There is immense power in being in control of your own data. As ownership and governance of apps and online services consolidate, it’s understandable if you want to consider your options when it comes to where you store your private data and records of your everyday activities.
Fortunately, not every service out there is trying to monetize your personal data, and many offerings are just as good (if not often better) as their commercial or ad-supported rivals.
Take a minute to think about what you’d want to leave behind. Big Tech giants that hoard your data? Subscription services? Invasive ad tracking? Government surveillance? Your needs and risks are unique to you, but hopefully a few of these recommendations help to hit the spot.
Wallabag the stories you want to read later
If you ever wanted to read something later, like a news story, feature article, or anything else with a web address, save it to your Wallabag. This read-later web-archiving service may not have the same ring to it as its main commercial rival Pocket, but Wallabag is a strong competitor with article-saving tools and features as good as what Pocket offers. You can save your must-reads for later on a Wallabag server you can run for free on a network attached storage (NAS) server that you host somewhere in a closet at home, or hosted in the cloud for a low-cost subscription.
A story from The Guardian saved in Wallabag, a Pocket alternative.Image Credits:TechCrunch (screenshot)
Why does this matter? Other read-later apps track usage in order to find trends and recommend content (often sponsored) to you. Some want this, and that’s cool! But some don’t.
Signal is the encrypted messaging app to use
Signal is one of the most revered secure messaging apps for the simple reason that, by design, it knows nothing about you. On occasion, Signal will make this point by p …