First, I am unable to host. My apartment wifi forbids it and I’m too poor to afford my own wifi.
Is there a good alternative to google docs? Preferably on the cloud, if not then that’s fine. I know LibreOffice writer exists but to my knowledge it lacks Doc’s document tab thing, which I make extensive use of, and cloud services. I’m trying to get off Google as much as I can, but the cloud hosted aspect of Docs is very useful, both for sharing links to documents quickly and for opening up a document on any of my 3 devices without having to sync or update the documents manually.
You can use a small Nextcloud in combination with collabora. As far as I know there’s still a free option for a small Nextcloud with up to 8 GB of cloud storage currently. To work on your various documents on the go I recommend collabora, which I use on my phone. On your desktop you can use any number of office applications that support the file standards you’re working with. I haven’t tried collabora on desktop, but it supposedly works there as well. I personally use Softmaker’s Free Office Suite on desktop with cloud storage on the Nextcloud. So far I’ve managed to keep this entire setup free and (apart from Softmaker’s Office) open source.
Proton and nextcloud.
I have a small dedicated server at OVH that I run nextcloud on and that covers most of the Google workspace services, callabra document editing, file story and sync, contacts and calendar, RSS server, deck for project planning. And many others things I have forgotten.
That host also has my Lemmy instance on it
You can host in the cloud, if you want.
not sure it’s been released yet, but Office EU looks really promising
I see someone already suggested Proton Docs, and I’ll second that recommendation. It’s not a perfect 1:1 replacement of Google Drive and the Google office suite, but it gets the job done and Proton is improving it regularly.
If you’re skeptical about Proton because they’re just another corporation—a fair reason to be skeptical, IMO—then I also suggest checking out CryptPad. CryptPad is a FOSS solution to the cloud office suite. The main instance is based in France, but you can find and join instances from around the world. If you don’t want to join at cryptpad.fr, you might try Disroot’s instance, based in the Netherlands.
I tried both and I prefer cryptpad cause it has better functionality, just takes longer to load on my devices.
If you’re skeptical about Proton because they’re just another corporation—a fair reason to be skeptical, IMO
Maybe you missed this?
To achieve this goal, I, as Proton’s founder, joined together by Jason Stockman (Proton’s co-founder) and Dingchao Lu (Proton’s first employee), have jointly endowed the non-profit Proton Foundation through a donation of Proton shares. These transfers and commitments from the foundation founders make the Proton Foundation the primary shareholder of Proton and make irrevocable our wish that Proton remains in perpetuity an organization that places people ahead of profits.
Proton Docs?
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I wonder if accessing your own computer is considered hosting. Ultimately network traffic is traffic.
A tool called Tailscale will allow you to access other devices on the same virtual network from anywhere, without anyone else having access.
If you install it on each device, they can share the same network, even whilst away from your own home.
If you have a computer that provides “cloud” like services, like NextCloud for example, then it too can be part of the same network.
Outcome: You’re self-hosting without “hosting”.
Yes tailscale is amazing, give it a shot. What is your up/down speed?
The various public Etherpad instances are good. There are some that don’t require login (good for sharing public notes, bad for private documents), and some that do (better for private documents, gives you user access controls i.e. who can modify or read the notes)
Framapad is one that needs a login, but there are plenty of other Etherpad instances.
Alternatively, I heard lots of people like Nextcloud Notes (you can use a public instance or use a VPS)
If you are looking for a free alternative, you’re not going to like it. If you’re lucky, you’ll find a service hosting OnlyOffice for you with cloud storage, which will suffer from not having the worldwide server capacity of an American tech giant.
I’d sooner investigate if you can deal with not editing documents much on the go and going for LibreOffice on a computer. It’s the solution I went for. If you have a service that hosts notes in the cloud for you, I found that to be enough to draft something, which I can turn into a document when necessary.
Somebody suggested Proton. They are not a big as Google. Their services work alright. But where Google used to be “don’t be evil,” Proton’s motto seems to be “be daft.” Examples range from praise for the 47th administration in the US, selling email users out to the authorities, and most recently sponsoring questionable YouTube content. They want to be your Google replacement for everything and going with them is rapidly turning into “out of the Google frying pan, into the Proton frying pan.” Plus, they aren’t exactly cheap if you ask me.
LibreOffice have recently announced they were going back to developing a cloud version. This situation might get better in the future.
Do you recommend any alternatives to proton?
In terms of word processing? No. That’s why I do it on notes. Look into Nextcloud as a solution to do calendars, contacts, cloud storage, and notes to de-googlefy.
Sorry i should have clarified, alternatives to proton mail?
If you’re not doing it via your own domain, I don’t think it matters much. Half the people you email are on gmail anyways so you’ll never break free fully. So you can stay with Proton if you wanted to. I feel icky about them so I personally wouldn’t give them any money.
But there are also providers like Tuta that offer European hosted email services. I haven’t heard anything bad about Tuta.
