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No More Google

nomoregoogle.com

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Re: No More Google

#341

Post by ruffrey »

jason0597 wrote: post #34

These anti-Google discussions come and go on the front page of Hacker News, but I'd be curious to know how many people actually degoogle their lives drastically after reading such discussions and articles. I believe it's more of a case of "Oh my god, Google is so disgusting! Shame on Google!", and then people open up a new tab in Chrome to search on Google about their next restaurant destination as if nothing happene…

Each one of these discussions kicks me enough to move another service or reset a few more email addresses to a personal domain. I’m mostly off google after a couple years.

Re: No More Google

#342

Post by reificator »

tasuki wrote: post #264
stevenhubertron wrote: post #212

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I moved to DuckDuckGo years ago, Firefox a year ago, from GA to Goat Counter for my personal sites and recently from GMail to Fastmail. It has been slow, but certainly deliberate.

Did you have your own email domain? I have an @gmail.com email and can't even begin to imagine how I could migrate. It's my login everywhere...

I have fastmail set up so that it continually imports new mail from my google accounts, and if I reply from the fastmail interface it replies using the email I received the message on.

It's a very easy first step. Then you can migrate things over one by one as they come in without worrying about missing things or switching between interfaces.

Re: No More Google

#343

Post by denismi »

_iyig wrote: post #190
jagged-chisel wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personal anecdote, software engineer/techie for 25+yrs: I never react immediately. Unless directly affected by an event, I accumulate information over time and it will influence my decision making. Reacting is too disruptive to my own life, and those of the people I support (e.g. family.) Would an article like this make my family change? No. Many don't care; most don't understand the impact on themselves. My De-Googl…

I've been happy with Fastmail as a GMail alternative. Been slowly moving my logins and usernames from one to the other. Only (rather significant) complaint is that since 2018, they're affected by Australia's encryption backdoor bill.

The legislation specifically prohibits authorities from requiring the creation or retention of any systemic weaknesses or vulnerabilities, or "any act or thing that will, or is likely to, jeopardise the security of any information held by any other person", other than the individual(s) targeted by the warrant.

I think the law is over-reaching and lacking in sufficient transparency, but I don't really think it would allow anything like the common understanding of "encryption backdoor"?

Re: No More Google

#344

Post by jesterson »

blunte wrote: post #58

Seeing Notion ranked so highly makes me wonder what other people do that's so different from me. I try to like it (I was an early paid adopter, and now my company uses it so I must too), but there are so many points of friction that most of my effort is spent fighting it rather than using it. Does the general typing latency not bother people? There's a noticeable delay between pressing a key and seeing a character ap…

Not sure what's your use cases, but I have never encountered any of issues youve mentioned. Never got any delay, everything works smooth. I do use it a lot on desktop and mobile

Re: No More Google

#345

Post by treehacker1 »

thesuitonym wrote: post #267
Normal_gaussian wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've partially degoogled, and it was certainly influenced by these kinds of discussions. The most compelling reason I have found for degoogling is to make the question "what happens if they ban me?" get the anwser "nothing much". The next most compelling reason is to protect the world from their influence. i.e. take my influence amongst my family and peers and use it to steer another small part of the world away from…

I wonder if all the people leaving Google for Fastmail will make Fastmail the next Google. It's better to diversify accounts like that, especially in the case of email, which (currently) works across providers, despite attempts by Google and Protonmail to lock users in.

Hello, I was planning to move to Protonmail (free version). Can you explain more about trying to lock users in?

Re: No More Google

#346

Post by jimsug »

jsinai wrote: post #253
jagged-chisel wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personal anecdote, software engineer/techie for 25+yrs: I never react immediately. Unless directly affected by an event, I accumulate information over time and it will influence my decision making. Reacting is too disruptive to my own life, and those of the people I support (e.g. family.) Would an article like this make my family change? No. Many don't care; most don't understand the impact on themselves. My De-Googl…

One of the best things I did was to use Firefox Focus for all my mobile Google Search queries. This let's me use Google to (most of the time) find what I'm looking for, but without worrying as much about tracking or having a profile on my browser (Focus resets every time you leave the app). I've found that there are few occasions where I actually want to keep a search history. Honestly a browser which kept no history…

On android, Firefox beta (and maybe stable; haven't used stable in a while) allows you to have bookmarks as well as open all links in a private tab by default.

On desktop I use multi account containers and wipe history on exit, and have a handful of bookmarks for convenience.

For both, I use the bitwarden add-on/app to manage passwords.

Re: No More Google

#347

Post by harha »

jason0597 wrote: post #34

These anti-Google discussions come and go on the front page of Hacker News, but I'd be curious to know how many people actually degoogle their lives drastically after reading such discussions and articles. I believe it's more of a case of "Oh my god, Google is so disgusting! Shame on Google!", and then people open up a new tab in Chrome to search on Google about their next restaurant destination as if nothing happene…

It’s hard to reach 100% but very doable to keep the most intrusive stuff out. These are my steps: - replace search with DDG, gradually reduce usage of !g and either search directly on the site of interest or narrow down the search further if results aren’t satisfactory - Firefox and safari both are excellent browsers (especially reading mode to escape the ads). I use Firefox with separate containers for all the big sites (Google, Amazon, etc) and safari for general browsing - add a pi hole (mine is broken right now, would love to integrate into my router some time) - access email through an email client or a different provider accessing the gmail inbox, I’ve started removing all logins from the gmail address, every time I log in and have the time I change the email - generally avoid all google mobile apps, there’s good alternatives

What’s really difficult: - completely moving out of an email address people have been using for years to contact me - many clients I work with use google docs - the stuff I don’t see, all the cookies and analytics - YouTube, though I prefer reading

It would be very nice if my taxes could go towards protecting me as a consumer from companies that get too large - especially considering some of the acquisitions in the ad ecosystem (YouTube, doubleclick), but here we are.

The list in the headline is very helpful.

Re: No More Google

#348

Post by nicbou »

jason0597 wrote: post #34

These anti-Google discussions come and go on the front page of Hacker News, but I'd be curious to know how many people actually degoogle their lives drastically after reading such discussions and articles. I believe it's more of a case of "Oh my god, Google is so disgusting! Shame on Google!", and then people open up a new tab in Chrome to search on Google about their next restaurant destination as if nothing happene…

I wasn't drastic about it, but I started the process, app by app.

I started with Chrome, because it was easy.

Google Photos is holding my photos hostage, so it's the first candidate. Google Drive will come next, since the solution I picked also covers that.

I also stopped using the Google Maps location timeline, and use OsmAnd most of the time for navigation.

My personal website doesn't use Analytics. I don't load Google Fonts either.

Re: No More Google

#349

Post by piva00 »

koyote wrote: post #241
jason0597 wrote: post #34

These anti-Google discussions come and go on the front page of Hacker News, but I'd be curious to know how many people actually degoogle their lives drastically after reading such discussions and articles. I believe it's more of a case of "Oh my god, Google is so disgusting! Shame on Google!", and then people open up a new tab in Chrome to search on Google about their next restaurant destination as if nothing happene…

I've been with Google since the gmail beta and have slowly de-googled a lot of the stuff I use. Not due to privacy concerns but simply due to them cancelling products or making existing products worse (gTalk/Hangouts closure as well as Google Photos/Drive decoupling were the two big ones). I now use Fastmail with my own domain and I love it. I also use Firefox which is pretty much back to being the best browser after…

> I still use an Android phone as I find iphones to be very frustrating to use , especially if you do not use a Mac.

This I don't understand, I haven't needed to use my Mac for anything with iPhones for years.

Re: No More Google

#350

Post by Cyberspy »

bntyhntr wrote: post #223
jagged-chisel wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Personal anecdote, software engineer/techie for 25+yrs: I never react immediately. Unless directly affected by an event, I accumulate information over time and it will influence my decision making. Reacting is too disruptive to my own life, and those of the people I support (e.g. family.) Would an article like this make my family change? No. Many don't care; most don't understand the impact on themselves. My De-Googl…

I've also moved to firefox across all my devices. I don't use electron apps. I use google search and gmail both personally and at work. I'm not really _trying_ to degooglify, I'm just degooglifying when the chance comes up. I'm also not hardcore enough to switch over the email on all my accounts, the people who contact me, etc. And I like free things. So one step at a random time it is.

I doubt many other people here are going to ditch Electron completely - the current 'favourite' dev tool is Visual Studio Code which is an Electron app.

Even though Electron is actually a Microsoft supported platform, I understand the connection with Google - Electron uses Chromium rendering engine. But, this is not the same as Chrome. Chrome uses Chromium [1] but I think all the privacy issues are part of Chrome, not Chromium.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromium_(web_browser)

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