I see it daily, even privacy activists using YouTube, Twitter, and the likes. However, if you don't post but watch or use for research, you have more privacy-friendly solutions.
An open-source alternative frontend to YouTube. No ads or trackers.
In Settings --> Proxy videos (click it and Google won't have your IP address). Or use the Tor Browser, and Invidious will even give you an onion address.
Open-Source Web Tor .onion
Piped is a free and open-source frontend for YouTube that is also self-hostable.
You can enjoy your favorite YouTube content and creators without your habits being tracked. All of your user data is stored locally and never sent or published to the internet. FreeTube grabs data by scraping the information it needs (with either local methods or by optionally utilizing the Invidious API). With many features similar to YouTube, FreeTube has become one of the best methods to watch YouTube privately on desktop.
Open-Source Windows macOS Linux
A
configurable web extension that redirects Twitter, YouTube, Reddit,
Google Maps, Google Search, and Google Translate to privacy-friendly
alternatives.
LibreTube is not connected to Google directly, instead it uses Piped instances to load data and play videos. Therefore, this app doesn’t need to use any of Google Services installed.
Open-Source F-Droid Highly Recommended
NewPipe has been created with the purpose of getting the original YouTube experience on your smartphone without annoying ads and questionable permissions.
NewPipe is basically the same setup as Invidious except for Android. It is on the F-Droid store and fully open-source. The beauty here is that you can also subscribe to channels without making an account. Unlike Invidious you really can do this without any account whatsoever!
Now, Invidious and NewPipe are both
great solutions. However, they can't do it with any or all Google, so
videos getting pulled from googlevideo.com and Google will know your IP address.
A fork of NewPipe with SponsorBlock functionality.
SkyTube is an open-source YouTube app for Android, and works similarly to NewPipe
A configurable web extension that redirects Twitter, YouTube, Reddit, Google Maps, Google Search, and Google Translate to privacy-friendly alternatives.
Not Free iOS iPadOS macOS
Piped is a free and open-source frontend for YouTube that is also self-hostable.
Beatbump is an alternative frontend for YouTube Music created using Svelte/SvelteKit
Nitter is by far the best Twitter frontend, you can find a working Nitter instance here: https://github.com/zedeus/nitter/wiki/Instances
Nitter has come on a long way, and what most people don't know is that you can follow multiple people simultaneously. To do so, just use nitter.net and then separate the usernames with a comma but no spaces.
Example: https://nitter.net/particlproject,grapheneos,rethinkdns,decentraltoday
If you are on Android you can use UntrackMe which redirects you to a nitter instance if anyone sends you a Twitter link.
A free, open-source Twitter client
Shitter is another way to have a lightweight client to follow Twitter users and hashtags
Harpy is an Android, alternative frontend for Twitter, built with Flutter/Dart
Twidere X is an Android, alternative frontend for Twitter, built mostly with Kotlin, this client is in early-stage development
Another great way to follow Twitter users is via Nitter and RSS. This way, you can make your favourite RSS reader a Twitter reader. For example, if you want to follow decentralize.today on nitter via RSS - https://twitter.com/decentraltoday becomes https://nitter.net/decentraltoday/rss
A configurable web extension that redirects Twitter, YouTube, Reddit, Google Maps, Google Search, and Google Translate to privacy-friendly alternatives.
Not Free iOS iPadOS macOS
Libreddit is a great-looking frontend for Reddit with no tracking. You can subscribe but not log in or post. Teddit does the same as Libreddit.
Less pretty (personal taste) than Libreddit, but for me, it's more stable. I recommend using it. Just like Nitter you can follow multiple subreddits, a simple + in between each allows you to add and follow.
Example:
https://teddit.net/r/privacy+privacyguides+privatelife+thehatedone/new
Ending it with /new will let you see the newest posts
Redirects to the old, less intrusive Reddit site
Like OldReddit but for mobile. I would personally use Teddit and skip Reddit altogether.
If you need an app Android offers, in the F-Droid store, Stealth, where you can read and follow without an account. All the other apps I've found need you to have an account to follow subreddits.
Infinity is an Android client for Reddit, you can even login or follow subreddits without the need to login
Dawn is a fork of Dank and an open-source Android client
A configurable web extension that redirects Twitter, YouTube, Reddit, Google Maps, Google Search, and Google Translate to privacy-friendly alternatives.
Not Free iOS iPadOS macOS
Bibliogram is a Nitter like alternative frontend for Instagram
Is like nitter, but for TikTok. It's pretty new, but it works!
An alternative frontend for Imgur. Based on rimgu and rewritten in Go.
Just replace imgur.com or i.imgur.com with i.bcow.xyz
The interface is designed to be fully compatible with all kinds of web browsers, including text-based ones.
Inspired by projects like NewPipe, Nitter, Invidious and Bibliogram, Lingva scrapes through GTranslate and retrieves the translation without using any Google-related services, thereby protecting them from tracking.
A free open-source alternative Wikipedia frontend focused on privacy.
No JavaScript or ads. All requests go through the backend, client never talks to Wikipedia which prevents Wikipedia getting your IP address. Self-hostable, anyone can set up a private or public instance
An alternative Medium frontend
On Android, you can use the app UntrackMe which does most of the redirection for you. This works with Nitter, Invidious, Bibliogram, Teddit, Scribe and WikiLess so far.
On iOS and macOS, you have the paid app Privacy Redirect which handles the same extensions on Safari i.e. Nitter, Invidious, Bibliogram, Teddit, Scribe and WikiLess which are all supported.
On Firefox, go for LibreWolf etc., you can use Privacy Redirect which will redirect you to Nitter, Invidious, Bibliogram, Teddit, Scribe and WikiLess.
And there's an even better extension called LibRedirect
LibRedirect has all redirects, including TikTok, and it lets you send the traffic over Tor.
As you can see, you can have most of the services you love, yet enjoy them with less to no tracking, no ads and an even better user experience.