For me the point of de-googling is not to literally stop using every single Google service but to disengage enough that your entire online identity isn't tied to Google such that losing your account would be catastrophic.<p>For example, I still have a gmail account I use for lots of random things, but critical bank/financial accounts go directly to a separate fastmail address (where I am confident I could get a human to help me if there was a serious account problem). I still use Google Docs suite, but "important" documents are stored locally as Word/Excel files. I still use Google Drive/Google Photos, but I make periodic backups to a local SSD + other online backup services (iCloud/OneDrive). Etc.<p>I don't understand why you would want to "ditch every Google product and service". Some of them are objectively pretty great, or inherently have low switching costs (like Google Maps).
I can appreciate the hesitancy because you need an account, but Kagi is such a great search engine. Their incentives align much better with their actual users and because of that they support tons of customization/filtering options Google just can't (read: won't).
The only thing irreplaceable for me is Youtube. Even if it's gotten worse as a platform over time, I still consume it more than any other type of video media and there are no good alternatives for much of the content that I enjoy watching.
> <i>OpenStreetMap-based apps like Organic Maps are great and I frequently use them, but I find myself using the Google Maps website a lot, for tasks like searching for restaurants to getting an estimate of how long my commute is going to take.</i><p>Agreed, as someone who walks almost everywhere, Organic Maps is great on GrapheneOS.<p>The only things I use Google Maps for are more rare: (1) see what hours a store is open, which IIUC is being worked on by OSM; (2) planning a trip via public transit; (3) StreetView, which is really an awesome feature.
The impetus for my years long (i.e., lazy) effort to de-Google wasn't <i>just</i> about the privacy issues but that those seemed to stem from an utter lack of empathy for users overall.<p>In other words, it was recognizing an intolerable pattern of behavior, which seemed inevitable that it would cause me actual, material harm in some way eventually.
Although this author seems pretty reasonable with regards to actual privacy (preferring self-hosted software), I find the popular echo chamber of "avoid Google, they steal your data" quite misguided.<p>Yes, Google accumulates data and does stuff with it. But Google also has rigorous processes to lock down data and access to it, unlike virtually any small-to-medium cloud software provider. I've heard crazy stories like people looking up their friends' health insurance details for fun, just because almost everyone in the engineering part of that company had access to the production database.<p>Plus, Google is so large that it constantly receives attention by public institutions, which makes it harder to pull off shady stuff without getting caught. If <random SME> sells your data to the highest bidder who will spam you with cold calls, no one's gonna bat an eye.
OP and I are very similar lol. I bought a Pixel 7 Pro on eBay specifically so I could use Graphene (screw buying new; used is good for the planet and it doesn't give money to Google). So far, I have been loving it!<p>Also switched to Organic Maps, but still use Google Maps for finding businesses/hours. Organic Maps is nice, but searching for directions is awful (at least in my South Florida area). Typing in any address tends to return results that only show the name of the street, and they're all identical. E.g. just a bunch of "Southwest 123rd Street, Florida", no house number or anything useful to distinguish them. Often times I'm forced to use Google Maps. This is currently the hardest Google service to quit for me.<p>I went from DDG to Kagi, and stuck with Kagi because of the superior results. Luckily I got in early, and have an early adopter plan. It's a shame they can't offer better pricing though because it really is a superior service. Recently I've had some privacy concerns that have made me a bit skeptical of Kagi, but it's hard for me to go back to DDG or even Google now. It's just that good.<p>For files I use Nextcloud exclusively. While it is slow and bloated as hell, I like it because I share the instance with family members, and it's easier for non-techie people to use it. It's also possible to mount it as a network drive using WebDAV so you can skip the bloated web interface. It works very well for me on KDE Dolphin.<p>For email I use ProtonMail with custom domain too. They're overpriced and overrated, but it's too much work for me to switch at this point, and their app isn't that bad. I would recommend FastMail to anyone looking for a new email provider though.<p>For YouTube, I use FreeTube. It's basically just a custom front end l. No ads, no spyware. Sure, I deprive creators of ad revenue, but that's a good thing. The less money they make on YouTube, the more likely they are to post on different services. I haven't heard of Nebula before, so I'll definitely be checking that out.
> <i>I was even able to take trips through Uber’s mobile website, which was a pleasant surprise. The location functionality did not work, but I believe that was due more to the browser than to Uber itself.</i><p>I'm delighted that this works now.<p>Of course companies like the proprietary-platform apps, in some ways. So it's great to see a tech company also embrace Web open standards as an option for users/customers.
This seems like an awful lot of work for little benefit. Although I use and pay for kagi, it's not to de-Google. It simply is a superior search engine which honors semi-advanced search filters better. However, when I want to search sholarly refernces, Google search reigns supreme.<p>I guess I'm just a rube, but it never occurred to me to demand much 'something' (all the stuff Google provides me) for 'nothing' (refusal to allow use of my annonomized data). Since I bother setting my cookie settings on all new websites, I don't really get bombarded with personalized advertising anymore. That's my middle ground. (I also pay for YouTube Premium, so I don't see the ads there).
> I think Nebula.tv is promising, and a bunch of creators I like upload their videos on it. I do have a Nebula account but rarely end up using it, since most videos get uploaded to YouTube as well, and when I open Nebula, I find myself having already watched all the interesting videos on YouTube.<p>I've just gotten in the habit of opening up Nebula first and only then switching to YouTube when there's nothing new there. Even if you do this only once every few days it's usually enough, because a lot of creators upload to Nebula a week before they do YouTube.
> my second issue with Kagi: privacy-wise, I simply don’t believe that a service that requires login and thus naturally associates all your activity with your identity is better than a service which can be used without a login.<p>I don't get this argument. Do you want to be protected from the services you use, or do you want a partnership based on trust? With aligned incentives, trust is easier. Without trust, not logging in won't save your privacy. Just pay the nice people money for the very nice service they provide, and let them build trust with you.
I liked duckduckgo a couple years ago before it started insisting on showing results in the language associated to my IP address. Since then I've liked brave a lot better.
Nice write up. I've had a similar journey. I've been using Android auto on grapheneos without issues FYI. I did switch from nextcloud to Baikal as was using seafile for the file storage anyway. I gave up on protonmail and am using migadu with great effect. My plan was to eventually to switch to immich so perhaps a weekend evening project.
i 'de-googled' my life quite a bit a long time ago - switched to an android distribution with no G services (lineageOS), moved from gmail to tuta, switched search engines, and like mentioned here, the one i can't fully leave is youtube, for the moment.<p>i like odysee a lot as a platform, but it can't fully replace YT just yet for me, as a good deal of the channels i watch are still YT-only. i'd say my video-watching time is split maybe 80% yt, and 20% odysee at this point.
For me the point is not privacy, simply this war is lost.<p>The point for me is data availability, I do want to own my data. So for emails and service I do own my domain name, so I can change third parties services, if I use any (email) in a transparent manner for my correspondent. I own the domain, I own the mail address, my website URL etc, I have a "home address" on the net.<p>Similarly I do use third party email services, simply because hosting one myself meaning ending up too often in GMail and co spam, BUT, I own my mails because I do not keep them on third party IMAPs but on my homeserver, the mail provider is just a relay of my "incomplete" mail infra.<p>For contact I've used Radicale, now testing <a href="https://github.com/tchapi/davis">https://github.com/tchapi/davis</a><p>For files I have a desktop centric setup, the homeserver run a paperless-ngx instance with "a certain set of docs" meaning I do not mirror my org-mode/org-attach entire home structure to paperless but only some selected docs to have them available on the go via mobile if I need them and simple webdav dir to share some if needed. I do not want OwnCloud considering it a monster I can't really know by it's mere size so I prefer giving up with it.<p>I've tried Immich and Jellyfin for my photos and movies/music but they end up essentially unused.<p>For RSS TT-RSS is far from perfect but can handle conveniently a significant number of posts quickly skimming them also on the go.<p>Wireguard is nice enough to encapsulate my services<p>To make it short, my point is not avoid a company like Google than choosing another like Proton, my point is being able to have and work with my data if some services disappear in a snap.
Moving E-mail is the easiest part on this journey. For me the biggest reason, was the risk of being locked out of my E-mail accounts and reaching no (human) support.<p>What I found the most difficult was the search engine. Although Google search has become worse, it's still far better than Duckduckgo in my opinion. I've found DDG very inaccurate for non-English queries.
I would really love to run GrapheneOS (or some other Android OS that can prevent a lot of Google's built-in spying), but broken Android Auto, Google Pay, and a bunch of other things would be a complete showstopper for me.<p>It makes me really sad that I've come to rely on a bunch of things that just aren't available at all through open software.
For me the degoogling sticking point is that I have a custom domain (registered through Google domains) that i use for both for my email addresses and my small personal home page.<p>It would be nice to find a host that offers both hosting and email through a custom domain too.
To add to your list (I made very similar choices):<p>Standard Notes was pretty decent for acessing notes between multiple devices when I used it. Now that I am back on Android, I use Syncthing for both pictures and notes, without a cloud intermediary.<p>Aegis instead of Google Authenticator. I found it the most straightforward, and it has backups/transfers not tied to any account.<p>QKSMS instead of Google Messages. It doesn't support RCS and reactions come across as texts, but no issues otherwise.<p>Fossify apps for other basic functionality.<p>Something to keep in mind with custom ROMs and OSes is that only some have VoLTE support. Which, with 3G shutdown, is a must in the US, unless you are in a great 2G coverage zone.
PSA: DuckDuckGo is just a Bing frontend. So you’re out of the frying pan and into the fire. The only really independent option is Brave Search. It also happens to have better relevance than Bing, in my experience.
I'm mostly degoogled myself, and disable/firewall every Google app on my device. Pretty hard to switch away from GMail as it's essentially everywhere for me, and YouTube doesn't have a viable replacement. I use 3rd party apps for both though, as well as the store. Re the store, I endured doing manual updates weekly for several years. Then recently when I upgraded my device I discovered Shizuku (allows elevated access without rooting), which connects nicely with Aurora Store and handles the installs. It's like a huge breath of fresh air.
Does anyone know how private ProtonMail is? I heard admittedly crackpot-sounding rumors that it was some sort of NSA honeypot, but verifying them seems like proving the existence of a divine being.
It really takes effort to scrub oneself of big-tech. I don’t know how non-HN-types are supposed to do it.<p>My weak point has been Apple Photos. It “just works” for me and I really appreciate that it does all processing for faces, cats, etc. locally and in a native app. Every other option I find either doesn’t do syncing, offers an Electron app, or forces viewing through a browser.<p>Does anyone know of a solution that fits the bill? I will happily self-host.
I was an Android user, looked at this mountain to climb 6 years ago and just decided to go with Apple. They offer email, calendar, etc, but don’t run a business model based on ads and data mining. That said, I can’t get away from YouTube and I still keep my Gmail account but only as a backup.
Kagi is totally the only way to degoogle. It’s the only product where the results are clearly better or on par with google. Everything else I’ve ever use I found myself subconsciously back at google a few days later.
Does anyone host their own email in a jurisdiction with a domain and VPS US Feds can't seize arbitrarily? If so, which webmail software do you use? Do you handle backups and/or high-availability?
Duckduckgo has been my search engine for years now, never use google anymore.<p>Only other search engine I use is yandex, which is very useful for search terms that US-hased search engines mess with the results of.
Recently doing this got significantly easier for me.<p>In the past years I had to actively work on not using too many Google products.<p>Today Google products got bad that it feels like Google themselves are doing the discouraging.
I’ve done a decent job de-googling my life. YouTube is the only real holdout. That’s mainly because I’m too cheap to pay for Spotify. I guess I should get around to remedying that.
+1 for Nebula [0]. It's a great streaming service, and while the author primarily watches YouTube, and goes to Nebula occasionally, I do the opposite.<p>I use it as my primary source for news (TLDR Daily), and watch content from creators such as RealLifeLore and Half As Interesting, among many others.<p>Because of that, I rarely open YouTube, and even then I use SmartTube [1] on my Chromecast which gives a great experience.<p>[0] <a href="https://nebula.tv" rel="nofollow">https://nebula.tv</a><p>[1] <a href="https://github.com/yuliskov/SmartTube">https://github.com/yuliskov/SmartTube</a>
These de-Googling or un-Googling submissions always seem to follow the same pattern: try to find a "replacement" for every company Google has acquired.<p>What I never see is someone who proposes "de-Googling" <i>and</i> foregoing a replacement.<p>Consider the following generic example.<p>Google acquires some company that intermediates some task that people perform using a computer. Now Google collects data about its users.<p>A hypothetical computer user makes use of this intermediary "service" as well as others offered by Google. Eventually user decides he wants to stop giving away data to Google.<p>User then publishes to the web the idea of ceasing to use Google-owned intermediaries by using other, "equivalent" intermediaries for each and _every_ service. Or he tries to replicate role of the intermediary himself through "self-hosting".<p>But he never considers that in some cases using an intermediary is itself a problem, or may be unnecessary, irrespective of whether it is Google or some other entity. Why does he need to preserve each and _every_ Google acquisition by finding a replacement.<p>The use of an intermediary allows data collection and in almost all cases that's why someone started a so-called "tech" company. They saw opportunity to profit from being an intermediary (middleman).<p>The attempt to find a replacement for _every_ Google-owned intermediary seems rather brainless. As if every Google acquisition is something that must exist and must be used.<p>Certainly there is an arguable privacy benefit from using disparate third parties for different tasks instead of using the same one for every task. However there is also a benefit from <i>not using a third party at all</i>, or even from <i>not performing the task via a server</i> (self-hosting).
Man yeah I'm trying my best to
do the same. it is so hard. I pay for kagi and email services.<p>Buut yeah can one of you hackernews geniuses please create an alternative to youtube? The only alternatives I can find are crazy republican right wing websites that I have no desire to help or support.
Why is this hard? Since I quit offering a Chrome plug-in, my last connection to a Google account is gone. I should cancel my Google account, if and when I find the password.<p>I post videos on Hardlimit, which uses PeerTube. I don't care about "discovery"; they're to illustrate blog postings elsewhere. So all I need is hosting and playout, which Peertube does just fine. (Peertube handles playout by mooching bandwidth off of other people using Peertube. So it can scale if many people are watching the same video. Permanent storage, though, is not distributed. It's not Bittorrent.)<p>I've been using LibreOffice and its predecessors for decades now. My last purchase of a Microsoft product was Word 97. Desktop browser is Firefox. Mail client is Thunderbird.
Backups are IDrive. Add blocking is the EFF's Privacy Badger, which breaks many ad systems while enforcing privacy.<p>My phone uses F-Droid. It is not connected to a Google account. Browser is Fennec. App store is F-Droid. Search is DuckDuckGo.<p>What's the problem?