Recent life events have made me more aware of my digital footprint and online privacy. I now pay for a service that sends data removal requests automatically on my behalf. Over the weekend, I realised that I was still giving a large amount of data to the major technology companies. I spent many hours moving away from those platforms.
I moved from Windows to Linux a month ago, but I was still using one of their more recent acquisitions: GitHub. The privacy concerns of hosting my open source projects (99% of my work) are much smaller than those of giving a company access to my search history, my entire internet history, or my phone.
However, I knew there was a better option. I moved all of my repositories to CodeBerg, which has several attractive qualities:
CodeBerg offers an option to import a repository from GitHub using a PAT. This copies everything, including issues and pull requests. I tried it on a few repositories, but my open source history is extensive and I quickly reached the rate limits. I took a more drastic route instead. I deleted my local .git directory, re-initialised the repository from the main branch, and pushed the changes to the new remote with a fresh history.
I did not preserve my old archives. I deleted them entirely. This removed four years of development history, and my notifications are now much more manageable. I am concerned about reduced contributor activity. However, it will leave me more time to focus on paid work.
Google was an entirely different problem. I had used my GMail account for years, and many of my accounts used OAuth sign-in through Google. There was a large amount to migrate.
The first step was to choose a new email provider. I have had good experiences with Migadu for custom domain emails. However, its limit on the number of messages sent and received was a concern, given how many client inboxes I manage. With the help of the De-Googling subreddit, I chose Proton Mail. It replaces the cap on sent and received messages with a cap on the number of email aliases I can set up.
Proton Mail supports plus addressing. This allows me to turn an alias such as accounts into an unlimited number of addresses, and I did so. I went through every account in my password manager and gave each one an accounts+platform email address. This lets me track the source of spam emails and identify who is selling my data.
Once that was complete, I created a personal calendar in Proton and imported my work calendars so that I could see the events. Proton also offers drive storage. Its limit is significantly smaller than what I had through Google One, but it was sufficient for my essential files. I had to give up the 500 outfits I had for my old VTuber model.
Finally, I set up FreeTube. It allows me to continue watching YouTube content without YouTube seeing all of my activity.
Three of my clients still have me using GMail addresses. My options there are limited. I forward all of my emails from those addresses directly to my Proton inbox, and I sync my calendars to Proton.
Sometimes I still have to sign in to view a shared Google Doc. One of my roles also uses Google Chat. I run both exclusively through private Tor windows in Brave. This is not perfect, but it is the best option available to me.
I have an Android phone. I intended to flash GrapheneOS on it, or at least root it so that I could remove the unwanted Google software. However, Samsung Galaxy phones with Snapdragon processors cannot be bootloader-unlocked, at least not yet. This makes both options impossible.
I cannot afford a new phone at present, and I do not know which one I would buy. Instead, I used a de-bloater tool to force-uninstall the software I did not want. It remains in the system files, and it will return after an update or a factory reset. If that happens, I will remove it again.
None of my Google accounts are signed in on my phone any longer. This has the added benefit that I do not carry work with me everywhere I go.
None of this is perfect. I am not a privacy expert. I am still researching, refining my approach, and identifying which apps described as privacy-focused are not.
If you have a suggestion for how I can better secure my data while keeping communication channels available for people who want to commission me or contribute to my projects, please leave a comment. I am glad to learn from suggestions.