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No More Google

nomoregoogle.com

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Re: No More Google

#381

Post by OkGoDoIt »

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 personally switched to firefox on my computers, with DuckDuckGo as my search engine both on computer and mobile. I already use iOS. Still use Gmail, don’t for see leaving it anytime soon, too much of a hassle to find a decent replacement. I have been a passionate user of Google play Music for 7 years, and I would’ve continued, except they took that out from under me. So now I’ve got an Apple music subscription. I stopped using my various Google Home/Nest smart speakers once they made them basically useless unless you enable the Google account setting that lets them track everything everywhere. As soon as you change that privacy setting, Google Homes always respond with “in order for me to help you, turn on activity tracking in your Google account” or something like that.

Basically Google maps and Gmail are my main 2 google services that I haven’t yet moved away from. Apple Maps isn’t quite there yet, especially when it comes to international map data. And Gmail is something I’ve been meaning to swap out but it’s just so tedious to switch and I really don’t like the alternate options I have tried. I also have a Google Fi account for international data, because it’s the best way to get unthrottled unlimited free international data basically anywhere in the world, but I don’t use it as my main phone line domestically.

In 2013 I was one of the first Google Glass explorers and I wore it religiously for 3 years. I was google’s biggest fanboy in every way imaginable. And yet Google abandoned me, not the other way around. My switch off Google was less about privacy issues and more about the Google products and services I used to use have been either getting worse or pulled out from under me, or just aren’t worth account closure risk anymore. There’s also the privacy aspect as well, which wouldn’t be so bad if I still trusted them as a company to do the right thing, but those days are long gone.

Re: No More Google

#382

Post by charsi »

mastrsushi wrote: post #337

I think it's great users are always attempting to break free from Google. I don't think 3 companies should control half the internet content (I'm sure my measurements are way off). I just see it as inconvenient. Firefox has been well known to underperform Chrome in many areas. The GUI feels dated and clunky. Something about the experience feels very obviously backed by only software political activists, developers, a…

I don't know what in the UI you find so clunky. They seem extremely close to me. If somebody switched my browser without telling me I probably won't notice the difference between firefox and chrome.

Even if firefox was a slightly worse product (which I don't think it is) I would still use and recommend it just for its privacy focused features recently.

Non-chromium based browsers break google's 100% ownership of the web experience and gives some leverage against undesirable change. So even those are better. On Android only firefox supports addons and easy ad blocking.

Re: No More Google

#383

Post by charsi »

Igelau wrote: post #8

Anyone using any of these email services? I'm not looking for a workplace product, I just want to be able to get myself out of Gmail reliance and gradually get my family away from it too.

Using migadu.com for all my email. But I am not tied to them. Just use your own domain. Switching service providers after that becomes pretty easy.

A backup of emails in gmail can be downloaded over IMAP and saved offline. Offline searches in Thunderbird are many times quicker than within gmail.

Re: No More Google

#384

Post by charsi »

muststopmyths wrote: post #81

Doesn't mention Google Domains. Any suggestions for a reliable registrar ?

Been using name.com for many years without complaint. Cloudflare is also good if you are already using their DNS and they support the TLD you want.

Re: No More Google

#385

Post by charsi »

the_arun wrote: post #181

There is no competitor for YouTube in content. I might use youtube with a fake id if I want to avoid sharing ton of personal data with Google.

You don't even need a fake ID. If you want a way to 'subscribe' to channels you can just use their RSS feed.

All youtube channels have RSS feeds https://danielmiessler.com/blog/rss-feed-youtube-channel/ https://gist.github.com/tjluoma/fdbc63ceb78a2aecd3d638fd18b6...

Re: No More Google

#386

Post by BMSmnqXAE4yfe1 »

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 never used any of Goggle services, for privacy reasons, just as I never had a Facebook account. Until Android came around. This one is really hard to evade, unless you want an iPhone, which is an even greater evil.

Re: No More Google

#387

Post by BMSmnqXAE4yfe1 »

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...

Imagine one day you accidentally like a wrong Facebook post and get "canceled". Poof your google account and you logins with it ...

Re: No More Google

#388

Post by BMSmnqXAE4yfe1 »

nashashmi wrote: post #53
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 switched from Google to duck duck go. Switching other products is a little bit trickier. Alternatives need differentiation to specifically pick them and being not Google isn't good enough. Ddg has bangs which make it a universal search bar.

When mentioning alternatives to Google search, 99% of people suggest DDG. But there are lot of good alternatives now, Qwant, SearX for example.

Re: No More Google

#389

Post by gpanders »

RonanTheGrey wrote: post #331
pgt wrote: post #194

Earlier quoted context omitted.

By shame and disgust, I suspect you mean something along the lines of virtue-signalling, but I think it's much more simple than that, it's plain old economics: Long-term reliability and excellence. If you keep shutting down products, who could risk relying on them? Not me, because switching costs are non-trivial. If you launch ten different chat products (luckily the icons match) and shut them down a few months later…

> Next up is Google Docs. Sheets is going to be tough. Microsoft 365 is reasonably priced and you can use the web-based versions for free.

Is Microsoft any better than Google?

Re: No More Google

#390

Post by anatman »

I am a Life-Long, grateful Google user who has some thoughts on AdSense that I've considered quite deeply. Adsense allows anyone of any economic standing to access some of the most refined and powerful tools for gathering, using, and sharing knowledge that humanity has ever built. Google's contribution to modern ad tech is, in that sense, an immensely laudable contribution to humankind. The lack of the ability to choose where I spend my valuable attention amounts at some level to a nonconsensual interaction. I am willing to pay for both Google's services and those of the content creator (and I am sensitive to the fairness of that relationship as well), but not being able to choose how I pay has led me to make some personal use decisions that put me in conflict with Google's revenue model. I have to use an ad blocker Security concerns Unhealthy child development Anti-patterns showing in the development of the internet both technologically and socially Google's anticompetitive ad-tech behavior leading to unhealthy browser market share leading to Reduction in diversity of thought in internet technology conversations Centralization of power in ad selection has the unintended side effect of dragging content along with it. Ad personalization (for the sake of maximizing profits in ad sales) led to over-personalization of the types of ads we see (echo chamber effect). Automatic content curation followed the ad-tech model, increasing profits by increasing "engagement." This led to a dangerous strengthening of the echo chamber effect. We're all now used to the central artery of human information being "free" as in beer, but costing us our ability to have a balanced, more-or-less impartial information diet or at least forcing us to work very hard for it. Google, please figure out how to give us another way to pay.
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