Does using alternative web browsers and search engines make a difference?

Regarding cell phone : Purism will sell Librem 5 phone soon, which seems to be a phone designed to protect your data and privacy. I like the idea of hardware switches for camera, microphone, WiFi/Bluetooth, and baseband. But as they are trying to develop HW, SW, OS etc. from zero by them selves to make sure there are no back doors for data leaks the shipping date was already two times delayed. And other question is how user friendly and reliable it will be as it is totally new product without real user experience. It might be an option for early adopters and experienced users.
And also it is not a cheap option which I understand as development a phone requires a great amount of effort, time and money.

I do believe they will be successful on this field as they already proved their ability by producing and selling notebooks which are designed also to protect your data and privacy. Again, it is not best performing and cheapest option, and also might be a little bit tricky for regular users without deeper tech knowledge, but unfortunately we are still in the age where we have to sacrifice something if we want to be protected against surveillance capitalism.

There is quite significant effort in the world in order to change current status quo, but it will take some time and it will not be easy. I do believe that our movement can play a big role in this effort.

Their laptop and phone is based on Open Source SW, but as @aschrijver mentioned in this forum there is Crisis in OSS so you should take this in account as well before you make final decision.

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