Ecosystem Migration
Move your Data to Private Storage you Control
Clouds, App Stores & Personal Information Management
Clouds, App Stores & Personal Information Management
What is an Ecosystem?
- Cloud Storage for your files and photos
- App stores to get apps
- Creating and editing docs online
- Contacts & Calendars (Personal Information Management)
You are probably familiar with Google / Apple / Microsoft ecosystems already
But they are closed ecosystems because accessing any part requires that you join their entire ecosystem
They are also a very bad deal, signing up for an account with 600 pages of terms and conditions allowing them to record everything you do, profile you and target you
Having all your eggs in one basket keeps you locked in and as you are realising they have no interest in you leaving
What you need to know
Email
Personal Information Management
Clouds
Online Office
App Stores
Email
Email addresses are gateways that lock you in – you don’t just create an email address – you create a (google) account and everything that comes with it. You think its free? Think again. ‘If the product is free then you are the product’ – Tristan Harris, ex Google Design Ethicist
This is completely unnecessary and unethical
Personal Information Management
Your contacts, calendars, bookmarks, often synchronised across devices. Possibly your most sensitive personal information.
Clouds
Clouds are just another way to store your data. Instead of living on your device it’s stored on servers connected to the internet. So you have to access everything online
Clouds are used not just to store your pictures and files. Some can also sync your contacts, calendars task lists etc across all your devices
Some people rely on these services heavily and some don’t. Most people are unaware that some or all of their data is held in a cloud
Pros: Access the same data from any device and sync things like contacts calendar, email. Backup your settings and files
Cons: Your private data is now in the hands of the service provider. You may have agreed to their terms and conditions without reading all 600 pages and now they are using your data (and metadata) to profile you, sell to other businesses and train their AIs
Online Office
Creating and editing documents like essays, presentations or spreadsheets online
Saving these documents in a cloud makes it easy to retrieve and edit them from any device
App Stores
The Apple App Store, Google Play Store, Windows App store etc are convenient ways of providing apps to you (for both creators and you)
But they are closed systems because accessing them requires that you join their ecosystem. Want to get apps from Googles play store? You need a Google account. Apples App store – well you need an apple device first never mind an apple ID
So now you live in their ecosystem and everything you do is recorded and profiled etc. Apple gather an alarming amount of data about what you do on their app store – you can see it when you download your data – You can read more about it on the blog here
Email addresses are gateways that lock you in – you don’t just create an email address – you create a (google) account and everything that comes with it. You think its free? Think again. ‘If the product is free then you are the product’ – Tristan Harris, ex Google Design Ethicist
This is completely unnecessary and unethical
Your contacts, calendars, bookmarks, often synchronised across devices. Possibly your most sensitive personal information.
Clouds are just another way to store your data. Instead of living on your device it’s stored on servers connected to the internet. So you have to access everything online
Clouds are used not just to store your pictures and files. Some can also sync your contacts, calendars task lists etc across all your devices
Some people rely on these services heavily and some don’t. Most people are unaware that some or all of their data is held in a cloud
Pros: Access the same data from any device and sync things like contacts calendar, email. Backup your settings and files
Cons: Your private data is now in the hands of the service provider. You may have agreed to their terms and conditions without reading all 600 pages and now they are using your data (and metadata) to profile you, sell to other businesses and train their AIs
Creating and editing documents like essays, presentations or spreadsheets online
Saving these documents in a cloud makes it easy to retrieve and edit them from any device
The Apple App Store, Google Play Store, Windows App store etc are convenient ways of providing apps to you (for both creators and you)
But they are closed systems because accessing them requires that you join their ecosystem. Want to get apps from Googles play store? You need a Google account. Apples App store – well you need an apple device first never mind an apple ID
So now you live in their ecosystem and everything you do is recorded and profiled etc. Apple gather an alarming amount of data about what you do on their app store – you can see it when you download your data – You can read more about it on the blog here
The Open Source Alternatives
Clouds you control
Nextcloud is our recommended cloud. It provides
- File storage and sharing for your docs, pictures, movies etc
- Calendar and Contacts
- To do and Task lists, Notes
- Sync with your mobile devices and computers
- Online Office & Groupware suite
- And many more applications
You choose what to sync and not. Remote wipe any device
We provide Nextcloud accounts hosted on secure Swiss servers
We are giving a free trial account for 3 months with your liberated device to see it in action. After that you can choose a paid plan
Alternative App Stores
F-Droid provides Open source and free apps, featuring many well known and top class apps
Aurora store provides a way of accessing Google Play store without having to have a google account
You can download free apps but if you want paid for apps then you will have to sign in with a google account
You can download free apps but if you want paid for apps then you will have to sign in with a google account
A great feature of this store is it shows you the Privacy rating of each app (by Exodus) revealing hidden trackers and permissions the app has to your device
APK Pure is another store which provides access to thousands of apps safely without a google account
Encrypted Email Services
Setup a free email account with a privacy respecting email service. You do not need to provide sensitive personal data
You can also consider registering your own domain name and email services. eg myname@mydomain.com
Our recommended providers are both based in Switzerland:
Pay for increased storage and integrations when you need them
Has a nice feature for sending and receiving encrypted emails to anyone without a safeswiss account
As long as you send and receive emails with someone else with an account on the same service you are 100% safe
If you send to a regular unencrypted email adddress then it will be just like any other normal email
You can find an excellent review of 12 email services on Restoreprivacy.com
It is possible to encrypt your emails if you have your own domain name – contact us for a quick consultation
Many of you will realise at this point that you are using your email as a filing system with all kinds of important messages and attachments saved in there
This is a very bad idea from a privacy and backup point of view!
True story: a client once said to us ‘I need all 10,000 of my emails to be on my phone’
Would you carry a huge rubbish bag around with you on the off chance there might be something you need in there one day? No!
Important emails and attachments can be saved in a safe place (yes emails can be saved as files too)
Own your data, or it will own you!
Need help with this? Get a consultation. We offer help with changing habits as well as migrating your data
Migrating Your Data
Now you have your data downloaded you can choose which data should be stored on your devices, or in the cloud. There is no rule – you decide. If you have already thought about your scenario and priorities it will be obvious
If you need help migrating your data we can do it. Whether it’s simple or advanced automated methods of transferring large quantities of data from one cloud to another
Docs & Files
Moving files to hard drives and devices is as simple copy and paste (or drag and drop)
Contacts & Calendars
Importing is straight forward with most apps and clouds offering the ability to directly import your already downloaded contacts and calendar files
Cloud
The excellent Nextcloud apps take care of file syncing including photo & video albums, music and any other files you want
Sync
Setting up sync on your device is simple with the DAVx5 app
You add your cloud account details and then choose which calendars address books etc to sync
Clean up & Backup
Backup your data regularly to either a dedicated PC, or an external hard drive.
Clouds should never be seen as a backup. While service providers usually do backups regularly if you cant access it for any reason you are stuffed
Often businesses create backups and then upload copies of those to a secure cloud as an extra layer of protection
Copying files to backup drives is as simple as drag and drop
Backup software can automatically backup your data and your entire computer if you wish. Most Operating systems come with simple backup software – learn to use it!
What About My Music Collection?
You may well be using a big corp to supply, store and organise your music collection, and sync it to your devices
The same rules apply. Where should you store your data and which devices are really the best for your music?
It is easy to get all of your music files out of itunes and store them in the place of your choosing
Music can be synced and streamed to your devices with Nextcloud Music app and players like Power Ampache
We will be reviewing and recommending an alternative setup to itunes / google play music shortly
Talk to Us!
Drop us a quick message with your questions. We’ll get back to you and help you with the next step!