only occasionally, but have trouble dragging your attention away from.

Another option is to use a site-blocking app like AppBlock (Android/iOS), Freedom (Android/iOS), or SelfControl (MacOS). These let you add distracting sites to a blocklist, and many apps let you set time limits for different sites.

Fake them out

Some social platforms let you choose an anonymous username. Even if they don’t, you’re likely to get away with using at least a semi-fake name. When I took a course that used a Facebook Group to communicate, I created an account using my first and middle names only, and didn’t post a photo or any personal information. While you’re at it, change up the info in your account: Use a masked email, a PO box, a throwaway phone number, etc.

Close the door (at least part way)

Some social platforms, like Instagram, let you create private profiles where people have to ask your permission to follow you. This is a great way to stay in touch with the people you want to stay in touch with while keeping random strangers from viewing your info. (Of course this doesn’t keep the platform itself from tracking you or selling your data.)

Refuse to share

Want to (or have to) have a public profile? Be careful about what and how much you share. Even if you’re required to be on the platform, you aren’t required to get personal. When you do post or comment, keep the personal details light.

Also, be stingy with personal information in your public profile. Strangers (and the social media behemoths themselves) don’t need to know your gender, whether you’re married, your birth date, or your location.

Check the privacy settings

I’m not sure how much good this does, since Big Tech is not known for keeping its privacy promises, but be sure to check the privacy settings in each platform (and their apps) to turn off advertising tracking, location tracking, and so on. Do this on a regular basis; I can’t tell you how many times I returned to my privacy settings, on both social media and other sites, and discovered they’d magically changed back.

PART 5 DISENGAGE BY...

RECLAIMING YOUR ATTENTION

Big Tech vies for our attention because they can turn it into profit. Pop-ups, audio and video ads, and every single thing on your smartphone are trying to distract you from living your life to get you to bow to their whims.

When we break these attention thieves’ hold on us, not only do we shrink their power…we live richer lives by paying attention to what really matters to us.

CHAPTER 17 DON’T SURF IF YOU DON’T NEED TO

Perhaps the best way to keep the internet from commandeering our attention is to use it as little as possible. To that end, before you hop online to look up a random fact, first consider: Do you really need this piece of information?

Looking back, I can’t believe how many times I used to find myself reaching for my phone to look up the height of an actor in the movie I was watching, what year an historic event happened, or whether the crazy news a friend read on Instagram is really true. Whenever someone in my family had some inane question (“are sharks fish?”), we would joke, “Oh, if only we had a device with all the world’s knowledge on it!”

Pulling out our phones or hopping onto our laptops to look up unnecessary information is so incredibly easy, we often don’t realize the information is completely useless to us. Resisting this urge is a huge step toward disengaging.

CHAPTER 18 ANNIHILATE ADS

Online ads pop up, flash, and play audio and video to distract us from the goal we’re trying to accomplish online. Free yourself of ads…and free up your attention for better things.

Annihilate Ads By…Opting Out of Online Advertising Networks

Online advertising networks are national trade groups that devise self-regulatory solutions to consumer issues online. In other words, they’re groups of marketers and advertisers that give you cursory control over your data so they can avoid actual regulation.

Part of this weak effort is to let you opt out of a lot of their preference-based advertising. The process is clunky and they will warn you—over and over again—that if you opt out, the ads you see online will not be customized to you. (How out of touch can you get? I don’t know a single person who complains online ad companies know too little about them.)

Here’s how to deny yourself the privilege of ads targeted to your online behavior.

How to opt out of the Digital Advertising Alliance

The Digital Advertising Alliance’s YourAdChoices website has you enter your email or phone number to control how advertisers collect data associated with that address or number. This won’t affect the ads you get via phone or email; the DAA’s advertiser members actually identify you based on this info and know not to track you.

The site also lets you do a browser check to find out which of their member advertisers are customizing ads on your browser, and to opt out of any or all of them. I ran the check in the spring of 2023 and opted out of every one of the 118 advertisers—but when I did it again in the fall of 2023, the system told me 23 of those advertisers were either serving personalized ads to my browser or their status was “unverified.” So it’s probably worth it to go through this process a couple of times per year.

How to opt out of the Network Advertising Initiative

The Network Advertising Initiative is a similar industry group that lets you opt out of its member companies’ browser-based advertising and matched advertising based on your email. It also gives instructions for opting out of interest-based ads on various mobile devices and internet-connected TVs.

Annihilate Ads Idea By…Blocking Them Outright

Of course, opting out of these networks doesn’t stop ads—it only stops member companies from tracking you in order to serve you personalized ads. While this is good in itself, if you want to get rid of ads altogether, you’ll need to install an ad-blocking browser extension.

Ad-blockers also prevent third parties from installing cookies on your device, so you reclaim your attention and your data all at once…for free! These are a few popular ones:

Adblock Plus (for Chrome, Firefox, Safari, Edge, Explorer, Opera, and Yandex)
AdBlock (for Chrome, Firefox, Edge, Safari, iOS, and Android)
uBlock Origin (for Chrome and Firefox)

Keep in mind, however, that some of your favorite online content is funded by advertising; you could always turn off the ad-blocker to allow ads from creators you want to support.

CHAPTER 19 SAY SEE YA TO YOUR SMARTPHONE

Just 15 years ago, we managed to navigate the world without having to look at our phones 144 times per day—like we do now, according to PCMag. That’s nine times per hour, or about once every seven minutes! Today we’re completely reliant on our phones, pouring our life energy and attention into the very features and apps that suck up and share our data.

But…how can we find our way to a new friend’s house without the GPS on our phone? How else can we get boarding passes, find a new restaurant, deposit checks, listen to audiobooks, join video chats, play music, tell the time, be prepared for the weather, identify a bird, track our heart rate, or find out the name of the song playing at the local café?

Don’t despair: Just as it was possible before, it’s possible now. Not super easy, thanks to the way our phones have wormed their way into a position of such significance in our lives, but not as difficult as you might think.

Option 1: Trade Your Smartphone for a Dumb Phone

I tried all the tricks of taking email off my phone and disabling the browser, but I’d instead find myself checking the weather an unreasonable number of times, looking at photos (again), and checking my bank account over and over.

So when my smartphone died, instead of buying a new one, I opted for the LightPhone II—a small, privacy-oriented phone with a backlit black-and-white display that comes with the bare minimum: phone, time, and text. You can use the online dashboard to add a few extras like a podcast player, music player, and turn-by-turn directions.

Incredibly, within just a couple weeks, I no longer felt the urge to check my phone. I could sit in the car, wait in line, or chill on my porch…without needing a gadget to allay boredom!

Option 2: Compromise with a Semi-Smart Phone

I do have to endure some inconveniences. For example, I borrow my partner’s phone to deposit checks, and use my laptop to make Venmo payments, and look at the wall thermostat to see the temperature outside. When a business requires customers to scan a QR code for service, I march up to the front desk and ask for an alternative.

Not willing or able to sacrifice Uber, the weather, or other apps? Some LightPhone users also keep an old smartphone and swap in the SIM card when they need to use it.

I have to admit I’m trying so hard to love this phone, but while I like the distraction-free nature of it, I find texting and calls—the two things the phone is meant for—clunky, slow, and difficult. If that’s a deal-breaker for you, try one of these semi-smart phones.

WisePhone II looks like an actual smartphone and includes a camera—but no social media apps, browser, or app store. The company bills itself as a conservative and religious business, if that matters to you either way.
Ghost Phone Pro looks similar to WisePhone II and has many of the same features. In addition, many apps can be sideloaded to the phone, but browsers and social media apps will be blocked. The Ghost Phone Pro runs on an Android-based operating system, and while it purports to reduce distraction, I couldn’t find any claims to privacy.

The phones are not compatible with all carriers; for example, my LightPhone doesn’t work with Visible. Check the phone’s website to see if you can stick with your current carrier.

Option 3: Install a Privacy-First Operating System

If you’re more concerned about privacy than distraction, here’s another option: Buy a used Pixel phone and install GrapheneOS, a free, privacy-oriented operating system for Android phones. GrapheneOS is an open-source non-profit that also develops secure and private apps and services—so you won’t have to go without, say, your camera or a browser.

PART 6 QUITTING THE BIG 4

Hopefully, the actions you’ve taken to disengage so far have honed your wits for the biggest challenge of all: quitting Google, Amazon, Apple, and Microsoft—the biggest of Big Tech. (It’s actually a Big 5, but we covered Facebook earlier.)

These are the companies that use their power to lock us in to their products, kill off competitors, bombard us with ads, mistreat creators, and extract our data for corporate profit. Their massive privacy violations have turned us from living, breathing humans into dollar signs and data points.

In this section of the book, I’ll give a quick critique of each company plus some solid alternatives to try.

CHAPTER 20 SAY GOODBYE TO GOOGLE

Google’s free products are hard to beat! Gmail, Google Drive, YouTube, Google Photos, the Chrome browser, and the list goes on.

However: Google is one of the world’s most ruthless harvesters of your personal data—which it doesn’t adequately protect, seeing as how it’s exposed the personal info of hundreds of thousands of people.

The product Google is best known for, search, isn’t all that great: As the biggest server of online ads, the company prioritizes paid search results over what you actually want to find. Scammers manipulate Google’s algorithms to create junk sites that rank high in the search engine, ripping off both visitors and advertisers.

Then there’s the monopoly issue. In September 2023, the U.S. launched an antitrust lawsuit against Google. “The Justice Department's case hinges on claims that Google illegally orchestrated its business dealings, so that it's the first search engine people see when they turn on their phones and web browsers,” reports NPR. “The government says Google's goal was to stomp out competition.” (See more on Google’s monopolistic practices in Chapter 22: Say Arrivederci To Apple.)

All this and (much) more is why it makes sense to explore the big world outside of Google products. This can be a difficult endeavor, but once you move to new platforms, they become as much a part of your everyday life as Google once was. After some up-front effort, you don’t need to think about it again.

If you’d like to kick Google to the curb, Nord VPN provides a list of Google alternatives, many of which are free or cheap. For even more alternatives to all Big Tech offerings, visit ethical.net, a not-for-profit project building a collaborative, online directory of ethical companies of all kinds.

I researched and tested some of the suggested replacements on the NordVPN list as I went about getting rid of Google products. Here’s what I ended up using, and how well these replacements worked. Like Google products, many of these alternatives are free and offer more space, features, and so on for a fee. If you’re worried about making such a big switch, start with easier products like map or video services before tackling your email and browser.

EMAIL: Gmail → Proton Mail

For email, I chose Proton, which is a privacy-first email provider that also offers a calendar, password manager, VPN, and more. You can get an email address for free, or upgrade for more addresses, the ability to use your own domain, and other features. I’ve been happy with Proton except I find their email search to be slow and annoying. (Google can provide fast searches of your email content because they automatically claim access to your content—which is kind of why I opted for a non-Google email in the first place).

Changing over was a long-term process. Here’s how I handled it:

Deleted all Gmail accounts except for my main one, as I had different addresses for various purposes.
Set up the main Gmail account to forward to the new Proton account.
Set up this automated response on Gmail:

Subject Line: This email address is no longer being monitored

Body: Hi! This email address is no longer being monitored. If you know me and didn't get my new address, please text me. Otherwise, you can contact me through my website, [URL]. Thanks!

On Proton, created two email addresses on my own domain: one for friends and family, and a second one for businesses and organizations I trust.
Emailed my friends and family to give them my new (main) email address.
Changed over all important accounts to use the second email address. (Less important accounts, such as accounts with my local supermarket, get masked emails; see Chapter 8: Escape Email Tracking for more on masked email addresses.)
Changed the email address on my website, my downloadable reports, etc. to a masked address.

For the first few weeks, I occasionally caught important emails via the forwarding to Proton—for example, from people and businesses I neglected to alert to the change—and I switched them over to my new address. At this point, I mostly get nothing but spam at my main Gmail address.

I will actually be keeping the Gmail account alive in order to keep using Google Drive, at least for now (more below). But in time, it will be an unused shell of an email that shares nothing of importance with Google…and once I have my new system set up, I can delete it forever.

SEARCH: Google Search → DuckDuckGo or SimpleSearch

Rather than using Google Search, I use the privacy-oriented DuckDuckGo as my main search engine. It’s free, but because it doesn’t track or collect your info, search results are not personalized or hyper-targeted. I consider this a good thing, as I don’t want to be confined to a little bubble when it comes to what information I see. It took a few weeks to get used to DuckDuckGo, but now I don’t even give it a second thought.

If you decide to go with DuckDuckGo sure to change the default search engine in your browser. Simply click on the magnifying glass in the search bar, click on Change Search Settings in the dropdown menu, and choose DuckDuckGo under the Default Search Engine section. For iOS devices, follow these instructions; these are the steps for Android.

Can’t do without the ease and personalization of Google Search? Simple Search is an extension for Firefox that highlights the actual search results provided by Google or Bing, cutting out all the paid search ads, info boxes, etc. Using Simple Search doesn’t mean these search engines can’t track you, collect your data, or serve up personalized ads—it just means you don’t see those ads, which throws a tiny wrench into Google’s money-making machine.

(The extension is also supposed to be available for Chrome, but it looks like it’s no longer available in the Chrome Web Store. Gee, I wonder why?)

CALENDAR: Google Calendar → Proton Calendar

My Proton account includes Proton Calendar, which works pretty much the same as Google Calendar. It’s also easy to share with people who still use Google (and for them to share their Google calendars with me). The disadvantage is that while we can share and view events between the platforms, we can’t edit events created in the other platforms.

PHOTOS: Google Photos → Ente

I replaced Google Photos with an app called Ente. This paid platform lets you organize and store photos both in an app and online. The developers are big on privacy, and I found it to be worth the money.

BROWSER: Google Chrome → Firefox

I chose Mozilla’s Firefox browser in place of Google Chrome, and have been very happy with it. Mozilla is a non-profit emphasizing “privacy, openness, and a belief in the ability of the internet to enrich the lives of people.” The Mozilla manifesto states, “Individuals’ security and privacy on the internet are fundamental and must not be treated as optional.”

I’d originally tested a couple of popular privacy browsers, and just didn’t like the feel of them. If you’d like to try them yourself, they are Epic Privacy Browser and Brave.

If you change browsers, you’ll also want to make your new choice the default browser for your phone, desktop computer, and other devices.

How to change the default web browser on iPhone, iPad, or iPod touch

Be sure you’re running iOS 14 or later.
Make sure the browser you want is installed.
Go to Settings.
Scroll down until you find your new browser app.
Tap the app.
Tap Default Browser App.
Select a web browser to set it as the default. A check mark appears to confirm.

How to change the default web browser on your Mac desktop

In macOS Ventura or later:

Make sure the browser you want is installed.
From the Apple menu in the corner of your screen, choose System Settings.
Click Desktop & Dock in the sidebar.
Scroll down and choose a web browser from the Default web browser menu on the right.

In earlier versions of macOS:

Make sure the browser you want is installed.
From the Apple menu in the corner of your screen, choose System Preferences.
Click General.
Choose a web browser from the “Default web browser” menu.

How to change the default web browser on Android

Make sure the browser you want is installed.
Swipe down once or twice (depending on your phone).
Click the gear icon to open Settings.
Go to the Apps section.
Select Default Apps or Choose Default Apps.
Tap Browser App and select the browser you want to use.

How to change the default web browser on Windows 11

Make sure the browser you want is installed.
Click Start.
Click Settings in the pinned area.
Select Apps.
Select Default apps.
Click the arrow next to the browser you want to use, then click Set default.

Now, when you click on a link in, say, a text, it will open in the correct browser.

MAP: Google Maps → OsmAnd, HERE WeGo, or Paper Maps

While the NordVPN article offers alternatives to Google Maps, I don’t use it enough to worry about a replacement. Looking over the list, I would personally go with OsmAnd, “one of the leading privacy-oriented Google Maps alternatives,” or HERE WeGo, which “falls under GDPR rules and regulations, so you can be sure that your data is in good hands.” And for the ultimate in privacy, don’t forget paper maps! They still exist.

VIDEO: YouTube → Nebula and…YouTube

Some of the same creators who post on YouTube also post on Nebula, “a place for experimentation and exploration, with exclusive originals, bonus content, and no ads in sight.” Half of your subscription fees ($5 per month or $50 per year) go to the creators.

Feeling FOMO about funny cat videos, or your favorite creator isn’t on Nebula? Here’s some good news: You don’t need to be logged into Google/YouTube in order to watch videos! You’ll lose out on some features—such as subscribing, liking, and commenting on videos—but it’s a small price to pay if you prefer to remain anonymous.

LAPTOP: Google Chromebook → Lenovo or Dell

If you want to steer clear of both Google and Apple, many cybersecurity experts are recommending Lenovo and Dell laptops as solid, secure alternatives.

CLOUD DOCUMENT EDITOR: Google Docs → Zoho Office

Zoho Office is one of Google Docs’ biggest competitors, because it includes a whole suite of tools like editing, chat, and an offline app. The platform also lets you upload different types of documents and even edit PDFs. On top of all that, it has a clear and reasonable privacy policy!

Zoho Office’s Writer, Note-book, Sheet, and Show products duplicate Google’s popular office products and are free for individuals. You can get access to all of these through Zoho’s Workspace, which offers 5GB of storage per user with up to five users, a 25MB attachment limit, and web access only.

CLOUD STORAGE: Google Drive → Proton Drive

I originally chose Box.com as my new cloud storage solution because it also allows users to collaborate on and share documents; however, when I attempted to switch over to Box, I was continually frustrated at how slow and inconvenient it was. First, there’s no easy way to automatically transfer the contents of your Google Drive. I tried various methods, none of which worked, and ended up laboriously downloading all my folders from Drive and uploading them into Box.

Then I discovered if you try to upload folders that contain subfolders, many of the subfolders are…empty. So my next task was to upload the individual subfolders one by one. This entire process took several days, on and off.

Second, the editing and sharing of files is very clunky. In order to share a file, the recipient needs to have a Box account—which makes sense, but who wants to go to that much effort just to collaborate with little old me? And in order to open and work on files in Box, you have to use third-party apps like Microsoft Word, which defeats the purpose of choosing a privacy-oriented drive.

Finally, I had the terrifying experience of losing thousands of files when I tried to reorganize my drive. Thank goodness I hadn’t deleted the files from Google Drive yet, so I gave up, canceled my Box subscription, and went crawling back to Google.

My new plan is to move my files to Proton Drive for storage, and to use Zoho Office to create and edit documents in the cloud.

How to Stop Paying Google for Storage

Until I have a chance to implement my new plan, I decided to clear out my Drive files from many, many gigs to under 15 GB—not only to be able to use Drive for free, thereby withdrawing my dollars from Google, but also to minimize the amount of content I had sitting around in there.

If you’d like to reduce your storage to “free” levels, here are some tricks I used. (If you ever decide to move to another cloud storage service, at least you won’t be paying for storage you don’t need!)

Step 1: Decide what you need

What do you really need to have hanging around in Google Drive? For me, it was the important projects I’ve done in the past (such as books I’ve written and an app I developed), the last two years’ worth of work, and projects I’m working on right now. The rest can be either somewhere else or gone from my life.

Step 2: Delete large files

In Drive, click Storage and sort the files by size, from biggest to smallest. Are there any large videos, images, or other files you don’t need sucking up a lot of space? Trash them.

You can also click Storage and then Clean Up Space to see files in Drive, Google Photos, and Gmail that Google recommends you delete.

Step 3: Delete duplicate files

Duplicate files can be a huge culprit in sucking up your storage space. If you’re on Android, Google provides an easy solution:

On your Android device, open Files by Google.
At the bottom, click Clean.
On the “Duplicate files” card, tap Select files.
Select the files you want to delete. The original file is marked with an “Original” badge.
Click Move # file(s) to Trash.
On the confirmation pop-up, tap Move # file(s) to Trash.

On a Mac? You’re out of luck, at least for an easy solution. You can’t even sort your files in alphabetical order on the Home page to easily suss out duplicates! I ended up using a free app; search for “duplicate file finder for Google Drive” to find tons of apps that can tackle this task. The free version will have some limitations, but it worked just well enough for me.

Step 4: Manually trash unneeded files

“Storage is cheap!” we say as we upload files willy-nilly. And now, if you’re like me, you have hundreds or thousands of files in Drive you don’t really need. For example, I had saved every single interview sound file and transcription from my 25-year career as a writer. Thankfully, I was very consistent in how I named files, so it wasn’t too much of a chore to search for and delete all those files.

Do you really need to hang on to 10-year-old resumes, background files from work projects long past, and every draft of your novel? Look through your files—and be ruthless about it.

Step 5: Transfer old (but important) files to a different service

If you have lots of files you want to keep, but you no longer need to work on and share, transfer them to a Google Drive alternative such as Dropbox.

Step 6: Move files to an external hard drive

Anything I wanted to keep, but that didn’t need to be in Drive, I downloaded to an external hard drive; the most important of these files I also keep on my laptop. I keep the hard drive in a fireproof safe and upload new files to it weekly.

Step 7: Empty the trash

Drive does this automatically every 30 days, but in the meantime the files there may be taking up a lot of space.

More Ways to Disengage from Google

You didn’t really think you were done, did you? Here are two more ways to keep Google from tracking your every move.

Turn off Google tracking

If you can’t live without Google products, visit their Data & Privacy page, where you can choose who is allowed to see your personal information, tell Google not to track your browsing history, turn off personalized ads, and more. Also, disable Google’s tracking on your Android devices, Nest thermostat, and other Google gadgets.

Opt out of Google Analytics

Google Analytics is a web analytics service that tracks and reports website traffic. Website owners can look at their Google Analytics dashboard to find out their visitors' IP addresses, locations, devices, visit lengths, browser settings, and more. The platform does this by using tags on the websites that run in visitors’ web browsers, collecting their data and sending it to Google's data collection servers.

If you want to prevent Google Analytics from using your data, take advantage of the Google Analytics opt-out browser add-on for Chrome, Firefox, Safari and Edge browsers.

CHAPTER 21 SAY AU REVOIR TO AMAZON

Amazon lures and then locks in consumers with low prices, which it accomplishes by squeezing its producers—creating an environment where the producers’ employees get screwed in order to keep prices low. Once it has a critical mass of consumers, Amazon cuts out the product providers altogether by copying their products, enticing creators to work directly with Amazon, and using its commercial power to bully, buy up, or kill other businesses. (Example: When the founders of Diapers.com wouldn’t sell, Amazon started offering deep discounts and free shipping on diapers, dropping its price every time Diapers.com did, until the smaller business gave in. Once Amazon bought Diapers.com, it closed the company down.)

This leaves us with few choices for where to purchase crucial products, stripped-out common spaces where local companies have been run out of business, and no limits on how badly Amazon can treat its employees. Not only that, but people have been complaining that the products they’re receiving from Amazon these days are either shoddy quality or straight-out counterfeits. I’m not talking luxury items here, but basic items like face lotion and board games.

“But the prices are so low!” we say. Not so: Even Amazon’s premise of ultra-low prices is a sham. According to Cory Doctorow in his Plura-list newsletter:

If you trust Amazon search to find you the best product and click that first link, you will pay a 29% premium for that item. If you expand your selection to [...] the first four items, which are often all that's visible without scrolling—you'll pay an average of 25% more. That top row accounts for 64% of Amazon's clicks. On average, the best deal on Amazon is found in the seventeenth slot in the search results. Seventeen!

For some of us, Amazon is essential; for example, people who live in rural areas or who don’t have reliable transportation benefit from fast delivery of products they need. But others have the luxury of considering Amazon products wants instead of needs.

How to Stop Shopping on Amazon

If you’re among the latter, here’s how to free yourself from Amazon shopping.

Stop Shopping at Amazon by…resetting your expectations

Amazon has trained us to expect near-instant delivery of everything we want. Decide your broom is looking shabby? Just click and you can have a sparkling new one delivered to you today.

This habit doesn’t do anyone any good. Instead, retrain yourself to wait a little longer for what you want. A smaller shop may have slower shipping, but that’s OK—just learn to look ahead instead of racing to Amazon when you suddenly need something. You may have to wait a few days until you can actually visit a brick-and-mortar store for a plant stand or battery recharger, but this will give you the time to consider whether you really need it in the first place.

Stop Shopping at Amazon by…canceling Prime

The next step is to cancel your Prime subscription. (Remember this means you’ll also lose access to Prime Video movies and TV shows!) Think about it: Outside of a few perks you probably don’t need, your Prime subscription is simply you pre-paying for your own shipping.

This means you’re not giving up much in terms of savings when you quit Prime. “Recall that Amazon already comps shipping on orders over $25, so a potential Prime purchaser has to evaluate whether they'll place enough sub-$25 orders in the coming year to justify the price—and also factor in the fact that Prime items are often more expensive on a per-unit basis than their non-Prime equivalents,” writes Doctorow. [The minimum has since been raised to $35.]

Stop Shopping at Amazon by…knowing thy enemy

Amazon doesn’t just own Amazon. They also own companies like:

Zappos
Goodreads
PillPack, a pharmacy
One Medical (Don’t love the idea of Amazon having our medical and pharma data!)
Whole Foods
Ring LLC (the smart doorbell company)
Twitch, the streaming video and community platform for gamers
iRobot, the makers of the Roomba vacuum, which Bloomberg called “a data collection machine that comes with a vacuum.”
Audible, the audiobook store (we’ll cover alternatives below)

It can be hard to keep up, but if you know a business is owned by Amazon…look elsewhere.

Stop Shopping at Amazon by…looking around town

Next, explore your downtown and other local shopping centers. You may be surprised at what you can find there. My town has a sew-n-vac store, a woodworking shop, and other gems I never noticed before. Your neighbors may also be good sources of products you want; for example, I have neighbors who bake cakes, make funny signs, and more.

Stop Shopping at Amazon by…going direct to the source

Many shops sell their wares both on Amazon and on their own websites. (Sadly, Amazon prohibits sellers from charging lower prices off its platform. Because Amazon charges a premium to sell items on its site, this raises prices everywhere.)

See something you want on Amazon? Go directly to the manufacturer’s website. I’ve been able to buy specialty vitamins, jar labels, bakery boxes, vacuum parts, specialty flour, and more right from the producer. I may give up free shipping, in which case I sometimes wait until I need enough from the seller to reach the free shipping level.

Stop Shopping at Amazon by…getting creative

Whenever you need something you know you can’t find locally, see if you can find it through a smaller company online. When I wanted a unique gift for a friend who is an incredible host, I found hand-made serving trays created from recycled wine bottles at the Uncommon Goods website. I’ve also bought memorial trees, homemade brownies, and other goodies sold by smaller companies online.

Stop Shopping at Amazon by…visiting a big-box

Sometimes we just want to buy a pair of socks or some AA batteries and don’t want to search all over town for them. Target, Walmart, Costco and other big-box stores, warehouse stores, and department stores aren’t perfect, but they aren’t anywhere near as bad as Amazon. (At least, not yet!)

How to Stop Buying Books on Amazon

Amazon may be best known for its bookstore, brimming with not only print books but also e-books and audiobooks (through Audible). You can snag titles from big-name authors and self-published writers alike. Sadly, though, the company is also harmful to the book publishing industry, squeezing creators and publishers while making it difficult for them to sell elsewhere.

If you’re tired enough of Amazon’s shenanigans to kick them to the side, there are ways to keep reading without Amazon, Kindle, and Audible.

Instead of Amazon, try…using another e-reader

If you use a Kindle e-reader, you’re stuck buying e-books from Amazon…unless you’re OK with the costs of switching over to another service when your entire library is already on Kindle. This is because Amazon supports only its proprietary AZW e-book files, and doesn’t allow you to sideload files in other formats. (Sideloading is installing software on a device without using the approved app store.)

Let me just repeat that you bought and own a reading device, but have no control over what you can read on it. Amazon has made this seem normal, but it’s not.

However, just because you switch e-readers doesn’t mean all is lost! After all, you can always keep your old Kindle books on your Kindle and then start a new collection on another e-reader. It may not be the very most convenient option if you like to reread your books frequently, but if you’re mostly “once and done,” you won’t need to pull out the Kindle too often.

When my Kindle dies, my plan is to replace it with a different brand of e-reader, and to take comfort in the fact that I can always read my old books on the Kindle app. In the meantime, my books are coming from the library.

Ready to find a new e-reader? Here are some Kindle alternatives that let you read a variety of file formats.

Kobo supports EPUB, EPUB3, PDF, MOBI, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP, TIFF, TXT, HTML, RTF, CBZ, and CBR Comic Book formats.
Onyx Boox e-readers support these file formats: TXT, HTML, RTF, FB2, FB2.zip, FB3, DOC, DOCX, PRC, MOBI, CHM, PDB, EPUB, JPG, PNG, GIF, BMP, PDF, DjVu, MP3, WAV, CBR, and CBZ. Check out the feature-comparison chart on their European website.
PocketBook e-readers support PDF, EPUB, DjVu, FB2, FB2.zip, MOBI, DOCX, RTF, TXT, CHM, HTML (basic), CBZ, CBR, and CBT.
NOOK e-readers from Barnes & Noble support EPUB and PDF file formats. This means you can buy e-books not just at Barnes & Noble but also from Kobo as well as smaller online booksellers (see below).

You’ll find everything from e-ink devices similar to the Kindle Paperwhite to backlit e-readers, and even color e-ink screens. They come in different sizes, typically have a long battery life, and some of them let you mark up books with a stylus or your fingers. Apps that let you read across devices, speakers for audiobooks, and the ability to borrow from libraries make many of these options very convenient. A few are even water resistant or waterproof for those of us who like to read in the bath!

Once you have an e-reader that lets you read all kinds of files, it opens up a whole world of small and independent online booksellers. Try sites like:

Smashwords, which lets young writers publish for free.
Project Gutenberg, which mostly publishes works in the public domain and offers many free textbooks to high school and college students.
e-books.com, one of the world’s oldest and largest sellers of e-books.

And those are just sites that sell EPUB format books. The ability to read PDF, CBT, and other files gives you even more options.

Instead of Amazon, try…kicking Audible to the curb

Not only is Audible an Amazon company…it doesn’t let libraries lend its Audible Exclusive titles, limiting access to some major books. Here are better options.

Libro.fm provides access to audiobooks from over 2,500 partner bookstores. You get to pick a local bookstore to support with your purchases, and you receive one credit for $14.99 per month. You can add credits whenever you need them or buy audiobooks à la carte.
Everand charges $11.99 per month for access to audiobooks as well as e-books, magazines, newspapers, and more—adding up to millions of works. There are monthly limits for certain e-books and audiobooks, but otherwise you can access unlimited works.
Chirp lets you escape subscription fees; after all, why is it considered a given that we want to subscribe for audiobook access when we typically purchase e-books and physical books individually? Instead, with Chirp you can buy audiobooks individually at a steep discount.
LibriVox offers free audiobooks of public domain works read by volunteers from all over the world.

With alternatives like these, you won’t lose much (or anything) by dissing Audible.

Instead of Amazon, try…IRL bookstores

You think they’re gone, but they’re not. Scrappy independent bookstores have popped up in many cities in defiance of Amazon and big-box bookstores. Not to mention, we do still have big-box booksellers like Barnes & Noble and Books-A-Million.

A search on Indiebound found nine independent bookstores in the city closest to my home. Just enter your zip code to see what’s available near you. Some of them even ship books! The one I shop at has excellent customer service, shipping, and a loyalty program offering a solid discount.

Instead of Amazon, try…going to the library

Guess what? Many libraries lend not just physical books, but e-books and audiobooks as well. The number and variety of these formats varies depending on how large your library is and where it’s located.

The easiest way to find and borrow e-books and audiobooks is to download the OverDrive and Libby apps. You can also browse your library’s e-book catalog on its website. When you find an e-book you’d like to read, read the book’s description page to see which apps the library uses to deliver the book.

CHAPTER 22 SAY ARRIVEDERCI TO APPLE

You may divide the world into “Mac people” and “PC people,” but that’s because Apple and Microsoft use monopolistic practices to make their systems and applications seem like the default. This excerpt from an NPR overview of a 2020 House Democrat report says it all:

The report says Apple exerts "monopoly power" in the mobile app store market by favoring its own apps and disadvantaging rivals.

That dominance hurts innovation and increases prices and choices for consumers, House investigators found.

Apple, along with Google in its Google Play store, leaves developers with little choice for reaching consumers, the report says, adding that the arrangement leaves developers at the whims of the "arbitrary" enforcement of Apple's app guidelines.

The report found that the controversial 30% commission levied by Apple and Google has resulted in price increases on consumers. Investigators say that Apple generated billions of dollars in profit from the fees, despite costing about less than $100 million to operate.

Not only that, Apple has been accused of violating labor laws—and while the company touts its privacy practices, a security researcher and developer claimed Apple apps collect and send data even if you declined to give consent for them to do so.

Leaving the Apple ecosystem can be a chore because the company and its products have made their way into every facet of our lives. Let’s dive into some ideas for making it happen.

Go Back to the Past

First, use the tips from earlier chapters to disengage from Apple:

See Chapter 20: Say Goodbye To Google for suggestions on privacy-forward replacements for iCloud storage, iCloud mail, Apple Photos, and other products.
See Chapter 19: Say See Ya To Your Smartphone for info on how to strengthen your privacy in phone apps…plus ideas for how to scrap your smartphone altogether.

The products and ideas in these chapters will get you started on the path to an Apple-free life. Then, look to these alternatives to Apple software, music, and podcasts.

OPERATING SYSTEM: Mac → Linux or PureOS

If you feel up for the challenge, you can install Linux on your Mac and replace Mac’s native applications with Linux equivalents, according to a Vice article on how to quit Apple, Microsoft, Google, Facebook, and Amazon. There are many free, open-source alternatives to various popular software programs you can use with Linux.

Another option for the technically minded is PureOS, a “A free/libre and open source GNU/Linux operating system" that's "a fully-convergent, user friendly, secure and freedom respecting OS for your daily usage.” This operating system has many software applications available, from games and video to graphics and office apps.

STREAMING MUSIC: Apple Music → resonate or SoundCloud

Want to abandon Apple music? Go one better by choosing an artist-friendly alternative that pays decent royalties to creators. These competitors are similar in price to the bigger streaming services.

SoundCloud uses a fan-powered royalty system where artists’ earnings reflect the number of listens they receive…a nice change from Apple, which makes it difficult for any but the very top artists to make a living. It costs $4.99 per month for a limited catalog and $9.99 per month for the full catalog. I was able to find full albums by every major artist I plugged into their search, and many new and independent creators have tracks there as well.

Resonate bills itself as “the first community-owned music streaming service—a multi-stakeholder platform co-operative, democratically governed by our members: artists, listeners, and workers,” and boasts, “No subscription. No ads. No corporation selling your data. No bots telling you what to like.”

You pay 1/4 of a cent the first time you play a track,  then a little more each time you replay it. Once you reach about $1.40, the track is yours to keep. I did some searches and couldn’t find any big-name artists on the platform—but if you’re looking for tunes you might not hear otherwise, resonate could be for you.

PODCASTS: Apple Podcasts → Pocket Casts or Overcast

Pocket Casts is the strongest competitor to Apple Podcasts with its streamlined, easy-to-use interface, plethora of controls, and ability to run on iOS, Android, and desktop. Some features require an upgrade to Pocket Casts Plus, which costs $3.99 per month or $39.99 per year.

If that sounds like overkill, try Overcast, a simple but feature-rich podcast player for iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch. Overcast is free, supported by small visual ads to promote podcasts, and you can optionally hide them for $10 per year.

WIRELESS EARBUDS: Apple AirPods → Sony WF-1000XM5

The product testing and review site Tom’s Guide say these Sony wireless earbuds offer “outstanding sound, and one of the best user experiences around.”

CHAPTER 23 SAY MMM-BYE TO MICROSOFT

Everything you read above about Apple, Google, and Amazon? A lot of it applies to Microsoft as well. The company has been accused of war profiteering and tax evasion. It blocks apps on Windows 11 that allow users to choose the browser and search experience they want.

Microsoft has literally rejoiced that their dominance makes it hard for consumers to move to, and developers to create products for, a new platform, as per this internal memo:

[...] It is this switching cost that has given the customers the patience to stick with Windows through all our mistakes, our buggy drivers, our high TCO (total cost of ownership), our lack of a sexy vision at times, and many other difficulties [...] Customers constantly evaluate other desktop platforms, [but] it would be so much work to move over that they hope we just improve Windows rather than force them to move. In short, without this exclusive franchise called the Windows API, we would have been dead a long time ago.

I can’t possibly cover all the ways Microsoft has helped to make the internet (and the world) a crappier place. But if the information above is enough for you to drop them like a hot rock, here are some ideas.

Go Backward

See Chapter 20: Say Goodbye To Google for suggestions on privacy-forward replacements for Edge Browser, Outlook email and calendar, Bing search, and other products. Then check out these alternatives for software suites and video game consoles.

OFFICE SUITE: Microsoft Office → LibreOffice

LibreOffice is a suite of free, open-source software compatible with such formats as Microsoft Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Publisher. You can export your work in many different formats, including PDF. On the downside, LibreOffice doesn't offer mobile apps or online collaboration.

VIDEO GAME CONSOLE: Xbox → An Xbox Emulator

Yes, it’s possible to play Xbox games without an Xbox (or an Xbox Game Pass subscription)!

An emulator is a program that gives you the ability to run software from a different device on your computer. Xemu, for example, is a “free and open-source application that emulates the original Microsoft Xbox game console, enabling people to play their original Xbox games on Windows, macOS, and Linux systems.” It supports almost all controllers, and you can connect up to four controllers at a time.

Emulators may run more slowly than the original device and can suck up a lot of bandwidth…but if you’re tired of feeding Microsoft with your time, attention, and dollars, an emulator could be the way to go. Want to give it a try? The Xemu has a long, searchable list of Xbox games compatible with the emulator.

PART 7 LIVE YOUR LIFE

You’ve read through Disengage, maybe taken some notes, and perhaps even put some of the ideas into practice! Here’s where we wrap it all up. This project will likely never be all wrapped up with a nice bow on top, but we can still make some great things happen.

Remember: We Can Only Do What We Can Do

This book was based on what I learned as I attempted to disengage myself, as much as was feasible, from the internet and the Big Tech companies that have claimed it as their own. As I researched, I learned about many products, technologies, and businesses I don’t personally own, use, or frequent. I attempted to pull all this information together into this short guide.

I couldn’t possibly cover every single action one might take to take back the internet—to reclaim your data, privacy, attention, permission, content, and dollars from those who would abuse them. Even with all I was able to dig up on how to keep Google from tracking you, for example, I wouldn't be surprised if I covered only 10% of the possibilities.

I also may not have covered the privacy-invading, exploitative, extractive, or creativity-killing problem that keeps you up at night. Maybe it’s business formats like Spotify, Uber, Doordash, or Netflix. Maybe it’s the way people publicly share what they buy and sell on Venmo so everyone can tell they collect unicorns and have a kid who plays soccer.

If there are any companies you’d like to cut ties with—or troubling privacy practices you’d like to tackle—that I didn’t cover here, chances are someone else has already done it, and has written a blog post or a guide to help you.

How Do You Feel?

As you work your way through this guide, implementing changes that make sense to you, do you feel lighter? Are you proud that you were able to keep some of your time, attention, data, and dollars out of the claws of Big Tech? Do you feel less like you’re walking around in a constant spotlight? If so, please help spread the word to our fellow citizens who may be withering under the glare. Remember, this book is free!

Keep Up the Good Fight

Thank you for reading Disengage. I hope this humble book helps you deprive hypercapitalist companies of at least a bit of your precious life.

If you’d like to get in touch, please reach out at LindaFormichelli.com.