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Ask HN: Has anyone successfully been able to completely quit using Google?

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Re: Ask HN: Has anyone successfully been able to completely quit using Google?

#41

Post by Ultramanoid »

Spooky23 wrote: post #35
Ultramanoid wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More like two people having a conversation in the street, except one of them is screaming every word and you're just asking to please tone it down a bit, which is too much to ask for that person.

In that scenario, the quiet guy doesn’t realize that there is a cable guy standing behind him listening as well.

Mail is not that private, that is not the point being argued, and why I offered the street conversation example. From the moment you communicate with someone else, you've lost control over the information.

But there's a huge difference between that, and having every word you write plus all the info that can be inferred from that, recorded, stored forever, analyzed and re-analyzed, sold, exploited, misused, etc, by a hostile unscrupulous advertising company or its partners.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone successfully been able to completely quit using Google?

#42

Post by blablabla123 »

I switched away from Gmail to Protonmail. Docs I replaced with LibreOffice + git and Latex for Letters. That's so much more convenient because it works offline and I have far more import and export options. Where I can use Latex, I can use anything as a template and it's diffable. Oh and I use Perkeep as well, that's probably the actual replacement for Drive. Search I replaced with DDG. Also I'm using Apple CalendarServer which integrates with anything, so even when I switch phone OS, my appointments remain. I came to appreciate how great the support for iCal and ics files is.

With the exception of my underpowered Laptop - which I'm going to replace soon - I prefer to use Firefox.

The only thing left apart from that is my Phone where I have OxygenOS with the Play Store but as soon as LineageOS is supported, I'll switch over.

Admittedly the process took a long time but so did the switch to the Google Platform - or any other platform switch I did in the past like switching from Windows to Linux or from Linux to macOS.

I'm really happy that my new tools also integrate far better with many native tools.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone successfully been able to completely quit using Google?

#43

Post by spdebbarma »

mayankkaizen wrote: post #39

I use Firefox on laptop, Brave on mobile. DDG for search. Outlook for email (and have started trying Protonmail). Android is the biggest obstacle. The other option is iPhone which is too expensive (I personally don't see any point in buying a mobile which costs more than 250 USD). Too bad WIndows OS and Blackberry died. Google map is also hard to give up.

Try flashing LineageOS on your phone. That should solve the Android issue. You can also choose not to use Google Apps after doing so.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone successfully been able to completely quit using Google?

#44

Post by dylancwood »

blub wrote: post #11

No, because one is still forced to use some of their products by others: captcha, mailing gmail addresses, ads and tracking even in iOS apps, tracking on most websites (which can usually be blocked). Youtube is unfortunate, because many obscure things are only available on it, but it's not an essential service. FIY if you're in the US they're also buying access to your CC purchase info.

I agree. A reporter tried to completely block Google services for a week, and it didn't go well for her: She was unable to log into some major sites because sapience detection failed (captcha). https://www.npr.org/2019/02/10/692877140/why-we-cant-break-u...

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone successfully been able to completely quit using Google?

#45

Post by m-p-3 »

mixmastamyk wrote: post #37

Have rarely used google outside the search engine. Moved to DDG primarily several years ago. Have a tablet to watch Netflix on, uses a dummy goog account with no info given, and most apps uninstalled. I've bought a Play card at the grocery a few times, not often. Try to avoid Youtube and use youtube-dl, but not entirely successful. The commercials have made it easier. Apple maps and downloadable maps.me offline. Perh…

For YouTube, I use NewPipe[1]. It works well and include the ability to easily download audio and play in the background.

[1]: https://github.com/TeamNewPipe/NewPipe/releases

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone successfully been able to completely quit using Google?

#46

Post by marssaxman »

It depends on what you mean by "completely quit"; in a practical sense, yes, but not in a comprehensive philosophical sense. I never used Gmail anyway, so it was just a matter of switching to Duckduckgo for search and Bing for maps. I use Android phones, but I never link them to any Google account credentials and I don't use the Google app store, and generally I disable all the Google apps since they constantly nag you to log in. I have Chrome on my Mac at home, but I only use it for checking Facebook; for all my real browsing I use Firefox.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone successfully been able to completely quit using Google?

#47

Post by degenerate »

Ultramanoid wrote: post #18
blub wrote: post #11

No, because one is still forced to use some of their products by others: captcha, mailing gmail addresses, ads and tracking even in iOS apps, tracking on most websites (which can usually be blocked). Youtube is unfortunate, because many obscure things are only available on it, but it's not an essential service. FIY if you're in the US they're also buying access to your CC purchase info.

Regarding YT, my solution is youtube-dl. Which is also a massive improvement on the service itself; cross-platform, choosing of format and resolution, keeping the media file and not being at the whim of an internet connection, work around tracking and intrusive / malicious advertising, etc. https://ytdl-org.github.io/youtube-dl/index.html

FreeTube is an easier app to "recommend" because it has a full GUI wrapped around YouTube, which lets you watch, search for, and browse videos just like using the website. You can subscribe, watch playlists, read comments... get in-app notifications on your subscriptions... all locally loaded in the app with no account. I also believe you can export all your data to move to another machine. It comes in many linux flavors, as well as mac & windows.

https://github.com/FreeTubeApp/FreeTube

It's literally all the best parts of having an account on youtube, no account needed.

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone successfully been able to completely quit using Google?

#48

Post by jhoh »

I've been Google-free for about a year now. Already posted my "clean" setup in another thread[0]:

1. Replaced my Google G-Suite with Proton Mail and a self hosted Nextcloud The process was fairly easy: Just export all your mails and import them into Proton Mail. After that I've exported Google Drive data, contacts and calendar and imported everything into Nextcloud. This all took around two hours (including the Nextcloud setup).

The only "issue" was dealing with services where I use my G-Suite account as a login, but most of them allowed you to set a password so you can log in with email.

Nextcloud has amazing one click install apps that offer the same features that Google has (video calls, docs, notes etc.).

2. Removing Google from my Android phone For that I flashed LineageOS for microG. The great thing with this is, that you can install and use all apps you normally have but without having Google Services installed. As a PlayStore alternative you can use F-Droid and Yalp Store. Anyone who installed a custom ROM before will have it running in under an hour.

3. Securing my network with a PI-Hole and Proton VPN For devices like my phone, laptop and desktop I installed Proton VPN. As a browser for mobile and desktop I use Firefox with uBlock origin. For everything else (like "smart" devices etc.) I installed a Pi-Hole (basically Easy-List on network level) to remove ads and tracking scripts.

These were only the major steps that I've taken. So far I don't have any regrets about it and I haven't faced any limitations with the alternatives I use now.

Links: https://protonmail.com/ https://nextcloud.com/ https://lineage.microg.org/ https://protonvpn.com/

Additionally I've setup a self hosted searx[1] instance as a google search replacement.

[0]: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17283889 [1]: https://searx.me/

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone successfully been able to completely quit using Google?

#49

Post by ceoddevelopment »

I don't know how long but it was a simplistic approach. Replace the search engine, make myself use notepad plus plus to type, because backend engineering means we get a lot annotations if its breached, and then just a lot hotmail accounts and the youtube prank video life. Nothing fancy but google hates pranksters like those foosietubers cause they know too much and use it to make trouble, the engineering is what they tend to use so the illegal stuff is like backed into threading and is hard to move with because of that the listening sequence is SO FREAKING LOUD and naturally their non-engineer folk cant hear it so I avoid those websites and move on. Find replacememts and move on. My phone got loud? Use blank instead. After that ecosia starts to accomodate high profile users by also NOT giving them links when people like google are watching

I'm going home. I will be buying ecosia stock and making myself useful. Lol I finished this post and as I typed useful I think google bot spammer gave me a call and with the number, lol, 909 448 550...like the numbers in China. Like FUCK

Re: Ask HN: Has anyone successfully been able to completely quit using Google?

#50

Post by Crontab »

Ultramanoid wrote: post #18
blub wrote: post #11

No, because one is still forced to use some of their products by others: captcha, mailing gmail addresses, ads and tracking even in iOS apps, tracking on most websites (which can usually be blocked). Youtube is unfortunate, because many obscure things are only available on it, but it's not an essential service. FIY if you're in the US they're also buying access to your CC purchase info.

Regarding YT, my solution is youtube-dl. Which is also a massive improvement on the service itself; cross-platform, choosing of format and resolution, keeping the media file and not being at the whim of an internet connection, work around tracking and intrusive / malicious advertising, etc. https://ytdl-org.github.io/youtube-dl/index.html

I recently started using youtube-dl and it is an incredible tool. Also, despite its name, it works on lots of sites.
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