Below is the consolidated list of the ever growing and evolving alternative providers that we have vetted and do support.
There is a growing portfolio of “alternative” and “parallel” tech related products and services that has emerged over the past few years. Although we do not have the resources to vet all of them, we have spent the time to vet a few 100 of them in an attempt to uncover which are, in fact, fighting to protect our digital privacy, security and sovereignty and not simply “grift” or are beholden to the same globalist / socialist / communist interests that control most of Silicon Valley and the Tech industry at large.
The evil we oppose will only continue to exist for so long as we continue to feed it our energy. This means our time, attention, and money. To be clear, this means we need to STOP BUYING & USING SERVICES FROM COMPANIES THAT WANT TO DESTROY YOU AND YOUR FAMILY!
Mobile Device Options
The Ghost Phone
Our answer (MARK37) to an affordable and privacy focused smart phone, which we humbly believe is the most reasonably priced, secure and private smart phone on the market right now.
The Above Phone
The owner and team of this device push out a ton of good information about how to escape from BigTech, however, although they are mission aligned in this regard, they are libertarian agnostics (definitely not Christians) and definitely not “America First” focused.
Note: Both The Ghost Phone and The Above Phone are simply Pixel devices that have GrapheneOS installed along with a suite of other applications that differs between the two. If you’d rather purchase a phone and do the install yourself, in addition to the detailed instructions on the GrapheneOS website, there are mountains of videos online that you can leverage on most major video platforms that can and will walk you through how to do this… if you choose to go this route.
Note: Unlike some Google Android phones, iPhones unfortunately CAN NOT be de-Appled. To learn more about this and all things related to de-googled mobile phones, please review our extensive FAQ.
The UnPlugged (UP) Phone
A well capitalized closed source privacy focused smart phone from Erik Prince. Our detailed thoughts on why we don’t trust this device can be found HERE.
Purism’s Liberty Phone and Librem 5 Phone
A US based company that has interesting products, their own open source operating system, a strong liberty and freedom focused mindset and a mostly made in the USA phone option. Our testing proved the device was not ready for general consumer use, is very expensive and came with a track record of not-so-great customer support. We hope all this changes soon, as we would like to jump behind their products and services once they do.
The Light Phone
A simple, light weight, relatively affordable phone. We would be all over promoting this device if the ownership wasn’t hyper-focused on their carbon emissions narrative, which is ridiculous, and that they even acknowledge makes little/no sense in their own report.
Murena with /e/OS
An EU based company providing another de-googled privacy focused smart phone option. In that we don’t think /e/OS is ready yet for general consumer use and the company is HQ’d and ships product from Europe, we can’t get behind this device just yet.
Fairphone
Yet another EU based company providing security/privacy focused smart phones that are entirely customizable, which is super cool, but unfortunately do not work here in the States.
Mobile Phone App Stores
Despite what most people are led to believe, we are not stuck relying on the Google Playstore or Apple Store!
F-Droid
A catalog of vetted FOSS (Free and Open Source Software) applications for the Android platform… recommend looking here first for an app you want/need before looking elsewhere!
Aurora Store
Alternative app store that does not require you login or use any Google services.
Aptoide
Another alternative app store that does not require you login or use any Google services.
Obtainium
An open-source Android app that allows users to install and update open-source Android apps directly from their release pages, bypassing traditional app stores. It’s often referred to as a “FOSS (Free and Open-Source Software) app store” or “APK retriever.”
Note: You often do not NEED to install an app for you to use a service at all! Once you download an app to your device, you provide the application, and the company that built the app, access to your device that you likely would not be comfortable with if you knew the full extent of what they were doing with your data. Although the GrapheneOS operating system prevents the app from accessing any of your data without your permissions, we highly recommend you simply create a bookmark of a website or online service that will allow you to access the service quickly/easily on your phone WITHOUT needing the app installed on your device.
To do this, while on the website you want to access from your home screen on your mobile device, click on the 3 dots on the bottom right of your mobile browser (ideally Brave) and click on “Add to Home Screen”. Name it whatever you want and a small icon will pop up on your home screen. Simple as that! A video tutorial on how to do this can also be found HERE.
Mobile App Recommendations
We pre-load on all Ghost Phones a suite of open source apps that we feel cover the bulk of what 99% of us will need and use on a daily basis. We’ve tested them ourselves and use them ourselves so we can respond to questions about any of them should you, for whatever reason, have issues while using them.
The most current list of apps we pre-install on The Ghost Phone can be found HERE.
Note: You can find these apps and download them on your own devices right now! Most are found within the F-Droid app store, which is available for any Android device.
Laptop Options
The Ghost Laptop
A basic, light-weight, affordable utility laptop for the 95% of us who simply need something that works and isn’t running an operating system owned by fascist companies (Microsoft/Apple/Google) trying to enslave us. Devices are mint condition refurbished Dell, HP or Lenovo loaded with an extremely user-friendly version of Linux (Zorin) and a few applications that should get you up and running quickly. We also can do custom devices if what is listed doesn’t fit your fancy or even have you ship us your laptop for us to load Linux onto.
We focus on mint condition refurbished because we are desperately trying not to feed the planned obsolescence “need the new new thing” economy when 1) there are billions (with a B) of mint condition refurbished devices that are more than powerful enough to handle all of our needs available in the market 2) buying new devices only generates more demand for the precious metals mined from Asia and Africa using slave, and in many cases CHILD slave, labor.
We also believe that our primary focus should be simply getting people familiar with, and using, Linux. This cuts the legs out from Apple, Microsoft, Google and most other BigTech companies who regularly harvest our data, because they literally control the operating system that runs our devices.
LaptopwithLinux.com
A European based provider of brand new laptops running Linux. Laptops are from the OEM manufacturer Clevo. Products ship from Europe.
Purism
A US based provider out of California who sells brand new laptops running primarily PureOS, which is their custom, user-friendly version of Linux. As far as we can tell, these devices are NOT from Clevo. Although expensive, we like their ethos as a business and have gotten along well with the founder in the past. We really wish their customer service, however, would improve drastically.
System76
A US based provider out of Denver who sells brand new laptops running primarily PoP!_OS, which is their custom, very user-friendly version of Linux. Devices also mostly come from Clevo. We really like their products and customer service, however, they are expensive and their ownership is similar to that of the Above Phone in that they are agnostic libertarians who do not want to associate themselves with a brand like MARK37 because they feel we are too controversial in our unapologetic pro-Christ and pro-America First values.
The Above Laptop
Makers of the Above Phone, this is a relatively new product they are offering, which also appears to be simply another branded version of the Clevo. If you’re going to get a brand new device running Linux, we highly recommend sticking with one of the 3 options above who have been offering these devices far longer vs. going this route.
Note: Learn how to use and install Linux on your own laptops and desktops! Jeffrey Peterson at Jeff.Pro is the best in the business when it comes to teaching people how to master all things Linux, and he has built a large community of doers who are actively supporting one another through the process. Although learning Linux is not required to use various open source operating systems and Linux distributions such as Zorin or Mint, he will help you better understand the “how” and “why” related to these devices so you can take full control of your devices and not let them control you or confuse you. There are also mountains of videos online that will walk you through how to install Linux on your devices should you prefer to go this alone.
Linux Compatible Alternative Applications
If you’re looking for a comprehensive list of Linux compatible alternatives to some of the applications you’re used to using on Windows or MacOS, check out https://www.linuxlinks.com/ and https://alternativeto.net/.
Although they do not go as deep as we do on companies re: ethos and other criteria, they will get you headed in the right direction quickly.
Faraday Bags
What is a Faraday Bag?
Faraday bags are made of material that shield devices from all outside wireless radiation and signals to prevent the data on whatever device or gadget is being protected within the bag from being altered, deleted, or added to the device or gadget.
Government officials, military and corporate executives have been using Faraday cages (entire rooms that serve the same purpose) for a very long time and it has only been over the past few years that this technology has become accessible and affordable for consumers to leverage for our own privacy and security.
Your phone or laptop securely closed within such a bag makes it so that no signals can be sent or received. It goes dark, drops all connections with outside towers and devices, and essentially no longer exists as far as the outside world is concerned. Once you take your device out of the bag, it will start to reconnect with whatever towers, routers and devices it was connected to prior and you will receive whatever messages you may have missed. This is no different than what happens when you turn your phone back on after it may have been turned off for a period of time.
Note: Despite your phone being in a Faraday bag, it CAN still listen and record your conversation however. This, in fact, is a big misunderstanding about Faraday bags.
To be clear, your device will still be able to hear what’s happening around it and record your conversation while in a Faraday bag.
Once the device is removed from the Faraday bag, the audio file will then be uploaded to whatever application may want/need/have access to this type of data and recording. If you’re using a device running Google Android or an iPhone, that “private” conversation you thought you just had with your phones in a Faraday bag on the table next to you was just uploaded to their servers.
Why is this important?
Most of our digital devices, to include our car keys, passport and credit cards, are constantly receiving and/or sending signals that can be intercepted. Hackers leverage the fact that most people are completely unaware of how the devices they use work to steal these signals, gain access to devices and, in turn, steal private data. These same hackers go to where the largest population of targets are, such as airports, concerts, sporting events, parks, conventions, grocery stores, malls, hotels and pretty much anywhere there is a constant stream of people, because there is always low hanging fruit and easy targets to pick off.
Your objective is to NOT be an easy target.
Even at security conventions, hackers take pride in being able to show their peers how easy it is to steal other security professionals login/password information from the devices around them! It is rather remarkable how, with enough time, money and motive, nearly any device can be broken into.
To learn more about if we can really go “Ghost” with our data and device, check out this article HERE.
In addition, the constant radiation emitted by the devices around us, and that we carry around with us most of the day, are proven to cause various and numerous health issues over extended exposure. Throwing your device in a Faraday bag when it’s not in use, and not needed to be in use, is a way to help mitigate at least some of this exposure.
To learn more about the radiation emitted from our mobile devices, check out this article HERE.
Our Recommendations
Over time our team has tested various Faraday materials and bags from numerous manufacturers and companies. We have also spoken with the ownership of these companies trying to find a product and company that we can stand behind as being one that aligns with our values.
Basic Faraday Bag
A practical and affordable option for your phone, car keys and wallet. These bags are made by a veteran who spends his free time offering 2 day long privacy and security focused bootcamps for those looking to do DEEP dives on all things privacy and open source.
Faraday Bags of All Shapes and Sizes
SLNT, based out of SoCal, offers every size, shape and style of Faraday coverage you could possibly need, from small to duffel bag sized. We have tested and use a bunch of their products and they have proven to provide 100% protection. Using the link above will also save you 10% on your order.
Paint, Netting and Other Cool Stuff
Safe Living Technologies, based out of Canada, is one of the leaders in all things pertaining to electromagnetic fields (EMF) and their effects on the human body. They have a huge selection of education, products and services related to this field of study. This includes shielding fabric for your bed, paint for your home, detection devices and a litany of other useful products.
To learn more about EMF, 5G, how they actually exist in the world around us, and how we can mitigate their effects, check out this article HERE.
Important Safety Tip re: Connecting to Unknown WIFI Networks
In short, DO NOT login to unknown wireless networks!
This includes coffee shops, restaurants, airports, hotels, home rentals, random businesses you are sitting outside of… pretty much any wireless network that is open to the public (even with a password) or isn’t managed by someone you know and trust. By logging into such a network, you are exposing your device to countless unnecessary security threats and vulnerabilities. Even if you use a VPN!
If you MUST have remote access while traveling or working outside your home, use the data connection from your phone leveraging the device’s “hotspot” capability. All the hotspot does is allow the devices around your phone to leverage the data connection from your phone, turning your phone into the local internet access point.
When using your hotspot be sure to set a password and not leave it open for anyone who sees it available to access!
When you activate your hotspot, it will show up on your laptop as an available wireless network that you can connect to. Once connected, it will route all your internet traffic via your data connection on your mobile device. If you do not have the hotspot capability available on your phone yet, and you travel often, do some research and add this service to your data plan ASAP. Be aware, however, that unless you have an unlimited data plan on your phone, using your hotspot can eat up your data plan VERY quickly.
If you don’t want to pay for the hotspot capability on your device, then simply make note that you should NEVER connect to a random unknown network unless you absolutely NEED to, in an emergency situation.
Note: “but I use a VPN when I connect to random wifi networks, so I’m safe right?” In short, NO. WRONG! See the VPN section below for details on why this is the case.
Web Browsers and Search Engines
Brave Browser (Browser, Web Search, VPN, Video Conferencing)
We firmly believe that Brave is hands down the most private and secure browser available. We also believe the team at Brave is 100% mission aligned and on the front lines of the war to keep our information private and anonymous around the world. Their AI tool “Leo AI” is also aligned with their mission and extremely powerful. A great alternative to ChatGPT!
How does Brave measure up to other browsers? See for yourself!
https://privacytests.org/
There are other options, such as Freespoke and Firefox, but as you dig through the Privacytests.org matrix above you’ll see that they simply don’t match up to what Brave can do right out the gate without any tweaking of settings.
Email Service Provider Options
As this is a HUGE topic to cover, we’ve done a full write up and article on email services providers HERE.
The short answer as to who we recommend after all our vetting, however, is Paxmail.
Paxmail
Virtual Private Network (VPN) Options
VPNs allow you to search and operate online somewhat anonymously in that the websites you visit will not be able to pinpoint exactly where your phone, laptop or desktop is located. This is because all of your internet traffic, once connected to a VPN, routes through the individual server(s) that the VPN provider operates prior to reaching the final destination of whatever website or server you’re trying to connect to.
Once you login to an account online, however, the website you’ve logged into will most often start collecting information on all of your activity while using the website, and often will try to also collect any data on your other browsing activity on other websites. Using a VPN does not protect you from this happening.
While Brave does a solid job protecting you from having this information tracked while operating online and moving between websites, if your goal is to remain anonymous online, we highly recommend you refrain from using websites notorious for trying to track and spy on your every digital move; such as Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, Amazon, etc.
There are many VPN services available. 1,000’s, in fact. Anyone with some basic network and systems engineering knowledge can start their own VPN service… and many do. Hence, what is absolutely critical is that we look at who owns the companies that operate the service, and the technology used, to really determine just how “secure” your own browsing is while using the VPN service.
Specifically, because a VPN company is routing all of your traffic through their server(s) prior to that traffic reaching the destination, it would be important to know if the VPN service you are using is owned/operated by the Israeli Mossad, CCP, Russians, the UK spy agencies, or even our own 3 letter agencies, no?
As such, below is a brief list of the VPN services we believe to be “clean”, however, as always, we recommend you do your own research, follow the money and learn what the ethos is of the individuals who own/operate the companies whose services you may be using and relying upon.
Brave VPN
Mullvad VPN
Note: Having been in this industry and attempted to get our own service promoted through various “conservative” media outlets online, I can assure you that just because Tucker Carlson, Steve Bannon, Mike Lindell or any other “celebrity” endorses a product or service, or because you see an add for a product on Truth Social, Rumble, Gab, Newsmax or even OANN, they have more than likely NOT DONE THE HOMEWORK on who really owns and operates these companies. This is a sad truth, but a truth nonetheless.
If a company has the money and pays for the sponsorship, unless they are obviously a known threat or adversary to the “MAGA” or general “patriot” cause, these media personalities, companies and brands accept the sponsorship and the money without doing ANY diligence.
Video Conferencing Options (Zoom Alternatives)
PLEASE STOP USING ZOOM. Hard stop. Literally uninstall the app from your phone and the plugin you likely have on your browser. If you don’t know how to uninstall the plugin, or even know what plugins you may have installed on your browser already, open up your browser and simply search “how do I uninstall plugins on _(name of your browser)_”. Follow the instructions.
Please also stop using Microsoft Teams, Google Meet, Facetime and every other “free” or near “free” video conferencing tool that is owned by the very BigTech companies trying to enslave and kill us right now. All of them are recording and tracking everything you say and do when you use these services.
“But, my work/family forces me to use these tools!”
OK, fine, then let’s be smarter about using these tools when you absolutely have to… but in most cases, I’m willing to bet, you really don’t NEED to use these tools you simply haven’t wanted to change your current behavior because it’s more convenient to just go along and play along with the status quo.
Smarter way to use Zoom, Teams, etc. when you NEED to
Did you know that all major video conferencing tools allow you to use their service without needing to install their software on your device?
Enable if you Host Zoom Meetings
To learn how to do this for whatever other conferencing app you need to use, simply go to your browser and search, “how to join _(name of conferencing solution)_ meeting from my browser” or “how to join _(name of conferencing solution)_ without downloading a plugin or app”
MEETN
This is an enterprise video conferencing solution providing all the same bells and whistles as Zoom, owned by conservative America First patriots, who despise the government and BigTech surveillance economy just as much as we do. They also offer a free-trial, which is nice.
Using the service from your browser is simple and easy and does not require you download any software onto your device. To use the conferencing software from your mobile phone, however, you do need to download their android app, which can be found via the link just provided or through the Aurora play store.
Brave – Talk
This service is run by the same team that operates Brave browser, search and VPN tools and can be run directly through the browser without requiring someone download an app. Free for up to 4 users. Paid plans also available. Although not as robust as the Meetn service, it’s relatively simple to get up and running for meetings with small groups of people.
Jitsi Meet
If you’re looking for an open source self hosted option, you’re likely and hopefully already well down the rabbit hole of using Jitsi. We are fans of Jitsi for this use case, however, it does require a bit of work to get this setup and, of course, the infrastructure and network on the backend to host and operate the applications once it’s up and running. For the vast majority of the consumer and business marketplace, simply leveraging Meetn or Brave/Talk is a far simpler solution.
Note: There are other self-hosted options, and even a few decent managed options, however, the 3 listed above are really all that is needed to satisfy 98% of your general video conferencing needs.
Office 365 / Google Apps / iWork Alternatives
LibreOffice
If all you need is a Microsoft Office alternative, you can ditch your Office 365 subscription right now. Seriously, go cancel your subscription with Microsoft RIGHT NOW. Libre Office is the open source alternative that will do everything your current Microsoft Office suite does, and it’s been around for a very, very long time getting better every year. We’ve been using it for years in our homes and running multiple businesses on this suite without issue. Now you can and should too!
Even if you’re still on a Windows or MacOS device, you can still download and start using the application… and YES, it’s cross compatible with Word, Excel and PPT files, meaning you can open those files just fine and even “save as” files you create in .doc or .xls file formats. NextCloud, Paxmail and HUB for Teams also leverage LibreOffice within their platforms.
No excuses. Go make the switch right now!
Paxmail
Paxmail leverages the NextCloud open source platform at its core, and as such, everything you can do with NextCloud (email, file storage and sharing, internal communications, calendar, contacts, etc.) you can do through your Paxmail account and their web interface from your laptop/desktop. You can learn how to connect your Paxmail account to your local mobile device(s) through NextCloud HERE.
HUB for Teams from LiberationTek
Similar to Paxmail, LiberationTek has built on top of the NextCloud framework to deliver a very robust enterprise Office 365 alternative. If you’ve got your email and/or domain also hosted with them already, getting this service up and running for your business will be rather seamless.
NextCloud
If you care to host and own ALL of your company data on servers you manage and control, NextCloud is the answer, with a complete suite of services for businesses small and large.
Web Hosting & Web Design Options
LiberationTek
Company is HQ’d out of Tampa, FL and we are fans of their entire suite of services, which are constantly growing. Their team is also 100% full of America First patriots who are in the fight to defend our freedoms online and build a parallel economy. If you need somewhere to park your domain, buy a domain, build a website or hire a team of web designers to help manifest your vision, look no further.
EasyDNS
When people ask me where to simply park or buy a domain name, EasyDNS is my answer. Simple and cheap. The team there is also doing what they can to ensure the internet stays out of the control of the communist, fascist, globalist, technocrats.
AWS / Google / Azure Cloud Alternatives
AmericanCloud
If you are a scaling company or application developer that needs a flexible cloud services provider that is owned and operated by Christ loving patriots, AmericanCloud should be your new home. Their team has some of the brightest infrastructure talent in the industry available to help you scale up/down on demand that is 100% aligned with our desire to protect American values and Constitutional principles. Their co-founder and CEO also happens to be my former COO at Open Spectrum, the data center industry consulting firm I’ve run since 2011, and a very close personal friend.
Soup to Nuts Web/App Architecture + Design + Engineering at Scale
Daring Bit Assembly, Inc. (aka, DBA)
Need a team of technically savvy America First patriots to help you build the next great thing that will help us defeat the various BigTech and Silicon Valley companies who are hell bent on removing those who love freedom and Jesus Christ from participating online? These guys are among the best in the business, and unlike many “patriot” owned and operated technology companies, practice what they preach by leveraging many of the tools and companies discussed above.
Let them know MARK37 and Sean Patrick Tario sent you when you give them a shout to get a discount on your initial engagement.
To say your digital privacy does not matter because you have nothing important to hide is like saying your freedom of speech does not matter because you have nothing important to say.
If you have questions about alternative tech for anything NOT mentioned above, or you have a suggestion for a service or product also not mentioned above, please reach out to support@mark37.com and let us know!