The pragmatic path off Big Tech. Move your data, accounts, and apps to open-source, end-to-end-encrypted, EU-jurisdiction providers — without installing Linux, learning Vim, or scaring yourself reading threat models.
We focus on the threats most people are realistically exposed to — not the ones that scare you out of acting at all. If you're a journalist in a hostile jurisdiction or running a node for someone who is, see Advanced.
Big Tech sells what you do. Their business model is your data.
What we offer: deGoogle migration paths, EU-jurisdiction email and storage, sovereign LLMs.
Governments dragnet everyone. The U.S. CLOUD Act reaches your data even if it sits in Frankfurt.
What we offer: EU stack, open OS layers, encrypted-by-default services, strong jurisdictions.
Someone steals your laptop, picks up your phone, or breaks into a service you use.
What we offer: disk encryption, 2FA defaults, password discipline — bundled, not lectured.
Pick the lane that matches what you're already comfortable changing. You don't have to do everything. Doing one thing well beats a perfect plan you abandon.
The single highest-leverage switch. Email is your account-recovery hub for everything else.
Where you're going: Proton, Tuta, or Infomaniak (Swiss).
Open the deGoogle path →De-Google your Android, or set sane defaults on iOS. Keep your apps. Stop the leak.
Where you're going: GrapheneOS, /e/OS, or hardened iOS.
Open the phone path →Familiar UI, open source under the hood. You keep your workflow, you stop bleeding telemetry.
Where you're going: OpenMac, OpenWindows, or a sane Linux defaults distro.
Open the desktop path →Not sure where to start? Email is almost always the right first move. It's the keys to the rest of the kingdom — account recovery, identity, billing.
The bridge from Vitalik's self-sovereign LLM setup to your laptop. Three rings, by closeness to our work:
These are stewarded inside Sovereign Switch. SoTranscribe is the first to publish its source.
Sovereign transcription — turn audio into text without sending it to a U.S. cloud. The first project where we publish our personal code. Currently on the QuestHub server; being moved to /transcribe here.
A sovereign terminal AI. Fork of OpenCode.ai. Autosaves prompts, removes stress-inducing permission UX, keeps you in control.
Sandboxed AI execution (Podman / Bubblewrap). Your AI assistant can't reach your tokens or password manager.
Step-by-step paths for Gmail, Calendar, Drive, Photos. Calibrated for non-techies, honest about tradeoffs.
Distinct stewardship, aligned aims. We share know-how, not the codebase.
A session-management layer for Claude Code — banner, autosave reinject, zoom in/out across sessions, ★-glyph for important. Adjacent to OpenHarness.
Familiar Mac UI on Linux. Legally safe (Apple v. Microsoft 1994). We track AiryxOS, Aisha, and other macOS-alternative efforts — reviews coming.
Familiar Windows UI on Linux. ReactOS has 30 years of development behind it. Apps via Wine / Proton.
Separate organisations whose offer fits the same person we're writing for.
Data-broker opt-out service. Removes you from the lists Big Tech buys from. Complementary, not a replacement.
Sovereignty is easier with neighbours. These are communities you can show up to in person — mesh networks, hacker spaces, digital-rights collectives. Tell us about yours and we'll add it.
Mesh-network community in Vienna. Long-running, hands-on, aligned values. funkfeuer.at
Your group here? Tell us — we want this list to be real before it's long.
Sovereign Switch is not a hardcore security or privacy site. We optimize for the curious non-techie who wants out of the dragnet this weekend — not for the journalist who already runs Qubes.
If you're protecting against state-level adversaries, supply-chain compromise, or hardware management engines, you have better resources. We link to them on Advanced.
If you want to understand how we choose what to recommend, read the methodology. Short version: we distinguish "clearly malicious" (data is the business model) from "backdoor" (provider has structural opacity). v1 optimizes against the first.