Thanks for the info! That’s interesting, I’m also happy to pay for ad-free. I’ll test it out in any case.

Thank you! I might just replace it with Magic Earth.

Thanks! Someone else suggested that to me as well. It’s hard when I have only 3-4 spots per category. If I don’t use this to replace one of the others, I can at least add it to the links page.

Thank you! I got your email, will reply soon.

Yeah, I figured I was preaching to the choir here! But if you feel the info would help others who are not here, please do share.

I emailed you, but wanted to reply here that I love this! I don’t have much to add as I’m having the same problem with my own project trying to make privacy easier for people like, say, my friends and family. They have to really WANT it to go through all those inconvenient steps of changing to alternative products. Even getting people invested in changing their app settings is hard enough!

I think the below commenter is right that people will start to care more when they see what’s going to happen with their data under the new administration (in the U.S., at least). We all thought it was a good trade-off for free and cheap products, and soon we may be faced with our data being used to target us personally.

The only thing I can think of is, have you tried sending info about your sites to relevant news outlets, newsletters, etc.? I got a little traction from being mentioned in two newsletters: Cory Doctorow’s newsletter and the DeleteMe newsletter Incognito. I’m planning on mailing out print press copies of my free book later in May…I have a PR friend who will be helping me with that.

Qwant search

Interesting! Is it totally free? Looks like it. If it’s free and good and not problematic, maybe I’ll use it to replace Kagi.

Yes, that was recommended by someone in /Privacy.

Does Kagi actually pay Yandex for searches? Grrr.

This infographic is for less-techie people (say, me…or even more, my mom). If I get rid of everything I’ve been told is problematic so far (Proton, Kagi, Zoho, in addition to some I actually did end up removing already), there won’t be any doable solutions left for my intended audience. (My mom doesn’t know or care if something is open source, or what an instance is or how to join one for a search engine, etc. But if she can get away from Google, I feel that’s a step in the right direction.)

Maybe I should add an asterisk to the infographic key for anything that’s problematic. Then on the links page I can describe the situation with each one, and let readers decide.

I’ll fix OM!

Whoops! I’ll fix it.

I actually wrote a whole (free) book about it, haha! (I’m a retired journalist.) In short, I got tired of feeling like I was always being followed and watched. I also disliked the way the big tech companies have been taking over U.S. politics. I was proved right after the last election and updated the book to reflect the new administration. And so many more reasons! I also quit Microsoft and Amazon, most of Meta (I have some friends in other countries who only use Whatsapp), and am working on Apple.

Great!

Oh, very cool! Yes, do reach out if you decide to do it.

Congrats! I did it last year and it was SUCH a relief.

BTW, I managed to hand out/place about 80 postcards at the most recent protest! I’ll do the same on May 1. Let me know if you’d like me to send you some postcards you can hand out if you’d like to do the same.

Hi! I finally got the EPUB onto the site as a direct download.

Thanks! I can’t imagine even explaining to my mom what an instance is, much less how to use one. Maybe the situation will change when more and more people start joining these sites. But I will list SearXNG on the links page!

ETA: I thought you meant how do I like the Proton mailbox@! :D

I like it. The only issue for me is that the search is slow, but that’s because they have to compile all your data first…as opposed to Gmail, which already and always has access.

Another plus of Proton Mail is their masked email app. When I go to a site that asks me to enter an email, the app can create a masked email for me on the fly.

Wow, these seems to be controversy over a lot of privacy-based alternatives! I already added OM to the infographic but am happy to replace it (until the new fork is ready) with a different easy-to-use U.S., privacy-forward map.