“You may never know what results come of your actions, but if you do nothing, there will be no results.” – Mahatma Gandhi

“It is important to take action and to realize that we can make a difference, and this will encourage others to take action and then we realize we are not alone and our cumulative actions truly make an even greater difference. This is how we spread the Light. And this, of course, makes us all even more hopeful.”- Jane Goodall

“Activism works. So what I’m telling you to do now, is to act. Because no one is too small to make a difference.”
- Greta Thunberg

“Do it! What are you waiting on? Do it! Stand up for what you believe in. The world needs your voice. Whoever you are, you have something to say. Say it.”
— Kerry Washington

“Let future generations say we were the ones who stood up. Let them say we were the first to live in a world where all girls can learn and lead without fear.”
— Malala Yousafzai

“Action is the antidote to despair.”
— Joan Baez

“I’ve found the cure for depression is action”
— Yvon Chouinard

“It is not enough to be compassionate – you must act.” -The Dalai Lama

“Those who say it can’t be done are usually interrupted by others doing it.”
— James Baldwin

“Start by doing what’s necessary; then do what’s possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible.” -St. Francis of Assisi

“Life is not a spectator sport. If you’re going to spend your whole life in the grandstand just watching what goes on, in my opinion, you’re wasting your life.” – Jackie Robinson

“When I’m taking action, I don’t feel like I am helpless and that things are hopeless, because then I feel like I’m doing everything I can,” she said. “And that gives me very much hope, especially to see all the other people all around the world, the activists, who are taking action and who are fighting for their present and for their future.” – Greta Thunberg

The opposite of love is not hate, it’s indifference. The opposite of art is not ugliness, it’s indifference. The opposite of faith is not heresy, it’s indifference. And the opposite of life is not death, it’s indifference.
- Elie Wiesel

“Adults keep saying: “We owe it to the young people to give them hope.” But I don’t want your hope. I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act. I want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if the house is on fire. Because it is.” – Greta Thunberg

Greta Thunberg image by https://pixabay.com/users/sonme451-9720896/

It seems as though BigTech is more frequently putting profit before people. This post is a list of alternatives to some common internet tools or software to move away from Google, X, Meta, etc… many of the alternatives I have found on something called the Fediverse. This year’s theme for me has been “finding alternatives”- and it is due to a variety of reasons. One of the main reasons is that the other tools or software is supporting or encouraging actual Nazis, otherwise it is supporting AI, and you can find out how I feel about AI on this page.

Mastodon instead of X, FB, etc.

I wrote a post about why I’ve decided to use Mastodon instead of the rest over here – However, after learning that Facebook is paying actual Nazi’s to post on their platform, and X is run by an actual Nazi, Mastodon looks like the better choice every day. I have not found an Instagram alternative yet though, as the Fediverse alternative looks to be too profit-driven. However there is what looks to be a good Instagram alternative that focuses on Photography, called Vernissage – Instead of Threads I am using Mastodon.

I should take a moment to mention that the Fediverse is a growing group of software alternatives. You can view a lot of them over here. – one example is the Twitch alternative Owncast. You can read more about the Fediverse on Wikipedia.

Piefed.social instead of Reddit

After learning that Reddit was making deals with the big AI companies to share its data for training, I was encouraged to look for alternatives. Piefed.social is a reddit alternative that is slowly growing and currently offers enough engagement for me to use it more frequently. Piefed describes itself as Federated, open‑source, ad‑free, no algorithms, no corporate overlords, no attention economy, and no tracking.

Special mention: Bubbles. Bubbles (I feel) is related to reddit due to it sharing links: For discovering some blog content I’ve started using Bubbles.town – here you can find lots of interesting blog posts that are voted up (similar to reddit) by the community.

PeerTube instead of YouTube

Google adding AI to everything was enough for me to look for Google alternatives, and it won’t be long before YouTube is full of slop and AI. PeerTube is a YouTube alternative that is slowly growing as well. And recently I came across a useful tool to help search for new videos – This way I can find any new science videos for example that get posted.

Search alternatives instead of Google

Since Google decided to go full-AI, and the search results were getting worse and worse (Google is now sending close to zero traffic to my websites anymore), it was past time to look for Google search alternatives. Looking back, it was a mistake to trust a profit-driven company with something so social and important as Web Search. Here are some alternative’s to Google, that may be small and growing, but its a good start:
Marginalia Search – is an impressive Search Engine that focuses on quality results. I’ve used it a few times to search for Academic Papers and science related queries with some success. (They also have a Mastodon account, which is a huge plus).

pears – is a really interesting project that I am really attracted to. It allows website submission into categories, with each category being searchable. For instance, here is a Science instance that is over here. – they also have a Mastodon account!

There are a few other Search alternatives that I have been trying out, such as PriEco – and Mojeek – But I don’t really want to recommend these just yet. Mojeek because they have not been responsive about AI, and sometimes the results recommend Grok instead of Wikipedia. And PriEco looks to be a corporate/profit-driven alternative. Why not DuckDuckGo and SearX? – these alternatives still use the Google and Bing indexes, where the results are getting worse and worse.

Special Mention: FastMail – you may be looking for a Gmail alternative for similar reasons. One Gmail alternative I’ve come across and used with some success is Fastmail.

LibreWolf instead of Chrome, Safari, Firefox, Vivaldi, etc.

For the same reasons above I’ve avoided using Chrome, and for a long time I was using Firefox. Unfortunately their AI stance in development is not good enough, they are letting a lot of slop in, and it was time to look for an alternative. LibreWolf – I believe it is a fork of Firefox without the AI. They also have a Mastodon account, have a look. – they also host their code on Codeberg, which brings me to the next section:

Codeberg instead of Github

If you’re a developer, you might not be too keen on Github anymore. I’d like to take a moment to mention Codeberg – it is a non-profit Code hosting platform that has publicly stated it won’t be supporting AI projects, and it won’t be supporting Crypto projects. All three major plusses.

Textpattern instead of Medium.com, Substack, & Ghost.

Medium began showing a notice that users must complete a step in order to read the full article. While alternatives to Medium such a Substack were allowing actual Nazi’s to gain an income stream and platform. Ghost decided not to take any stance regarding AI despite myself and others asking them where they stand. So I found a much better alternative to those three platforms using TextPattern – while it is more hands on and you need to host it yourself, and there is no community discovery, it is still a much better tool for me overall and it is what this website uses.

Future changes

Looking forward, it seems that I may have to change what Phone I use and what Computer I use. Apple despite saying they care about Privacy, are planning on coming out with camera-equipped Smartglasses and Earbuds. They are also pushing more of Siri AI into things by the look of it. An alternative Phone might be the Fairphone – As for the computer, Framework looks like a ton of fun. The combination of all these alternatives (and hardware alternatives) seem to point toward a better internet future. I hope this post helps you consider changing your daily internet routine in some way or another.

I consider myself to be a Generalist, in that I have worked reasonably well in many different areas and businesses. Two major ones being Design and Coding, neither of which I ever considered myself to be a master of.

Which is when AI came along and started offering both ways to generate images as well as ways to generate code for my projects and businesses.

AI comes with promises, such as “saving time”, “as easy as writing a prompt”, and “what you generate is yours not someone else’s”. I always have some projects I’m working on and so it was so easy to just generate an image that goes along with it, or generate some code to add something here or there. It was a “path of least resistance”.

Pretty soon I had integrated image generation into product design flows, working on A/B testing between AI vs Non-AI assisted products. I had AI-assisted coded development tools and websites that were running without problems, no bugs (that I knew of). I was using the Chatbot daily to help answer questions.

AI markets itself as being genuinely helpful… and that’s part of the problem.

It was only after some time that the problems and issues regarding AI started to come to light.

The first indication that something was wrong was when it was found out that the developers of popular AI were literally ripping apart books to scan in to train their AI, knowing something was wrong about that but doing it anyway because of the profit potential, with members of the public mentioning flatly “we’re all trained or educated on theft/stolen ideas.” so we should all just do that. So it is genuinely built on theft.

The second indication came from when I was using the AI to help me with facts and help with finding words. Often brushed off as a harmless hallucination, the AI actually came up with words that were non-existent and claimed it as a real word, as well as facts and numbers to support the facts that were not accurate and claimed them as accurate. It was trained on Social Media data, so viral factoids that are completely untrue were considered legitimate… so it is genuinely increasing misinformation.

The third indication was when it was found out that most of the popular AI don’t care about the environmental impact of their data-centers, and that Big Tech is willing to pollute the water, not use renewable energy, increase air and noise pollution with secondary generators, and often build near Black and low-income communities. So without major changes in how the technology expands, it is genuinely harming communities and the environment.

The fourth indication was learning that the data the AI’s were trained on is literally biased, scraped from data that is determined by who had internet access and who was most active on the sites scraped. So it is genuinely increasing social bias such as misogyny, racism, ageism, and ableism.

The fifth indication that something was wrong was when I was looking at all the new projects being created on places like ProductHunt. Every single new project was not being built with the intention of making the world a better place in some way, and half of the new products being created were made with AI or leveraging AI for some purpose. This means that the incentives related to new product making are all wrong. When working with AI in my previous projects, I noticed that sadly the AI-generated products were more popular in terms of sales than the hand-crafted items. The A/B testing proved it. Then there’s AI being integrated into everything in Big Tech. What all this tells me is that the people who care about ethics will decide not to use AI, while the people who don’t care about ethics will leverage it for their own financial benefit. This increases the probability that AI will generally be used for unethical profit making ultimately leading to increased corruption.

If we continue to integrate AI into everything, the capitalism you thought you knew becomes something else entirely because the incentives overall have changed.

This also means that it is becomes more and more important, crucial even, for people to focus on starting and supporting more ethical projects, ignoring the profit motive and instead creating something that makes the world a better place.

The six indication actually came after stopping using AI. This was when I exhibited evidence of withdrawal symptoms. Every time I had a question I was tempted to go straight to the AI to try and answer it. That’s really what people want to do on search engines is typically find an answer to something. Every time I needed and image for a project, and every time I needed some code, I was tempted to ask the AI because it was the path of least resistance.

I remember thinking trying to rationalize the AI use: “Well, I can use this AI because it was trained on ethical data and actually cares about the environment”, but this is when an important realization came in and why I won’t be using AI at all, even the ones that purport to solve all the above issues: AI was really a shortcut that merely offers approximations, always with the possibility of misinforming, essentially becoming a mental crutch (and a wobbly one at that). It was around the same time that I turned off my iPhone’s spelling auto-correction, predictive text, smart punctuation, etc…because I realized that I wasn’t learning how to write properly.

The realization was solidified when I began building a science facts project with zero AI. The work took longer, I was working slower but more carefully, the results were created with more intention, and the writing and information was much richer and more accurate. Not using AI doesn’t mean you will fall behind, it means you will create something that’s better and you will learn from it too.

https://noailogo.org – Download the No AI Logo – Public Domain

So what can we do? Support projects that do not use AI. Support real artists, support real developers. Support freedom increasing software. Avoid using Big Tech, avoid using AI even if it feels easier and beneficial. Download the No AI Logo and place it on your projects. It’s going to be seen as a good thing, a very good thing. Take solace in knowing that people are working on projects without AI, are building things that aren’t incentivized by AI and profit. Look for the IndieWeb, check out https://bubbles.town/, join anti-big-tech networks like Mastodon. Remember that you still have the power to choose which tech to support.

Mastodon is operated by a non-profit

Firstly and the main reason I decided to use Mastodon, was that Mastodon is now operated by a non-profit. Here’s a news story about this: from 2025. This non-profit structure changes the incentives of the platform and with it many of its users. It’s a stark contrast between all the others who are primarily profit driven. This leads into the next reason:

There are no ads on Mastodon

Browsing the timeline, reading posts, following new people, all without a single advertisement or sponsored post (artificially inflated) is great. It means we can focus on what people are sharing without being distracted or influenced by ads, political ads, etc.

Updated Profile & Usability

If you really appreciate a clean looking profile and user interface, that’s something Mastodon has improved with their primary client in March of 2026. https://blog.joinmastodon.org/2026/03/a-redesign-for-profiles/ this new profile view brings a streamlined look and feel that you might already be used to from the other networks and improves on UI usability. Try not to give up on Mastodon just because you think they need a better brand name — they’ve improved the look and feel significantly, it’s tempting to call it M for Mastodon now.

Mastodon has servers that are inclusive

When you first join Mastodon, you are required to pick a server. Not to worry though, you can easily just pick the default server (mastodon.social). Since the network is not on only one server (It’s federated, or groups that are part of a whole), this not only keeps Mastodon running but allows users to find servers that you might personally be more comfortable with the rules of. Each server is required to follow the Mastodon covenant, which states in the first line:

Active moderation against racism, sexism, homophobia and transphobia. Users must have the confidence that they are joining a safe space, free from white supremacy, anti-semitism and transphobia of other platforms.
You’ll be happy to know that there are many awesome #lgtb and #pride users, and #PrideMonth is a big event on the network.

Mastodon’s incentives are different, Mastodon isn’t “Big Tech”

By posting, browsing, scrolling, interacting, etc on Mastodon, you are not contributing to adding more revenue to Big Tech’s pockets. So no, they won’t be getting another yacht. On the other networks, your interaction is considered an advertising metric, and they have teams of people trying to increase what is called “stickyness” (how much time you spend on there per session) so they can increase ad revenue. This is not the case on Mastodon.

No view counts

Your posts don’t have view count metrics. This is actually a benefit for a micro-blogging platform because we don’t get so focused on the views, and instead we see who favorites or re-posts our messages. This increases the likelihood of you learning about those who interact with your posts and vise versa.

Trending doesn’t focus on views but engagement

Mastodon’s trending area surfaces posts that have high engagement, that means re-posts and likes. This trending area actually surfaces some really interesting and worth-reading content that isn’t influenced by advertising. You can find some really “good-to-know” stuff over there. The trending area is not artificially inflated by advertised posts. The trending area shows trending posts, daily popular hashtags (currently a lot of folks are talking about #wwdc26), a people area which shows accounts that are currently popular on the network, and a news area which shows news articles that have the highest re-posted count.

Many hashtags are like chat-rooms.

You can add more variety to your timeline by following hashtags. There are some fun hashtags like #TIL (today I learned), #3goodthings (3 good things that happened today), and #AskFedi (Ask questions about the Fediverse). One tip for newcomers is to pick a more niche hashtag, such as #traditionalart — which is a specific type of art for example. A fun music related hashtag that I’m participating in is #MusicWomenWednesday.

Filtering, Blocking, Muting is built in

If there is anything you don’t want to see you can easily filter it with a variety of custom content filters as well as options to Block, Mute, etc. If you have found a server that is allowing questionable content, you can even block the entire server if you want to (while I haven’t seen the need to do this at all, the option is there). Muting can be done often to tailor your timeline.

Mastodon is working on accessibility

When you post an image on Mastodon, it will ask you if you’d like to add ALT tags for screen readers. This is an important addition and shows that Mastodon cares about accessibility.

Mastodon loves Art & Photography

In my first few weeks of using Mastodon, I was introduced to an amazing comic artist: https://mastodon.social/@davidrevoy@framapiaf.org
Later on I found a really awesome artist named Joy: https://mastodon.social/@joyousjoyness — the popular art tag on Mastodon is #mastoart so if you’re into art that’s the place to be. There are some really talented artists to be found on Mastodon. #BloomScrolling is one of the most popular hashtags in the community, where users post some great photography.

Ongoing development

Recently Mastodon has added Collections, and will be expanding this functionality soon. Users will soon be able to make groups of users for newcomers to follow. You can see the future roadmap here. The users are also developing for Mastodon and I am considering making a hashtag tool. I will probably post more about this on Medium later.

Be a part of a growing network

Critics of Mastodon will say there is no-one on the network, but the network is growing every day. Accounts like https://mastodon.social/@mastodon@libera.site show user growth over time. This means that you could add to a growing network.
Critics say it’s too complicated to get started, but that’s not true. All you have to do is pick a server or simply choose the default one. I really didn’t find it too hard to pick a server. If you follow some folks, follow some hashtags, and check out the trending areas you are guaranteed to find some new interesting content. You will find me posting my science facts under #sciencefacts.

The fact that Mastodon is non-profit run and doesn’t have any ads… are two good enough reasons for me to join them instead of the other ones. I’m really enjoying it’s inclusivity. I hope you will join me on Mastodon. If you do be sure to say hello.