I’ve now set up a new-to-me computer: a Dell “one litre” mini, but it was refurbished and updated by Canada Computers. That’s just my first step in limiting the amount of money I give to US companies.

On my new computer, I’m using https://eazybackup.com/ (they now also have https://eazybackup.ca/, which redirects to .com), because it’s 100% Canadian, has a free trial, costs a reasonable $12.95 per month (including 1 TB of storage), has automatic backups, and can also create a disk image. I’ve disabled Microsoft’s OneDrive. I’m now using LibreOffice, have switched back from Chrome to Firefox, use Paint dot net, will continue to use Cakewalk to create music on my local system (it’s a free, full-featured DAW), and have access to Nord VPN and Bitdefender and use Zoho Mail (the free version) for my domain’s mail server– the latter three also on my smart phone.

Most of those things are free, non-US-based, and/or foundation/open-source-based. I will still use iTunes for my computer’s music library (which remains on my local drive, so I don’t pay Apple anything). I will also still use WordPress for my website (minimal cost), Gmail (staying well within Google’s 15 GB free storage limit), and BandCamp (I downgraded to the free version) for releasing music. These actions should significantly limit the amount of money I’m giving to US companies. I’m trying my best during this new reality of tariffs and a necessary engagement with non-US providers.

It’s interesting to note that I’ve generated 228 GB and 243,000 files (documents, music, pictures, and videos) over the past thirty years. That doesn’t include probably an additional 200 GB of media files archived on DVDs. As a former academic who has also given up on IT and LIS, I suppose I could archive about another 200 GB and 230,000 of those files, but I just can’t bring myself to do that! My old notebook computer is incompatible with Windows 11’s security requirements, but it’s otherwise still pretty good. So, I plan to install Linux on it.