As a software engineering student, I love the beauty of tech, but I’m also afraid of it.

Technologies help us a lot in every aspect of life. But it also brings a data hunger from big tech companies.

But there is always a solution. You can get more privacy, so big companies can’t have information about you, or they have at least.

Web-browser

You can opt out of Google Chrome by using Firefox and Ungoogled-chromium, I have a detailed review.

You have to separate your activities. Creating multiple profiles for multiple purposes is a good idea.

Email

I know that a lot of universities give Gmail accounts to their students. It’s an easy way for them.

You can’t switch email services when using school email, but you can choose an alternative for personal purposes.

You can check out Tuta, Proton. They have an easy way to register.

If you want to have PGP by yourself, I strongly recommend it. You may look at Disroot, Cock.li, Autistici, or even G-Mail with Mailvelope

You can check out the E-mail providers - which one to choose? ¹ article from DigDeeper which can give you reviews and a lot of suggestions.

You have to notice that you never use school email for personal work, creating accounts,… It’s something about privacy and security:

1. Some schools block emails outside the organization.
2. They can delete your email accounts when you leave the university.
3. An administrator can easily reset the password.
4. They can gain unauthorized access to your email account.

But you can choose the TrustNoOne plan by encrypting your email manually using PGP. The software you can use is The GNU Privacy Guard.

An email client would be nice: Claws Mail, NeoMutt, and ThunderBird (which should be hardened for privacy concerns). Email clients will help you:

1. Choose the program you like. Not depending on the provider’s JavaScript.
2. The mail client will remain constant. Prevent being served malicious JavaScript.
3. POP3 allows you to keep control of your data in your hands.
4. The variety of features.
5. Support PGP properly.

Real-time messaging

Although Facebook Messenger, Viber, and WhatsApp come with a lot of features. But they are data-hungers, no matter how encrypted they are. Those encryptions can only protect you from attackers, not from those companies.

You can switch to Signal, it’s an encrypted messaging platform that has a good reputation, doesn’t store your messages, and is very easy to use.

Persuading friends to switch to Signal is hard work, but if you try, you will notice how the data that those companies get from you will decrease.

You can check out some alternatives like SimpleX Chat, Briar, Session, and Element.

Password manager

I strongly recommend that you use a password manager. It’s again something about privacy and security. It can help you avoid using the same passwords for multiple platforms, which will reduce the chance of being hacked.

A password manager is good, but it’s something about the company that developed that service. You should never use the built-in password manager in browsers; it’s very easy to hack. The built-in password managers on Apple and Android devices are good, but they lack multi-platforms, which will lock you in their ecosystem.

I will recommend using Bitwarden, it’s free and open source. You can get their premium for only $10 a year.

Some alternatives like: ProtonPass, KeePass, 1Password.

Operating System.

You can create a new user account that doesn’t have root permission.

Check out privacy.sexy, it’ll help you turn off telemetry from the OS.

You can also create multiple user accounts for multiple purposes, just like with a web browser.

An online sync platform, a hard drive partition, or a USB will help you transfer files and data.

Linux is the best for privacy, but not all of them. You can check out the Desktop/PC article and Operating Systems for more recommendations. Be aware of Ubuntu.

The operating systems you are using on your phone are mostly iOS or Android. You can check out Graphene OS. For iOS devices, you don’t have too many choices, but you can have some configurations.

It doesn’t matter which OS you’re using; make sure that you have strong encryption on your device.

For an external drive, like a self-host cloud, USB, or hard disk, you can use built-in encryption or third-party software like VeraCrypt.

Networking

You can use VPNs from Cloudflare (red flag), Proton, Mullvad (the best). It will prevent network administrators from looking for what you’re doing by encrypting the data flow, creating a fake IP address, … But be cautious, because it will mark you as using a VPN.

Using cellular data is not a bad option if you can’t use a VPN; it will not replace a VPN, but it will protect you from hackers. But the service provider will know what you’re doing.

You can choose a DNS resolver from Mullvad or Quad9.

For anything on the internet, you should stay away from Cloudflare ². I’ll guide you on how to reduce the amount of Cloudflare in soon.

Software

Using school software for school work and personal software for personal work only.

Instead of using Office 365, you can check out LibreOffice.

For sync files, you can use encryption cloud storage from Proton, Tresorit, Filen, pCloud, IceDrive,… But for the most affordable, you can encrypt your files before uploading by using Cryptomator, 7-zip, rclone,…

You can also check FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) alternatives for every application you’re using. And should stay away from proprietary software ³.

For code development, you can check out VSCodium to replace VSCode although it lacks of some features.

Maybe it will get a long blog for software only.

For more information, you can check out: Open Source Alternative To Using https://alternativeto.net/software/YOURPRODUCTNAME/?license=opensource