Rebel Tech AllianceHow do I stop using Big Tech products?
"But I use those products all the time, I rely on them. Are there really alternatives?"Yes! And many of the changes are really easy to make. In the ALTERNATIVES section of this website we'll show you the best options.
The constant surveillance from big tech is just so CREEPY 🤢 But before you even change any products, however, you can start reducing your data leakage with the Big Tech Walkout first steps below.
THE BIG TECH WALKOUT
Reduce your data footprint
Start your digital exodus by taking part in the Big Tech Walkout 2025. Reduce your data leakage dramatically by the end of 2025 - stop feeding the beast!
(The rest of the Walkout steps are on our Collective Action page.)
BIG TECH WALKOUT - FIRST STEPS:
1. Say NO to cookies!
This is the first habit to get into, and it's really easy. Under GDPR cookie settings default to off, so you just need get in the habit of clicking SAVE SETTINGS or DECLINE every time you see a cookie popup. There is no reason why you should volunteer your personal behavioual data.
2. Turn off app permissions and Advertising ID in your phone
Permissions
The most important permissions for data leakage are Location, Microphone and Contacts. Check them all in the Permissions Manager in your phone's settings. Only allow an app if really necessary, and even then set it to 'only when using the app'. In general you can leave location off for your phone, and only turn it on when you use maps. Pro tip: position the location button in the 'quick menu' pull down section on your phone so it's really quick to toggle on and off.
Advertising ID
You can delete the Advertising ID in Android phones by going to 'Settings / Security and Privacy / More privacy settings / Ads' and delete your advertising ID.
Phones vary so here are some instuctions for Android and iPhone:
1. https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2022/05/how-disable-ad-id-tracking-ios-and-android-and-why-you-should-do-it-now or 2. https://ingenuitydisplay.com/how-to-disable-the-identification-for-advertising.html
3. Ditch mobile apps with trackers
Check your apps
Apps are just web pages with tracking permissions that you can't turn off. You can easily see what your apps are really up to in the background by checking them at the Exodus Privacy site. Beyond the usual big tech offenders, games and weather apps are the worst offenders for stealing your location data, and selling it on to data brokers.
Web apps
If you really want the app but it's full of creepy trackers, you can go to the website for that service, look in the browser menu for 'Add to Home Screen', then click 'Add' or 'Install'. This is placing an app icon on your phone homescreen which opens the web page but without the browser window address bar etc. So it behaves just like an app. You can then let your browser block all the trackers 💥
FOSS apps
If you have an Android phone install F-Droid - an alternative app store that just has open source apps. Start with the basics like weather apps, pdf readers, authenticator apps and RSS readers. There will usually be no trackers at all in these apps. F-Droid can inspect the code - because they are open source - so can tell you exactly what's happening with the data.
4. Trim URLs before you share them
Friends don't let friends get tracked 😊 So here's a trick: deleting everything after the "?" in a URL strips out the tracking! The URL will still take them to the right place.
5. Start using a secure password manager (optional but recommended)
We recommend 1password because it has an extra layer of security and has not been hacked (like e.g. LastPass has). Also very good is Bitwarden
Why use a password manager? As you migrate to better, more private tech, you will be running them in parallel with your creepy big tech versions. This will mean a lot more passwords to manage. Another reason is to get you away from storing them in big tech browsers like Chrome or Edge, where Google and Microsoft have access to them.
Pro tip: if you keep your passwords in Chrome/Edge/Safari, and this is stopping you from changing browser, then don't let it stop you! You have two options: when you switch browser you can import all the passwords to the new browser, OR you can import them into a password manager. Both are easy, so it's really not an excuse. You do all the import/export on the desktop once and then you're good to go on mobile thereafter.
6. Continue the Walkout by switching to non-creepy software
Explore the drop-down menus in the ALTERNATIVES SECTION of this site to find alternative tech. There's plenty of 'small tech' to choose from!'Small tech' map:
There are two options for alternative sofware that is not creepy:
- FOSS - Free Open Source Software
- Proprietary software with privacy-by-design features such as E2EE
FOSS - Free Open Source Software
Free means 'freedom', not 'free of charge', and refers to the licences that they release the software to you under. Even though it doesn't mean free of charge, a large majority of this kind of software is offered for free. In these cases they rely on donations to keep the lights on.
Open Source means that the code is available publically so anyone can study it to see how it works. This provides much needed transparency on the privacy side of things.
Open Source also means that members of the public can contribute to the software, either pointing out bugs, fixing bugs, helping with queries or coding new features
Proprietary software with privacy features
These products are not open source - their code is secret - but they have strong privacy features, for example Zero Knowledge Encryption (E2EE) and Zero logs policies.
Much of these proprietary products are also free, and rely on donations. Many are 'freemium' - they have a free entry tier and then you pay for advanced features. Some freemium products are the consumer version of a business product, in which case the business customers are subsidising the consumer customers. Lastly some of these products are fully paid services.
Next➡️ explore non-creepy options in the Alternatives submenus of the Change tab ☝🏼 e.g. start with Ad & Tracker Blockers
💡 If you would like to suggest a tech alternative for our lists, or provide a correction, please add it to our Wiki in Codeberg: https://codeberg.org/Rebel_Tech_Alliance/RTA_Static_Site/wiki/Big-Tech-Alts
Want to skip straight to hardcore mode? ➡️ Learn about self-hosting