avatar Andrรฉs Cรกrdenas (@kandr3s)

Changing Gear

I have always advocated for using apps and tools that are open source and focus in the privacy of their users. I used to go as far as finding a self-hosted alternatives for every app I considered essential.

After years of an always open source unless unpractical philosophy and running my own Linux server Iโ€™ve given up on it and reduced significantly the number of tools I use on a daily basis.

Looking at what life became during the pandemic I hoped on the detachment train and disappeared from the Internet.

Even though itโ€™s been 3 years since I deleted my Facebook account and one since I stopped using Google services altogether it wasnโ€™t until I didnโ€™t have a computer that I truly felt disconnected.

With no notifications nor social media all I really needed was a web browser and that fit in my my first gen iPhone SE.

I considered this such a radical change that I thought it deserved to be documented.

I took these screenshots back in December:

Here are a bunch of tools/services I considered absolutely essential back then and how I replaced them.

  • Firefox
  • Notion
  • Thunderbird โ†’ Tutanota
  • Beets/Tauon Music Box โ†’ Spotify
  • VLC โ†’ Plex
  • Foliate โ†’ Kybook 3
  • Fluent Reader โ†’ Yarr โ†’ Feedly
  • Eddie โ†’ OpenVPN
  • Jekyll/Github/Netlify โ†’ Tumblr
  • Libreoffice
  • Visual Studio Code
  • Discord
  • Filezilla
  • Oh My Zsh
  • Apollo
  • Forza Football
  • Oak

I rarely have something to say but whenever I do Tumblr gets it out here, it supports custom domains and brought the most special person to my life (but thatโ€™s a story for another day), so itโ€™s become my hosting platform of choice and even though Iโ€™m restarting my vinyl collection, Spotify flexibility and flawless import of all my playlists throughout the years was worth the subscription.

I guess everything does fit in here: