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How to leave Google and why

jach.me

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Re: How to leave Google and why

#121

Post by trident5000 »

addicted wrote: post #105

I really disagree with the Why of this article. I think there are good reasons to move away, or at least consider reducing dependence on Google, and the last point about the change in Google Photos policy hints at that (but even there it creates a kind of conspiracy theory where none is needed). For me, the Whys would be: 1) Far too much dependence on Google. It's probably not a good thing to have so much dependence…

I switched my main email account to protonmail a few months ago. Feels like a weight is off my shoulders. Aside from how invasive the company is, the layout is just illogical for me especially when replying and forwarding. Its also been getting progressively slower.

Re: How to leave Google and why

#122

Post by lern_too_spel »

freeflight wrote: post #104
numlock86 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Care to elaborate? My previous post had an argument about how you can't avoid Facebook, as someone who uses Facebook probably already shared your contact information from their phone with them without you knowing anything about it.

Anybody using an android device will help Google aggregate data about you because as soon as your details are added to the contacts app those will be cross-referenced with other data Google has about you. That’s exactly how Google ended up in possession on my mobile phone number in relation to my mail address: A friend added the same e-email address I use for YouTube to my android contact, which also included my phon…

Unlike iOS, Android lets you choose which contacts app to use and does not require you to log into any accounts at all to use the phone. You seem to be transferring what you know about iOS to Android when that does not transfer at all.

Re: How to leave Google and why

#124

Post by prima-facie »

1. Have your email address on a domain that's under your own control. Whoever controls your email box has control over your entire online persona.

2. Backup data from Google using automated tools like rclone. Rclone can download Google Drive data and Google Photos (albeit with duplicates).

3. Encrypt and backup your data to services like Backblaze, AWS S3, Wasabi, etc.

Re: How to leave Google and why

#125

Post by Spoom »

logicchains wrote: post #50
Tenoke wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That sounds nice but this approach is unlikely to ever get me off Search, Gmail, Android, Maps, and Chrome and those are also the ones that likely give them the most info about me.

It might work for some of those: Maps - They massively hiked API prices a couple years ago, literally by orders of magnitude (a kind of breaking change?). They've also broken a bunch of user-facing features and made it slower; it seems a common complaint here that maps now is a worse product than it was 5 years ago. Search - They seem to have gone all-in on AI, and I've seen a lot of people complaining here that it's…

https://www.google.com/search?q=%22Precise+queries+also+no+l...

Maybe you meant something different?

Re: How to leave Google and why

#126

Post by system16 »

The recent 180 with Google Photos was the straw that broke the camel's back for me.

I've seen them abandon products in the past, and have always been wary about their use of my data, albeit never enough to make the effort to use another service or pay for one.

This was such a bold reversal of their promise to offer free photo storage "forever" that I felt like it's only a matter of time before I get seriously impacted in other ways.

So I switched up everything:

- Google Photos -> Apple Photos (and local backups)

- Google Maps -> Apple Maps (luckily recent improvements have made it usable for my region)

- Gmail -> Fastmail

- Google Search -> Duck Duck Go (still relying on !g for most programming related searches)

- Google Chomre -> Safari (switched a year ago)

On the plus side, it feels good moving away from Google and not giving them my data. On the downside I'm now paying for services that I had for free, and in some ways getting more tied to Apple.

Re: How to leave Google and why

#127

Post by freeflight »

lern_too_spel wrote: post #122
freeflight wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anybody using an android device will help Google aggregate data about you because as soon as your details are added to the contacts app those will be cross-referenced with other data Google has about you. That’s exactly how Google ended up in possession on my mobile phone number in relation to my mail address: A friend added the same e-email address I use for YouTube to my android contact, which also included my phon…

Unlike iOS, Android lets you choose which contacts app to use and does not require you to log into any accounts at all to use the phone. You seem to be transferring what you know about iOS to Android when that does not transfer at all.

> Android lets you choose which contacts app to use

How many people actually go trough the trouble of getting a third party contacts app?

> does not require you to log into any accounts at all to use the phone

That still doesn't stop Google from processing the data that people enter. Just like the fact that even without logging into an Google account there's a ton of unique identifies to track just baked into phone hardware alone.

> You seem to be transferring what you know about iOS to Android when that does not transfer at all.

I'm not "transferring" anything, nor did anything similar happen in the 10+ years I've been using iOS phones.

None of my iPhones contact apps ever pulled account details from other Apple services to populate the phone contact with. Yet on my friends Android phone all he had to do was enter my phone number and the same e-mail address I used to register a YouTube account, and Google matched and linked those two together to populate the contact with my YouTube profile picture.

Which means that somewhere in the massive Google database these two identifiers will now be linked, even tho I specifically went out of my way not to give Google my mobile number.

Re: How to leave Google and why

#128

Post by system16 »

theshrike79 wrote: post #31
jrib wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What did you end up using for email?

Not the parent, but I switched to Fastmail. It was the only one that provided large enough storage quotas for my Gmail inbox at a reasonable price. 5€/month for 30GB of storage + domain aliases + native iOS application. Protonmail is SuperSecure and all that, but they only have 5GB of storage and for the 4€/month account, getting it close to 30GB would be 6x that. (The quota was much lower when I evaluated the servic…

I also switched to Fastmail and love it. Is their iOS app really native? It's my only real gripe with the service - I find it has a web/hybrid app feel to it. The components don't feel native, and I find their table row swiping gesture to be a bit flaky.

Re: How to leave Google and why

#130

Post by arvindamirtaa »

jblwps wrote: post #108
arvindamirtaa wrote: post #56

I'd love to leave! As soon as someone comes up with a half decent hosted calendar service that's half as good as Google Calendar. People like to give GCal a lot of shit while comparing it with local apps; there's very few hosted services that are so versatile.

What do you need in a calendar service that you can't find elsewhere? I use the Calendar app with NextCloud[0] for a CalDAV server + calendar web interface. It's fully-featured as far as I can tell. I use its CalDAV functionality to sync to my Android phone using DAVx^5[1], which integrates the calendars natively so that you can use whatever calendar app you want on your phone (I use Etar[2]). [0] https://apps.nextcl…

Okay! What if I can't run my own nextcloud server? I need a consumer solution - a non technical way of making things work.
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