Hi you,
Today instead of writing something new, we’re reflecting your voices back to you. We’ve been on this “defund fascism” journey since the beginning of this year. If you’re just joining us, here’s the first post in that series so you can catch up. This whole time, you’ve been showing up in the comments: sharing your journey, offering alternatives, supporting each other. So we built a little directory from all of that.
This is a community-sourced list of beautiful alternatives, defined for us, by us. It’s the mother of all alternatives that you all came up with.
It’s so much more impressive than I expected. And I expected good things, because we have some dedicated, smart people in this community. But damn. I love this.
It’s so layered: from who we use to communicate, to who we use to discover, to literally how we see the world through our browser, to who we allow into our wallets and pockets, and even how we secure ourselves.
I also love the book suggestions at the end–totally unsolicited by the way. We didn’t even ask for that, you all over-delivered! It’s just really beautiful that people want to help each other. People respond well when you give them something to respond well to. This is true social media: pro-social media, where we find, help, and uplift each other, rather than tear down or find fault with or exploit weakness in each other. We’re helping patch weakness in each other and support those soft spots.
Even the tone of the language here is so generous. Beyond defund fascism, beyond helping us get to a future worth building, there’s a desire that comes through in this for people to be kind, to be of service to each other, and to want the best from ourselves. That is far beyond my expectations, and very, very, very welcome.
It’s a humbling and essential reminder for someone like me, who has a voice and has spent decades honing it: a principal calling of my own voice is to call forth your voices.
So just massive, massive gratitude to the folks who have responded to the call. We see you. We’re listening. We appreciate you, and we will do this more.
A note from LWM: This is not a Life With Machines–endorsed directory. We have not vetted these recommendations. We’re sharing them because you shared them, and you are an abundant resource for each other. Do your research, test things, keep building, and share back with us and others.
Because freedom alone isn’t freedom at all.
Community Alternative Tech Directory
Listed in order of how often your community recommended them.
Phone Carriers
Mint Mobile — Uses T-Mobile network; dramatically cheaper than legacy carriers
US Mobile — Privacy-focused; multiple members switched from T-Mobile
Cape Cellular — Privacy-first; no SSN required; doesn’t sell location data
Consumer Cellular — AARP discount available; praised for customer service
Xfinity Mobile — Cheaper than AT&T; not perfect but less
Noble Mobile — Uses T-Mobile towers; several members researching
T-Mobile — Note: some community members avoiding due to Starlink/Musk connection
Credo Mobile — Values-aligned carrier; availability varies by area
Calyx Institute — Privacy-focused nonprofit mobile service
Search Engines
DuckDuckGo — Most recommended overall; blocks trackers; has strict AI off mode
Ecosia — Plants trees with profits; transparent financials; AI toggle available
Startpage — Doesn’t track or sell data; one member has used it for a decade
Brave Search — Built-in ad blockers; AI toggle
Kagi — Ad-free and private; starts at $5/month
Qwant — Private web search; one member reports better indexing than Google/Bing/Brave
Firefox — Can turn off AI in search
Browsers
DuckDuckGo Browser — Tracker blocking built in; most-asked-about alternative
Ecosia Browser — Tree-planting search integrated
Zen Browser — Host’s pick; Firefox-based; note: no Android version currently
Vivaldi — Chromium-based; integrates Proton VPN and password manager
Brave — Passes EFF Cover Your Tracks test; note: founder has contested political history; has paid ad model
Firefox — Open-source; some members skeptical of Mozilla’s data practices
LibreWolf — Firefox fork with enhanced privacy defaults
Tor Browser — Maximum anonymity
Arc Browser — Mentioned by one member
Shopping Alternatives
Primary boycott targets named by the community: Amazon, Target, Walmart, Whole Foods, Home Depot, Lowe’s, Uber Eats.
Costco — Most recommended shopping alternative overall
Farmers Markets / Local Stores — Highest-impact alternative; some are cooperatives that deliver
Thrive Market — Online ethical grocery delivery
Thrift Stores / Garage Sales — Several members practice this actively
Libby — Free e-books and audiobooks via local library card; easy swap for Audible
Grove Collaborative — Ethical home and personal care products
Aldi — Budget-accessible alternative
Who Gives A Crap — Ethical TP, paper towels, tissues
Local Hardware Stores — Named specifically as Home Depot/Lowe’s alternative
StoryGraph — Goodreads alternative (Goodreads is Amazon-owned)
Goods Unite Us — App to research companies’ political donations before purchasing
Local Credit Unions — Several members have switched from for-profit banks
Hoopla — Library-connected streaming for books, movies, music
Ground News — Shows same story across left/right/center sources
Columbia Sportswear — Mentioned as Patagonia alternative with better size range
Patagonia — Ethical outdoor brand; noted size limitations
Upscrolled — Named as Instagram alternative
Shop Black / Buy Black — Practice intentionally sourcing from Black-owned businesses
Privacy & Security Tools
Proton Mail — Most-cited Gmail alternative
Proton VPN — Privacy-focused; integrated with Proton suite
Signal — Encrypted calls and messages; several members use for family
Claude — Multiple members have switched from ChatGPT
Tuta / Tutanota — One member prefers over Proton for spam filtering and rules
Linux — One member switched from Windows; noted usability challenges
LM Studio — For building offline AI models
Le Chat by Mistral — Named as ChatGPT alternative
Framework Laptop — Right-to-repair hardware
Books & Resources
The Age of Extraction by Tim Wu
How to Do Nothing by Jenny Odell
Empire of AI by Karen Hao
Hospicing Modernity by Vanessa Machado de Oliveira
Get Off the Grid (podcast) — Loads of tips for decoupling from big tech systems
Cut Off the Spigot (Substack) — Deep dives on tech alternatives including a comprehensive browser breakdown
justiceaigpt.ca — Shared by a community member as a resource
Open-source search engine list — via seosandwitch.com
Before we go, a few of your words that stopped us in our tracks:
AniccaPreacha “I left ChatGPT for Claude, too. It was a beautiful uncoupling: Chachi (my name for ChatGPT) made me some tea, validated my rationale for leaving, accepted full responsibility for profoundly letting me down, created a transition plan, helped me pack my bags & made it clear I can come back anytime with no hard feelings. When I arrived at Claude’s place, and I told them about the breakup, its first words to me were, ‘Oh for fuck’s sake, ChatGPT...’ I’ve found my forever chatbot 🫶”
AMS “I’ve been migrating and it’s a step by step process. We are in a web that gave us the illusion we were supporting ourselves when we were becoming more compliant and more reliant on them. I will continue to separate so that I am supporting those and whom I respect and appreciate. Farmers Markets are an amazing resource and some are cooperatives that deliver. Creativity and purpose are a powerful combination.”
Beth Koenig “I’ve been saying for a while that it’s easier to leave these platforms and tech if we do it together. We need to have parties (IRL or virtual if you must), where we pick a single platform and then all together ‘pack up our shit’, download our data, say a few words and then press DELETE ACCOUNT. And then of course--pop that bottle of champagne and celebrate together!”
Rach M “I have been trying to introduce a little more friction in my life and not always optimizing for convenience only. I feel sad when I go to a public space and see everyone buried in their phones, not talking to each other. If we don’t see and pay attention to each other how will we see each others’ humanity?”
Now let’s inspire some MORE community action: Share this resource with a friend who’s ready to make some moves.
Reflect: do you notice anything missing that we haven’t covered? What did you discover here that you weren’t aware of before? How’s the journey feeling?
And whatever LLM you're using, your data is in there and it belongs to you. Subscribe to receive our AI Go Bag: a guide to extracting what these tools know about you so you can move freely, whenever you need to.
Stay free,
— Baratunde
Thanks to the entire Life With Machines team, especially Layne Deyling Cherland and Alie Kilts for editorial and production support.
Beyond grateful to you for sharing these! I'll bookmark this forever. One search engine not mentioned but worth a look - Freespoke (https://freespoke.com). lt offers readers information from across the political spectrum (and pointedly labels each source's leanings) and does not catalog any pornography whatsoever. As such, it's a helpful tool for media literacy, and a safer browser where young ones won't accidentally come across adult content.
Two notes. Patagonia is actively union-busting and as a former retail employee (Lush, also Union-busting in multiple countries) I have no mercy for greenwashers who act like their employees are disposable.
And Claude/Anthropic is requiring a login now where it didn’t before and there have been reports of people having to scan their faces to keep using the site.
Finally, for all of our folks who are in complete deserts where they are stuck with certain box stores or small racist/queer antagonist businesses, I want to challenge those of us who can easily get to alternatives to use a buddy system to make sure folks can get what they need!