Opening my Life in 2025

📆 29 Nov 2025 23:15 UTC +00:00 📕 418 words ⏳ 3 min.
🏷️#Rambling#DeGoogling#NextCloud

In previous years, I have tried to degoogle as much of my life as possible, it’s been mostly successful, apart from my use of YouTube, but sadly majority of the creators I watch are on YouTube (and nowhere else); and there are no free, libre and open clients for the platforms that I use (namely iOS but also on desktop too). I have a few other things that are not open or privacy respecting, such as OneDrive, which I have been using to sync my Obsidian notes across my devices.

One of the biggest changes I needed to make was to move away from OneDrive for my notes syncing. For this, I have switched away to a NextCloud account I’ve had on a hosted instance for a good number of years. I eventually want to host my own NextCloud server but currently I don’t have the infrastructure for this. I changed the Remotely Save plugin’s settings to use the WebDAV protocol and set the address to the one in my NextCloud’s files section. Then hit to run Remotely Save and BAMM!!!, my notes are in my NextCloud.

I have also started using the builtin notes app in NextCloud which has been a great experience so far from my limited time of using it, only an hour or so, when writing this blog post.

Another change that I need to make is to move away from YouTube. This is going to take a little while, mostly because of the lack of FLOSS alternative apps for it on iOS. Around July, I am going to be switching to an Android phone for the first time and will be able to explore the various options of alternative front ends. I need to make use of my PeerTube channel more to try and break away from YouTube as a platform for my content. This is one of those things that will take a little longer than others but eventually things will get there.

The bigger ones that I needed to move away from were Google Search as well as non-privacy respecting email providers. For the former, I have already moved to only using DuckDuckGo as my search engine. For the latter, I have gone through a couple, starting with Proton Mail and now ending up on Tuta Mail (formally Tutanota). All going great and no complaints from me on this.

Anyway, that’s about it from me on this one, I hope you’ve enjoyed, and I’ll catch you in the next one. BYEEE!!!