Well, I just set up a sale of a bunch of my stocks (Google and Amazon). I'm so pissed, I don't even want to PROFIT off of those freaks anymore. Amazon Prime cancelled, Amazon credit card will go into disuse as I go back to my local bank card (and when I say local, I mean LOCAL, not some branch of a banking giant). So, let's go down a list of points of discussion and recommendations.
Shopping: I have grocery options other than WalMart, but they're still technically corporate stuff (Schnucks, Dollar General). Also, a local butcher. Non-grocery, Rural King seems to do well (bought my first gun from them too).
Phone: I'm seriously stumped on what to do here. Both options (Apple and Android/Google) are fucking awful. I know that Androids are a lot more open at least. What about providers though? AT&T is going to be a huge part of the problem, I can tell you that Cricket uses their towers, but not sure how much their services benefit AT&T.
Internet: Is there such thing as a safe search engine?
I would recommend Protonmail for email. Signal for phone messaging app. Startpage for search engine. Brave for web browser.
I don't really know the solution to the phone problem thanks to the duopoly of Apple and Google.
I don't know how long it takes to produce a phone series and provider, because hearing about a Gab phone in the works gave me hope, but I have no clue as to the feasibility of managing its production.
Search on Duckduckgo. It's the Brave and TOR default for some reason.
I use the DDG app on my phone, though I'd also heard that its "privacy" is a big lie, or it just runs Google for you anyway.
Really? RIP lol.
DDG is basically a free proxy service. You put in a search query, they pass it on to the search engine of your choice, default google, and return the results to you. At least, that is how it worked last I checked, which was many years ago.
I was sort of set since I've generally liked local banking and local shopping for a long time, way before I even got light of how the world was going. No idea why it was my nature I guess. I'd be a liar if I said I didn't buy from any big corporations though.
With respect to phones, I'm in the industry, albeit not wireless anymore but I was in the past and am still involved in it a bit. There's really only three network owning wireless companies, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Verizon. Most of what used to be has merged into one of those three. Sure, there's still some tiny companies left like US Cellular and some ultra-rural, but if you don't live in one of those areas you're out of luck anyway.
If it wasn't for my work I'd go to a third party company. Yeah, you're still going to be on one of the big three carriers, but they get wholesale prices versus collecting full customer $, so might as well be cheaper for you. Personally, I'd look for one that had access to multiple carriers towers for the best service and wasn't totally tiny and fly-by-night. You can research MVNOs for these companies, something like a simple search will find those. Cricket is one, I know Tracfone was a big one years ago if they are still around, they were independent as well. There's some owned by places like Walmart too, so you know do research.
With respect to IOS/Android, you can check out LineageOS. Yeah, it's still Android, but it's open source and de-Googleized. I can't sit here and say it's not got Google stalking or something woke in it, because I just don't know. Open source stuff has a lot more eyes on it at least. Next time I get a phone I may look for one that supports it. I have an old phone here I'm going to load it on to play around with.
I just have a regular Android phone with most of the Google stuff disabled and using alternative apps. I've never been one for "ecosystems" anyway so that wasn't even as a resistance move. No, it's not perfect but it's a good enough compromise for me. The fact of the matter is if you are trying to avoid being tracked at the very least turn the cell phone off, leave it at home, buy some sort of faraday cage bag to put it in, etc. If your phone is on you are being tracked if anything by the operational needs of making the phone actually work. The network has to know where you are to know how to get calls and data to you. When I did network support and had access to all the tools, I never saw any way to get data on a phone that was off, but the particularly paranoid will call that a risk too. I do recall a few times freaking out customers because they would be driving or something and I was essentially following their serving towers on a map to troubleshoot call drop issues.
As with any outside connections though, they are all risks as with everything else in the world. Just fly under the radar is my approach.
Don't phones still communicate to some extent, even when they are off? For example for a Location Update?
I suppose some questions we need to start asking ourselves is:
These are questions with deeply personal answers; there isn't going to be the "official cell phone provider of the right wing", nor should we probably want one.
I ask because, I still remember a time before the internet and cell phones. And even today I very rarely need to receive a phone call when I'm outside of my house. On the other hand, when I'm at home my cell phone is rarely where I need it: it's either upstairs when I'm downstairs, or downstairs when I'm upstairs. So it's actually a worse solution to the actual problem I have than the "old school" solution of "have a couple landline phones in your house so there's always a phone nearby where you need it"
In terms of phone hardware, pinephone seems to have a decent reputation, though I haven't tried it myself.
Dissenter browser is fun. It plants a comment section on every page of the internet, and one that can not be removed. This is one of the more brilliant innovations I've seen in a while, with sites either being forced to shut down comment sections due to pressures from Google ads or having their narratives shredded by their own comment sections. It's the ultimate move against narrative control.
I really enjoyed the Dissenter extension back in the day. The universal comment section was a huge value-add.
Search engine: duckduckgo.
Phone: Librem 5 or similar linux phone if you want to use them, it's not very easy.
Alternatively, a de-googled android phone, running some operating system like the /e/ or similar AOSP based ones. It's easier but you could still be traced as the components all use proprietary firmware that has more NSA/CIA backdoors than a convention of SJWs has soy lattes.