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Before recommending Ubuntu (when the issue is, to an extent, one of privacy), let's remember this: http://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2012/12/richar... The discussion around it here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4888851 Also, a better alternative to Skype would be Jitsi: https://jitsi.org/Main/Features
Anything better than Ubuntu?
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Ubuntu is actually working on a phone OS, and the rest aren't. http://www.ubuntu.com/phone
Working or planning to work? There no devices yet.
One thing to consider: if you use an alternative to the major services...doesn't that make it easier to find you? You've effectively joined a much smaller haystack. I guess how much of a risk this depends on where you see the vector of attack. If you think the NSA has one decade forward on decryption ability, then what does it matter if Facebook/etc hands over the data or if you've trusted another encryption scheme?…
So use alternative services for mundane things, all the time. Make it less of an anomaly that you're using less-trackable services, and make the haystack bigger for other leakers. (I'm reminded of a talk about Tor where it was mentioned that Tor only works if the user-base is diverse; if only the FBI used Tor, the FBI would have anonymity from using Tor, etc.)
Once you use an off-beat service, you force changes in your own behavior and the behavior with everyone you interact with. In the worst-case scenario, this may cause you to make a grievous human error, such as forgetting to keep up to tabs with critical updates on your burner laptop. In a less-worst case scenario, this extra work takes attention away from other more obvious attack vectors (such as social engineering). In the more mundane case, your entire life may be disrupted, on a small scale, preparing for a scenario that for you, personally, is probabilistically unlikely, but more importantly, you may be preparing in ways that wouldn't have helped from worst-case scenarios, if they even occurred.
I'm not suggesting apathy or fatalism. I'm suggesting to be even more cautious and introspective than the pat suggestions offered by the OP.
One thing to consider: if you use an alternative to the major services...doesn't that make it easier to find you? You've effectively joined a much smaller haystack. I guess how much of a risk this depends on where you see the vector of attack. If you think the NSA has one decade forward on decryption ability, then what does it matter if Facebook/etc hands over the data or if you've trusted another encryption scheme?…
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Working or planning to work? There no devices yet.
Ah, here's the link I was looking for: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Touch/Install You can install it right now, it supports 4 current devices.
Does switching to Ubuntu really help you that much? Unless there are secret NSA backdoors in Windows/OS X. Hell even under Ubuntu they could just backdoor my nvidia drivers. I would really struggle to recommend using Tor as a "daily driver" for web browsing as well. Unless we want to go back to the 56k web. Most of the others (bitcoin,social networks) rely on network effects anyway.
Is there a good WhatsApp alternative? I mean a messenger which is Open Source; secure; available on Android, iOS, Linux, Windows, OS X. At best, even the little features like group chat. http://www.kontalk.net/ seems on the way, but not immature so far.
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> if you use an alternative to the major services...doesn't that make it easier to find you? You've effectively joined a much smaller haystack. No. Because the 'haystack' you are (accidentally) referring to is a ginormous indexed/searchable database. All of their data goes to the same place, so it doesn't matter where it comes from. Your argument through analogy is not applicable but let me clarify for you: They are…
Security through obscurity is never a great mindset, but neither is the mindset that security doesn't come without significant tradeoffs, tradeoffs that may reveal you inadvertently. And you misunderstand the analogy. They don't need to watch you having an affair (through the windows). They only need to see that you're driving to an out-of-the-way B&B. They don't even have to interrogate you directly, just any one el…
So what's better? A detailed account of everything you did, or the knowledge that you went to a place, but nobody knows for sure what happened there.
EDIT: To answer your question about Petraeus - "The fact that he used Gmail" is enough. You can stop there.