I believe the future of the free internet will be decentralized, federated, p2p and other free (libre) and open source software and services. Currently however there is a lot of content that is only available on the big tech platforms. These tools can help improve your privacy, user experience, and circumvent censorship on these platforms. Some of these work without Javascript, and are ideal for using with the TOR Browser, noscript, uMatrix and similar tools.
General
archive.today - Webpage archiving tool. Saves a copy of sites and removes any external javascript. There is a bookmarklet for saving pages and you can also download a zip file to store locally.
RSS-Bridge - Scrapes and RSS or Atom feeds for websites that don't have one. Self host or use one of the public instances. With some effort you can create your own bridge for other websites that are not yet supported.
Youtube
Invidious - Proxy for Youtube videos, replace youtube.com with invido.us for any video link. Works without Javascript and removes all calls to Google servers. Allows downloading video and audio. You can create an account and subscribe to channels without a Youtube account. The official server can be slow, so I recommend using one of the other Invidous Instances (or host your own: Invidous Github).
Invidition - Firefox addon that redirects all Youtube videos and imbedded videos to Invidious. Again, the official instance is often slow so I recommend changing it in the extension settings. There are a number of other extensions and userscripts listed on the Invidous wiki
youtube-dl - command line tool for downloading video or audio from youtube and many other sites. Can download individual videos or an entire playlist or channel. There's also youtube-dl-gui if you'd rather not use the command line.
FreeTube - Windows / Mac / Linux client for Youtube. Works with Invidious.
NewPipe - Android client for Youtube. Also on the F-Droid appstore. Plays Invidous links, but otherwise does not really integrate with Invidous.
Twitter
Nitter - Self hosted, Javascript free Twitter frontend. Replace twitter.com with nitter.net for any twitter url. Currently no subscriptions, but you can add follow multiple people like so: https://nitter.net/@EFF,@_cryptome_,@Wikileaks There are a couple of Firefox Extensions but they all currently use nitter.net, none allow you to specify your own instance. Nitter Github
TwitRSS - Like RSS-Bridge, scrapes Twitter and creates an RSS Feed. Can be self hosted: TwitRSS Github
Reddit
Yeah, so Reddit is a tough one. I'd really like a frontend or app that is javascript free, has a lightweight interface, no external calls, and loads all comments in a thread, but have yet to find one. You can create an rss feed from a subreddit or multireddit using https://old.reddit.com/r/privacy/.rss but you still have to open the reddit webpage to view the comments.
https://i.reddit.com/ - Ok so it's not an alternative, but more lightweight than the Modern reddit or even old.reddit.com. Does not load more comments with javascript disabled.
reddit-lite - Currently seems the most promising to me. Lightweight interface, javascript free, self hosted. Multis work: https://reddit.jamesbarnett.io/r/privacy+privacytoolsio+stallmanwasright Doesn't support logging in / posting, loading more comments is on the todo. reddit-lite github
snew - Javascript-heavy reddit client. Calls to reddit.com and other external hosts. Shows posts deleted by mods (not authors). snew github
[Terminal UI for Reddit](Terminal UI for Reddit) - Browse reddit through the command line. I haven't tried this one out yet, so I can't speak for its privacy or features, but it looks promising.
Chat / Instant Messaging
Ripcord Lightweight Discord & Slack client for Windows, Mac & Linux. Cons: Closed source. May become paid software in the future. Discord does not allow unofficial clients and may ban your account (I've used it for a while and hasn't happened to me yet)
Pidgin - Multi service messaging client that supports a lot of services through plugins.
BitlBee - Gateway connecting various messaging services to your IRC client. Fairly technical and requires some tinkering to get working.
If you know of any other tools, or have any suggestions or ideas feel free to share.
Bypass dual purpose ad tracking/targeting infrastructure by avoiding reddit / twitter / youtube / other JS fingerprinting sites ( S/Privacy Repost )
by infocom6502 to /s/malicousJavaScript from saidit.net