Cutting the Cord: How to leave Google Behind

On Thursday, May 29th, we discussed Cutting the Cord, documenting the obstacles to leaving big tech behind with Palestine Legal and Climate Justice Alliance. Both organizations are making significant moves to reduce their dependence on Google and share their reasons for this work and their experiences.

Below are some the questions (and answers) that were not included in the webinar:

I’ve installed NextCloud in the past. Have they addressed real-time doc collaboaration?

Our Nextcloud instance at May First provides a native simple text document with real time editing and will open MSOffice docx,xlsx type documents in the OnlyOffice software within Nextcloud. OnlyOffice also provides real time document editing.

Have you been using Nextcloud Talk? If you have are you using it for more than a few people with a self-hosted standalone signaling server and if you are what have your experiences of it been?

We have not integrated Talk in our Nextcloud instance, we were already running our own XMPP chat server and our own Jitsi Meet videoconferencing server separately which still works well.

Have you been able to get NextCloud docs to work on mobile devices, esp. iPhones?

At least on May First’s Nextcloud instance, the ability to open documents directly on the phone browser or within the Nextcloud app are limited by our OnlyOffice server however there is a workaround that functions very well. You can install the OnlyOffice app and give it the details of your Nextcloud server as a backend for retrieving and storing files which then allows you to open documents in the OnlyOffice editor directly from your Nextcloud account and save back to them.

Our email lists are currently run in Google groups and managed by an email address with our own domain name, but run via Google. We want to move both our emails and our lists to May First email and lists. Will we still be able to manage those lists when our domain is pointed away from Google for email? Or do we need to export the list members before we transfer or domain for email purposes?

It should be possible to adjust DNS settings for your domain to use it with different services. This works best if you use a separate subdomain for your list email. You can also migrate your subscriber list to email lists at May First. Thank you!

Is collaboration on Nextcloud really similar to collaboration on Google ? Or does Nextcould have limitations compared to Google?

In our experience at MayFirst there are some key differences that are important to understand. For example, deleting a document in Nextcloud actually deletes it. Also if someone opens a document they are the original owner and if they share the document they still retain control. This means that if the original owner closes their account others will lose access. It is important to consider this beforehand. In some situations we recommend creating a “role” user account for sharing documents within a group or organization so that even if other users cycle out of your org this “role” account remains.

Some explanation would be helpful of why NextCloud, CryptPad, ProtonMail, and similar platforms are more secure and less vulnerable.

It can be useful to be specific about the vulnerabilities you are concerned about when discussing this. All of these alternatives can provide very good security for your data however how and why they might be better at protecting data changes based on the scenario.

Examples: Nextcloud can be run independently on private infrastructure or thorugh a movement hosting provider like May First. The entity running your Nextcloud instance might still be subject to data requests but how May First responds for example, is very different than Google who have an entire department dedicated to delivering on these requests. They have a vested interest in protecting their relationship with authrorities, we are committed to protecting our relationship with movement organizations.

I also think that the lack of vulnerability may not be the main reason to choose these platforms - every technology can be vulnerable to security breaches. But whomever is hosting the platform for you - do they understand and align with your mission? Will they let you know if they are served a subpoena for your data, or will they comply without informing you? Will they work with you and your lawyers to decide what to do if you receive a subpoena or search warrant for your data?

Is the difference between the paid and free versions of services like Protonmail of concern or something we should be planning a resilience to as an aspect that may become exploited as a company’s bottom line interests change?

With Proton it’s largely a functionality difference. The baseline security remains the same. Proton is also transitioning to a nonprofit, but of course it’s also good to watch out for bottom line issues and interest changes, yes: https://proton.me/blog/proton-non-profit-foundation

Why not use Google’s platform? Please can you give us some reasons?

They can hand over your data unencrypted to gov’t agencies without your notice. They scan our data and are using it to train AI without our consent. We can be locked out of our accounts and lose access to everything if political pressure against our org is sufficient from state or corporate actors. They have military contracts with the Israeli Military. They have military cloud computing contracts with ICE and police agencies in the United States that monitor and target activists. Their AI and quantum computing data centers are using giant amounts of electricity, land, water and other resources.

I know one group said they used Signal and not Slack (did not catch which one); but does the other group use Slack and have they found an alternative?

I have used Zulip and RocketChat (both self-hosted), and they have worked very similarly and smoothly to Slack’s function. I’ve also used Matrix (not self-hosted, but in a social sense) and it also seems to have potential. May First offers XMPP, which can be used a variety of platforms (similar to how different browsers can be used to access websites, if that makes sense). Thanks!

Are people aware of / can recommend any good open source team project management platforms, e.g. Monday, Trello, Asana?

I’ve used OpenProject before, it was a bit clunky initially because it’s got an “older” interface appearance, but was very useful. There are also some tools that plug into Nextcloud like Deck - Kanban board tool.