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Ask HN: How have you deGoogled your life?

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Re: Ask HN: How have you deGoogled your life?

#21

Post by cube00 »

daneel_w wrote: post #18

When I started "deGoogling" myself a year ago, the first step was to stop using Gmail. When changing my registered e-mail address everywhere on the Internet there was one crucial bit that I completely overlooked: the owner/tech/billing/etc. contact records of a domain that I own. Many registrars send all regular communications to the e-mail address of the user account , not to those in the domain contact records, so…

If you could still login to the Registrars user account that owned the domain and that email address had been changed I suspect you should still be able to change the domain contact information via the self service console.

Worst case you'd raise a ticket (how good is actual support!) and they would be able to change the domain contact information for you because you can already authenticate with the user account that owns the domain.

If this wasn't possible all those domains that have self referencing contact information (eg. abuse@this-same-domain.example) could never be verified.

Re: Ask HN: How have you deGoogled your life?

#22

Post by cmurf »

I've got a legacy free gsuite account with two domains, one is personal the other business. I never got the option to keep it free for personal use, but also since it's still in the 3rd week of transitioning from free, I have no support. Without human support I can't split out the business domain into its own paid workspaces account, the tools I have access to don't have the option.

I have no motivation to de-Google except how horrible Google has been about this transition, so far making it impossible through circular logic.

I guess I'd have to do a takeout of the business domain, then delete that domain. Then open a new workspaces account and import the takout. Then handwave magic, I somehow get Google's attention to get the personal workspaces free instead of just automatically shutoff as their support docs claim will happen. Since I might have to migrate this one domain to some other service anyway, I might as well move the other domain too because it's easier to manage the two domains with a single interface even if they are separate accounts. So yeah, Google themselves are the how I will deGoogle, seems like.

Re: Ask HN: How have you deGoogled your life?

#23

Post by mysterydip »

detritus wrote: post #17
memorable wrote: post #8

Here are some of my additional recommendations: Analytics - GoatCounter, Counter.dev Keyboard - Unexpected Keyboard (A very cool keyboard) Search - Neeva Translate - Lingva Some notes on the post: - Protonmail as a company doesn’t have a very stellar reputation. I recommend hosting an e-mail server by yourself, or just use providers like Disroot Mail - K9 Mail is an email client, not an email provider

> I recommend hosting an e-mail server by yourself As someone who did this from about 2001 until three years ago, I strongly suggest most people don't bother with this route. GMail, Outlook, etc, all throw so many arbitrary and ever-changing security conditions to accept mail, it really isn't worth the hassle - or the lost clients from mails that don't reach their walled-garden end-points. I've used Fastmail for a fe…

Same here. I finally stopped self-hosting this past year. I moved to privateemail through namecheap, where I have my domains. For me it actually ended up being cheaper than the VPS I was using for rolling my own email server (let alone the cost of my time administrating/maintaining).

Rolling your own is fine until you're explaining to your spouse why the realtor never received the email they're waiting for to adjust the closing documents.

Re: Ask HN: How have you deGoogled your life?

#24

Post by dismalpedigree »

St_Alfonzo wrote: post #20
spaceman_2020 wrote: post #11

I’ve moved away from Chrome and Google Search. But I’m struggling to move away from Gmail, especially since this email is linked to so many critical official accounts (bank, government agencies) Any solutions to make the transition easier outside of manually updating email everywhere? Also, what’s the best alternative to Gmail currently that will support using my own domain name?

Moving away from Gmail was easy for me. Get a new address at a reliable provider or self host. And then you can use Gmail's own Mail-forwarding functionality to forward everything to your new mail address, and theres also an option to delete the copy at gmail. Whenever you have time, set the new address at your accounts. And after a year or two you have changed all accounts and can delete your gmail address. A slow c…

This is the way.

Re: Ask HN: How have you deGoogled your life?

#25

Post by haunter »

I use ungoogled-chromium and I'm pretty happy with it https://github.com/ungoogled-software/ungoogled-chromium

I should move away from Gmail too but that's the hardest part imo. I mostly have trust issues if that make sense. Not that I trust Google that much but I just don't know if any other email service will be around in 20 years or so. Probably Microsoft and Apple? iCloud Mail sounds good just don't have any experience with it (and it only works with custom domains afaik)

Re: Ask HN: How have you deGoogled your life?

#26

Post by yieldcrv »

daneel_w wrote: post #18

When I started "deGoogling" myself a year ago, the first step was to stop using Gmail. When changing my registered e-mail address everywhere on the Internet there was one crucial bit that I completely overlooked: the owner/tech/billing/etc. contact records of a domain that I own. Many registrars send all regular communications to the e-mail address of the user account , not to those in the domain contact records, so…

Still need a google account to accept a google meet invitation or some interactions with other people’s google calendar invites

Using google accounts with a non gmail non gsuite email suuucks

Re: Ask HN: How have you deGoogled your life?

#27

Post by cruano »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #11

I’ve moved away from Chrome and Google Search. But I’m struggling to move away from Gmail, especially since this email is linked to so many critical official accounts (bank, government agencies) Any solutions to make the transition easier outside of manually updating email everywhere? Also, what’s the best alternative to Gmail currently that will support using my own domain name?

I think you kinda have to update it manually everywhere, but that's why you get your own domain, so you only do it once. Personally, I discovered just how much spam/marketing email I was getting when I only migrated the "important" things to my own so I'm currently running with two emails.

As for alternatives, I have iCloud+ with my Apple One subscription I already pay for. That lets you setup five custom domains, with up to three emails each[1].

I think even if you don't switch yet, it's a good idea to change your domain name while you still can because most services ask for confirmation on the old email and we've all heard the horror stories with Gmail locking you out of nowhere

[1] https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT212514

Re: Ask HN: How have you deGoogled your life?

#28

Post by c0l0 »

I never really "googled" it in the first place.

Since I started using a smartphone/Android, I've been on CyanogenMod/LineageOS without Play services installed. I use FOSS apps from f-droid (Firefox, K-9 Mail, osmand~, DAVx5, Gadgetbridge, Signal) exclusively, and self-host the server-side of all my email (postfix/dovecot/amavis/opendkim) and CalDAV/CardDAV (radicale) stuff. I even set up my own public-ish DNS recursor that all networks I take care of use.

Never regretted any of it, but I'm aware few will find it enjoyable taking care of some of this infrastructure. I am lucky that I do :)

Re: Ask HN: How have you deGoogled your life?

#29

Post by cube00 »

spaceman_2020 wrote: post #11

I’ve moved away from Chrome and Google Search. But I’m struggling to move away from Gmail, especially since this email is linked to so many critical official accounts (bank, government agencies) Any solutions to make the transition easier outside of manually updating email everywhere? Also, what’s the best alternative to Gmail currently that will support using my own domain name?

There is only one way to eat an elephant: a bite at a time

Visit each site in your password manager and knock over a couple a day.

You'll never get anything that fully automates this because every site does the change differently. Even LastPass's automated password changer could only ever do a handful of sites fully automatically.

I've seen everything from full self service, to manual approval, to begging their privacy/legal department, to sites claiming allowing me to change my email address would represent an unacceptable security risk. I ask those sites that make up reasons like that to delete my personal information and move to someone who understands why email addresses are bad primary keys.

If you use your own domain, you'll never have to do this ever again, no matter how many times you change your email provider.

You need to start today, if you wait it's only a matter of time before Google does it for you by locking you out of your account for reasons they won't explain. Browse the GMail subreddit and observe the sea of hundreds of people locked out each week.

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