A bit of a tricky year, isn't it? If you're anything like me you're checking the produce in the grocery store and avoiding American produce and processed foods. That can't be the end of it, though, because my dollars are still going there in other ways. There are two problems with that, and they both matter. The first is that I don't want to support a regime that's extorting my nation. The other is that every dollar I spend on US goods and services could have been spent with a friendlier nation, building bridges. So by shifting my purchases I strengthen one of our budding trading partners. So I took a step back and thought: What is the most impactful I can be? How can I generate the greatest leverage? I'm just a drop in the ocean, right? We've all had that thought. But the ocean is made of drops, and if I forge a new channel then others may find it easier to do something similar.
The things that are special about America are naturally the things that I rely on them for. But I don't want to rely on them anymore. I'm not sure I can. So if I can't rely on them, I need to find other safe, low friction ways to get these services. And if I can manage it, I can tell you how. And if I can tell you how, then you can decide if any of these strategies work for you. Do some, all or none. Whatever works best for you. But when you leave this page, just remember that you have choices. Some are easy, some are hard, some are free, some cost money. But they are all choices you don't need to feel trapped and helpless under these corporate giants.
The Easy The first two were easy, your browser and your search engine. Most people use Chrome, Edge or Safari for browsers. There are a bunch of options out there. My goal was to shift away from America, and that narrowed it down. I went for Vivaldi because it also has excellent ad blocking and privacy features, enabled by default. In fact they're so good you'll have to turn off a few on your favorite sites to get the experience you want, but you'll be starting with privacy as a default, data sovereignty as a default. To get started, find your preferred browser. Download. Install and move your bookmarks and/or passwords into the new browser. Then delete the shortcut to the old browser. Don't delete the old browser itself yet. Keep it until you're satisfied that the new one does what you need. Don't pressure yourself. Habits are hard to break. Make your desired path easy and you'll have an easier time sticking to it.
Next, my search engine. Google is the verb we've all been using for years, but there are alternatives. In my browser options I changed from Google to Start page. There are others, like Mojeek. I knew whichever I use would likely get some money from the ads they show me, so I pointed that money at a country that isn't currently trying to extort us. I changed my New Tab default page. It was weird for a bit, but it's free and easy to get started. Want to join? Don't let me stop you.
A little harder and a little more expensive. A little harder: I switched my office suite to LibreOffice, though I also have access to Infomaniak's web-based office tool. Both are close enough an experience to the more basic or core Microsoft Office experience, but power users will likely notice some differences. A power user or someone just very used to certain layout could be annoyed by this. Some people will use it every day, so whatever you do make sure it's worthwhile for you. But do only what you can. Don't let anyone, me included, pressure you to do more.
Cloud Storage. I used to have a paid Google One subscription for a good amount of storage. It's sure convenient, but convenience is the greatest rhetorical power Silicon Valley has. Personally, I switched to Infomaniak. I pay for the privilege. $5.54/month. (I actually pay for a number of Infomaniak Services, totalling $150CAD/yr. $70 of that is web hosting, and if you don't want a website I'd keep it to $65/yr for drive and $13.85/yr for the domain. Your email comes with the domain). My other advantage of buying a domain is that even if I decide to use a different provider later I can still use all the same e-mail addresses. So I won't feel trapped in one service again in the future. You can't do that with Microsoft or Google.
Maps For maps I still use Google. I'm not sure it's worth it for me to switch quite yet. But maybe one day. I feel okay with it because of all the other elements I'm pursuing. I'm just not ready to pursue this one yet.
Image processing. I use immich, but that won't help you unless you want to self-host your image software. It's very similar to Google Photos, but runs off my home PC and feeds to my phone very naturally. It still detects faces, reads location data like you're used to in google photos but I run it at home. I imagine there are other tools you could use for the same purpose, but I'm not conversant enough to make a recommendation.
Harder: Switching email Switching e-mail is both harder and easier than I thought. Once I found Infomaniak I realized I didn't need to completely cut ties with my old gmail account. I just forwarded the e-mail from my old gmail address to the new one. I shifted my services very quickly, but for all my personal contacts I don't feel a need to bombard them all with "I've got a new e-mail" e-mails. So instead I've just prioritized this new email. I'm still getting where I want to go, just at a more comfortable pace. What's really difficult is doing a hard break with your old email you've used for 15 years? Because people know to find you there. And they'll be very surprised if you suddenly aren't there anymore. However: moving your data from one system to the other takes effort. I used gmail, so it's honestly not that onerous: you go to "Google Takeout" and download all your historical items. Then in your new environment you upload them again. Do a search for some instructions: there are tools specifically to help with this because the way Google provides your photos (for instance) strips out the meta-data. They give it to you as a separate file, but when you drop your photos in their new home you may want that meta-data back.
The Great Unknown And there are more pieces that I haven't even approached yet. I'm still using Microsoft Windows. But I will want to shift away from it eventually. I'm hoping that a product like Zorin OS might work for me. It's Linux based, but I am reliably informed that for the most part I won't feel a huge difference between Zorin and Windows. It's based in Ireland, not in the US. It's also free. Although there is a paid version. The paid version is $78CAD, and it looks like it comes with its own version of Office Suite. So even if you pay for it. It comes in well under the cost of Windows.
I think I'm gonna struggle with video streaming as well. In part because YouTube has such a massive content library. Shifting away from YouTube might ultimately change my video watching habits for the better. But in the meantime, I'll probably keep popping back to YouTube. I'm trying to use Dailymotion at the moment, but it has only been a few days and to be honest I don't really know where to start on that one. Dailymotion is based in France.
Security software is surprisingly easy because a lot of security software already seems to be made outside the US. Bitdefender and Surfshark VPN are both European. 1Password is a great Canadian password manager. I don't really use much social networking so. That's not going to be hard for me. But it may be very difficult for you. AI is another challenge. I'm an advocate of locally hosted AI. But it is not powerful enough to do everything you might need day-to-day. And what I do hosting my own AI is probably more involved, than others might want to get. So as a result I suspect a better approach might be to try using a non-American AI first. And then hop over to use the American one when necessary. Ultimately, other countries will build the capacity so that you won't have to. But for today? Don't make yourself go cold turkey.
Also I've been told that video games will largely work on Linux based devices. So Zoran OS shouldn't have a problem with most games. There is a big exception which is online games that require anti-cheat software. That largely seems to be window based still, from what I've read. So you may suffer there if your new platform isn't yet supported by the anti cheat software.
Finally, payment mechanisms. Those are going to take sometime and I'm not sure how worthwhile it will ever be. But it is a lot of money involved in on an economic scale. Visa and MasterCard are both based in the United States. So although those are the only real options I ever think about I am interested in finding out what else is out there. I know Europe has some options and I know Canada uses Interac for bank to bank transactions. But it's not as deeply integrated into efficient workflows yet. Making payments from Apple Wallet or Google Wallet is not going to get easier. In fact, they may not work at all if you don't use their respective wallets. And both systems. But particularly Apple will not allow non-standard Payment mechanisms. Or Some other kind of wallet that's not theirs from operating on their device. That's not entirely a criticism. There are good security reasons to make that case, but that doesn't mean I'm happy with it.
So what broke? What was difficult with this process, or at least the pieces that I've engaged with? Well to start off, I have to be honest: I don't care that much about the experience being better for myself. That's not what I'm here for. I just don't want such extreme discomfort that my commitment falters. Just keep that in mind when you read the below, maybe it will calibrate my comments better for you.
Search Engine Transitioning my search was much easier than I expected. I'm so used to the idea of Google that I haven't looked around for options in years. I now use Startpage. It's an aggregator (pulls results from other search engines). It gives me a consistent user experience and I can add or remove sources from the list of search engines it pulls from. It's harder to read the results, and has taken me a little while to get used to reading those results. Google has a fine-tuned mix of images and links, balanced text and summaries, so this was uncomfortable. But tell yourself you're just doing it for a week and you'll find it's easier than you thought by the end of that time. The real key was just changing the default so that it wouldn't start with Google. I don't have a hard rule with myself to not use it, I just start somewhere else first.
Browser The browser was also very very easy. I shifted over to Vivaldi from Chrome. All it really took was getting Chrome off my taskbar and putting Vivaldi in its place. It's a little bit clunky because the high level of security and privacy tools. They include ad blockers that will make it so that some websites won't work. It's not actually that big a deal because I really only had to learn how to hit 1 button to re enable those services when i choose. But I like that I'm from a place of security.
AI I've done local AI, but as I mentioned I wouldn't expect everyone to get into that. That said, if you're interested it's much easier than you think. I'm not a trained programmer. But it does have an upfront cost unless you've already got a decent gaming computer. The challenge isn't getting the AI set up. Many people could handle that. The challenge is connecting it to other things, finding ways to use it. The core of an AI doesn't come with all the bells and whistles you see in gemini or chatgpt. It doesn't really do much out of the box so it does take a decent amount of learning.
Cloud Storage Very simple to set up. I did this by purchasing storage through Infomaniak. It came with another office software, so I didn't really need to think about that either. I very quickly just stopped using Word. It even came with access to Euria AI, which is one of the best instruction-following cloud AIs I've seen so far.
Mobile Devices I didn't even get started on this one. This is too integrated and complex for me at the moment. I won't be surprised if it doesn't stay that way forever, but for now this is the final frontier.
I'm not going to tell you what to do. This is what I did. It's what I'm still doing. It took effort, but I started small. Something that surprised me is that once I started with the small stuff I felt more and more capable of bigger and bigger stuff. I think it forced me to learn just a little more with each step, and so the next step was easier each time. I wish you well in the year ahead, whatever you choose to do.
If something here sparks a thought, reveals a flaw, raises a question, suggests a new direction, or inspires an idea for a future article, feel free to send me a note. If you have relevant experience to share, I'd be glad to hear from you as well.
Helpful feedback may be incorporated into future posts, with attribution where appropriate.