A list of decent alternatives & my reasoning.

I’m just going to get right into this to be as informational as possible. I’ll try and go over both Phones and Computers, although I have more experience with the latter than the former.

OS

You should replace your PC OS first, before doing anything else. Seriously. Microsoft makes you their BITCH and Apple is the abusive ex you crawl back to anyway. Use the Tux or get the fuck(s) out. If you want an easy choice, try Debian or something based off of it. Avoid Ubuntu wherein possible, but it’s forks are generally okay. I will say, however, if you are using something like Adobe that you will probably need to use a Virtual Machine in order to get it to function, as they will NOT fucking work on Linux, because aparently it isn’t worth it or something.

You can also replace your phone’s OS, and you should if possible!… But most companies don’t like you touching the bootloader (because fuck you). If the company you purchased it from doesn’t allow you to do so (or if your device is Carrier-Locked, because again, fuck you), your only choice is to buy a new phone, unfortunately. That’s what I chose to do. You should also look into which OSes are made for which phones (and if your phone is even supported by your carrier - I had to deal with Verizon more than once), because that tends to be kind of strict. Notably, GrapheneOS only works on Google Pixel phones.

Software

• Play Store -> F-Droid
  It’s filled with many open-source applications, and also gives you an opprotunity to replace most proprietary bits with open-source replacements if you didn’t listen to earlier to the whole OS thing.

• Discord -> Revolt (or Matrix, although it is more hit/miss)
  I think I’ve said my piece on Discord several times, but to wrap it all up in one nice package:
  Trash UI, ID verification garbage, terrible moderation, not FOSS, replaced forums and wikis.
  For Voice Chat specifically, I reccomend looking into running an instance of Mumble!

• Whatsapp/Telegram -> Signal
  I refuse to use anything Suckerburg has touched, so I’ve never used Whatsapp personally, and Telegram isn’t nearly as friendly as it used to be (and was never encrypted unless it was a private chat, which is dumb) but Signal is just about as powerful as far as I can tell, while being both FOSS and privacy-respecting, requiring only a phone number (a username is optional but can be decent instead of a phone number at the cost of slightly more information associated to your number).

• Steam -> GOG
  Maybe not FOSS, unlike most of the other replacements here, but at least things you get from GOG can be backed up permanently, and have no DRM attached. You may not get the newest shit, but if you’re playing the newest shit, you should seek a therapist.

• Google Chrome -> Anything else.
  Seriously.
  With the sole exception of Vivaldi, every option is better. If you want an easy choice, use Librewolf. If you still want something based on Chrome, Mullvad. For mobile, I’ve tried Firefox Focus and it has been arlight, though I’ve been using IceRaven recently with no issues. I have also heard that Fennec is good, but I have yet to try it. Speaking of Fennec, though:

• Google -> Startpage

Basically just Google’s list of sites through a proxy that strips anything other than the actual search query itself. Not hard to set as the default, either - see this.

• VSCode -> VSCodium
  What a difference three letters can make! No telemetry & most of VSCode’s features at the cost of being slightly behind on updates? Sign me up!

• Youtube -> Various (see below)

There are several different options for you to choose when it comes to videosharing. If you’re only interested in watching, you can probably just get away with FUTO’s Grayjay app (it allows you to compile most major sharing sites into one app to watch exactly who you want to see). Getting your subscriptions moved there is a mild pain, but you basically just tell google to extract your subscriptions into a nice CSV file and the application does the rest. Alternatively, you could temporarily sign in to pull the subs.

If you actually want to MAKE content and upload stuff, you should look into Peertube!

• Gmail -> Protonmail

As a rule of thumb, anything is better than Google’s services. Preferably, I’d say run your own mailserver, but that is a LOT of trouble, so Proton is a decent alternative. Depending on how much you’re willing to spend, you can also get an alternative to Drive, and even get a VPN, for what that’s worth to you. Depending on how many fucks you just don’t give, you can also use a https://cock.li/ domain - just don’t say I taught you about it. Also, if you’re hoping for security, no email is secure. Just use PGP with plain-text if you don’t trust anyone with your email (you shouldn’t).

Trying to think of other things right now, but I am so tired of repeatedly telling people about how important this is. Instead, I’ll just link to a video I made a while ago talking about this in a more interesting form. If you were planning on sharing this with people who can’t exist without Tiktok in one ear and subway surfers on the screen, maybe this will be better for them.