
De-Googling: My Progress - dredmorbius
https://geekgonecrazy.com/2020/04/28/de-googling-my-progress/
======
harha
I actually think the results on DuckDuckGo are better than on google for many
topics especially technical:

\- there’s less ads (you can turn them off completely, but I’ve only seen one
ad on the front page at most which is ok for me)

\- not as SEOed (still not great though)

\- the box on the side is often more useful, e.g. Wikipedia instead of
shopping ads

\- on mobile Safari I use the bangs [0] which have a sort of Omnibox
experience

[0]: [https://duckduckgo.com/bang](https://duckduckgo.com/bang)

(Edited formatting)

~~~
brabel
As much as I would like to agree, as a user who has DDG as the default search
engine, this is not my experience... DDG consistently gives me useless results
when I search for less popular languages results (searching Dart, or the
search-friendly dartlang, gives me crap every time, while Google finds stuff
easily... sure, Dart is by Google, that may be a factor, but if I remember
correctly, results for Groovy and very new languages like Unison are a lot
better at Google) I unavoidably have to use !g to turn to Google. To the point
where when I am at work and cannot afford wasting time, I use Google by
default.

~~~
amelius
Does anyone know of a Firefox plugin that automatically adds a "!g" upon a
gesture on mobile?

I'm asking because adding the "!g" takes about 6-7 screen touches so it's
quite inefficient, and it basically keeps me from using DDG.

~~~
pgug
When I use a mobile I usually type G! instead of !g because of autocorrect,
and it works just the same.

------
yachtman
Firefox is now objectively better than Chrome in every way. I would recommend
switching moral reasons aside. Chrome's memory management is abysmal. I now
get the same shudder when I see someone with chrome on their machine that I
used to get when I saw someone running Internet Explorer (which may even be
better than chrome now too).

~~~
bananaoomarang
I wish this were true but certainly on Linux I don't find this to be the case.
I periodically try switching to Firefox and always end up back on Chrome for
performance reasons.

Features wise I prefer Firefox (containers are amazing, extra privacy
features/blockers by default nice, the new picture in picture for video is
nice, dev tools have a lot of cool extra features etc), but Firefox often
struggles and stutters for me, whereas I rarely have issues with Chrome.

The devtools are a good example, sometimes just having them open on a page I
am developing slows everything down. Closing/re-opening the tab seems to fix
it for a bit but then it just starts to happen again, Chrome's devtools are
always snappy. Similary if I want to inspect an element on a page Chrome never
has a problem doing it instantly, Firefox has to think about it for a while.

In general everything that uses the GPU I find far faster in Chrome. The other
day for instance I was working on a d3 SVG visualization that strained Firefox
but was no problem for Chrome, canvas performance is similar but not as bad in
my experience. The most common offender is trying to watch a video: in Firefox
everything slows down and the fans spin up, in Chrome no effect.

It is also true that all Google services that I am unfortunately tied to
(GMail, Maps, Calendar etc) are snappy in Chrome and like molasses in
Firefox...

~~~
Drdrdrq
My experience is exactly the opposite. When forced to use Chromium on Linux, I
find it slow. The dev tools are lacking basic functionality that I came to
depend on, and they are unreliable (missing requests in Network tab). When
testing CSP protections about a year ago, Chromium allowed many of the
requests that should have been blocked (and were, in Firefox).

I think it comes down to what one is used to. We probably learn to sidestep
problems with any browser we use, but using a different browser inevitably
leads to frustration.

Of course, this is not true if you are using Google services. Google seems to
put an extra effort in making sure that their pages are as slow as possible in
Firefox... I don't care much myself as I don't use them, but it's a good
reminder of how (non)non-evil they have become.

~~~
bananaoomarang
Interesting... It has gotten a lot better over the past few years. The Google
issue is not a deal-breaker for me, want to move away from GMail/Calendar for
my personal account anyway.

Will probably try to make the switch again at some point.

------
tombh
I've been de-googled (and de-facebooked) for over a year now. I wrote about it
here [https://tombh.co.uk/deleting-facebook-and-
google](https://tombh.co.uk/deleting-facebook-and-google)

My main motivation is slightly different in that being a software engineer I
am actually in a unique position to navigate this tricky path and therefore
feel a responsibility to tread the de-googled path, so that it might make it
easier for others to follow, should they so wish. At the very least we all
need readily available choices.

Interestingly, although I went through all the steps to delete my Google
account I got stuck at the point of wondering what to do with my Youtube
videos. Although, since last time I checked, it seems now I can actually move
them to another Google account, I'll look into that.

~~~
b3n
> I opt for Signal now, hardly anyone uses it and the UX isn’t as nice, but it
> uses state of art in encryption.

Out of curiosity, what don't you like about the UX?

And doesn't it use the same "state of the art" encryption as WhatsApp?

~~~
robjan
The problem with WhatsApp is that the other participants in a given chat are
likely to back up the conversation to Google Drive of iCloud which defeats the
purpose of E2E encryption. And, of course, the metadata.

~~~
entropicdrifter
Also it's owned by Facebook, so you just _know_ there's some backdoors built
in.

------
andrepd
Moving from Google cloud to Apple cloud, from Google messenger to Facebook
messenger... What's the point honestly?

~~~
joshmanders
Apple is not an advertising company, they are a product and service company.
Google gives free services in exchange for your data.

Facebook Messenger I don't get, I'd use Apple Messages over Facebook, or
Telegram, etc.

~~~
_-david-_
>Apple is not an advertising company

Except when they are

[https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT205223](https://support.apple.com/en-
us/HT205223)

[https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202074](https://support.apple.com/en-
us/HT202074)

~~~
Diesel555
Apple protects your data.

[https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303](https://support.apple.com/en-
us/HT202303)

Yes they advertise, but you are not the product on services such as cloud.
They often cannot physically read your data intentionally.

~~~
_-david-_
They sell ads based on intrests and location. This makes them money. How are
you not the product?

They actually can read your data. They abandoned plans to do end to end
encryption [0] on icloud backups. When you get a new iphone you can view all
your old messages which means Apple in all likelyhood has access to your
private key.

[0] [https://9to5mac.com/2020/01/21/apple-reportedly-abandoned-
en...](https://9to5mac.com/2020/01/21/apple-reportedly-abandoned-end-to-end-
icloud/)

------
niemenmaa
My De-Googling process:

    
    
      *Search(1)   -> DuckDuckGo
      *Gmail(2)    -> Fastmail
      *Android     -> SailfishOS (https://sailfishos.org/)
      *Maps        -> OpenStreetMaps
      *Youtube(3)  -> Youtube-dl, "subscriptions" with rss-feeds
      *Drive       -> Self-hosted Nextloud & Syncthing
      *Calendar    -> At first Fastmail, but nowadays back to paper calendar
      *Chrome      -> Brave & Firefox
    
    

(1) When having problems finding I sometimes check Google Search with bangs.

(2) Accounts still exist and forward to fastmail as I'm slowly changing my
subscriptions etc.

(3) Youtube I feel is the toughest to get rid of, but nowadays I hardly ever
go on the website as I hate all the clickbait that the algorithm tries to
stuff into my face.

~~~
dublinben
Concerning Youtube, you may be interested in
[https://www.invidio.us/](https://www.invidio.us/) which is an alternative
front end. There are also extensions for Firefox which will automatically
redirect any Youtube links you happen to come across to open on Invidious.

~~~
lyndons
Invidio.us seems unusable.

I tried to do simplest thing: create playlist - the only thing I'm really
missing not having YT account (beside commenting).

1\. First of all, it forced me to create Invidio.us account. Why it can't
store everything in my cookie?

2\. Next, I searched for a video typing its YT code "fVCAFvIq_F8" \- no
results. After several attempts I figured out that sometimes it does find it
and sometimes it doesn't. Weird.

3\. Alright, I copied full address of a video into search box, clicked on
result - and got an error: " _The uploader has not made this video available
in your country._ " Umm... What? I have no problem watching it on YT itself,
why would Invidio restrict me? But even if it was country-restricted, why
would Invidio reproduce this stupid Google-imposed geographical
restrictions/discrimination?

3\. Very irritated, I went for another video (OlNC6gK2y0I) - only to get
another error: " _The media could not be loaded, either because the server or
network failed or because the format is not supported_ " ...

4\. It was getting boring, but for the sake of experiment I went for yet
another video - Invidio found it and played, but... there is no "Add to a play
list" button? Turned out, first you need go to a settings, scroll down, find
and click "View all playlists" link, on the next page click "Create playlist"
link, on the next page create it, then go back to a video you wanted to add
and add it. Thats... a clusterfuck.

5\. Alright I go to a front page - where can I see my playlist? Nowhere. You
need to find and turn on separate setting just to get "Playlists" link on the
front page. (Isn't it obvious that I need playlists from the very fact that I
created it?)

OK, maybe at least Invidio has additional functionality compared to YT, like
downloading video? No, " _Download is disabled._ " Why?

To all of that I must add that Invidio.us worked very slow, sluggish and
unresponsive. Occasionally I was getting " _Rate limit exceeded_ " error just
trying to open front page.

~~~
niemenmaa
Ugh, sounds painful. Luckily my Youtube habbits are only watching videos, so I
don't need playlists or other functionality.

------
catchmilk
I really tried giving DDG a chance but I always found myself having to go back
to Google to find the right information. This would especially pertain to
technical matters. The 'average-joe-browsing' (e.g. amazon, movies, songs
etc.) worked fine, but when it came down to research papers or solving
software problems, I was too often left disappointed.

A couple of weeks back I switched to Qwant[1]. Privacy focused, technical-
matters-friendly, and most importantly, haven't had to look at Google once.
Really enjoying it so far.

[1] [https://about.qwant.com/](https://about.qwant.com/)

~~~
asdff
DDG is nowhere close to google scholar, much less pubmed. If you don't want to
use google scholar, web of science is good too.

~~~
gcthomas
I find it easier to access GOogle Scholar via DDG with !scholar than I do with
Google Search.

~~~
UncleSlacky
I use !gsch for that.

~~~
slazaro
!gsc is even shorter!

------
cyrialize
I have mostly de-googled myself. For search I mainly rely on DuckDuckGo, but
as many people have pointed out sometimes DuckDuckGo doesn't cut it. When that
happens I either use Google or Startpage.

I usually use Google when I want information about a business near me. I
haven't tested this thoroughly but I think Google does a better job of getting
and presenting phone numbers, accurate store hours, etc.

For email I'm a big fan of Fastmail. The service is great and the web UI is
fast and easy to use. For storage I also rely on Fastmail - their standard
plan comes with 30 GB of storage. They also provide calendars, notes, and
contacts.

My personal phone is an iPhone. I didn't intentionally switch a while back -
my android phone broke and my family had an iPhone I could use. I've stuck
with it since then, I like the overall experience. I don't currently use any
of the Apple Cloud services. It's been rough connecting my phone to my Linux
laptop, but I've found the best way to handle it is to just have a Windows VM
for uploading music to and downloading photos from my iPhone. I know there's
[https://www.libimobiledevice.org/](https://www.libimobiledevice.org/) but it
looks like it only works for images.

For music I either use Spotify, Bandcamp, or ripping CDs. I never tried out
Google Music.

The one thing I haven't found a good replacement for has been YouTube. I'm
definitely going to check out some of the suggestions people have made in this
thread regarding that.

~~~
Jenz
When DuckDuckGo doesn’t cut it, which IME is not often, then Google is always
easily available with !g query

~~~
close04
My biggest gripe with DDG is that if I search for a business, even when using
the exact name, it will almost surely come back with a couple Yelp results
(which is like getting a link to a 2005 MySpace page) followed by a dozen
Facebook profiles that vaguely resemble the name of the business I was
searching for.

This being said DDG was able to take over 99.99% of my searching needs for
some time now. And when I have some query that doesn't seem to return anything
useful on DDG it turns out Google doesn't really do much better (YMMV).

I still use Youtube and Google Maps heavily compared to alternative services.
But for everything else I decided to "spread the joy" and not rely on a single
provider of services.

~~~
cyrialize
> My biggest gripe with DDG is that if I search for a business, even when
> using the exact name, it will almost surely come back with a couple Yelp
> results (which is like getting a link to a 2005 MySpace page) followed by a
> dozen Facebook profiles that vaguely resemble the name of the business I was
> searching for.

I've had this same experience. Looking up businesses is pretty much the only
time I use Google.

------
DeathArrow
The trouble with de-Google is you have to replace a highly integrated suite of
apps with separate bits which lack integration.

Also, if you have hundreds of accounts where you used gmail to register and
hundreds or thousands of contacts which might send you mail, it's hard to
switch.

~~~
downerending
Somewhat true. On the other hand, if/when you lose access to your Google
account, lack of integration might seem like a life-saving plus.

------
ekianjo
> Iphone: But I think this really helped cut my reliance on Google and I feel
> a lot less reliant on any particular phone OS.

You just became reliant on the iOS system instead of the Google on. Hardly an
improvement.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
You can use an Apple phone without using a lot of Apple services and
contributing a lot to a cloud profile of you. Given how many apps on the
Android ecosystem depend on Play Services to function, it's nearly impossible
to do this with Android.

I have a Brave Heart Edition PinePhone, and I'm hoping to switch to a real
Linux phone soon, but for now, carrying an iPhone as a pretty basic phone is
still a big privacy improvement.

~~~
geekgonecrazy
I'm planning to get a PinePhone to play with. I think has a ways to come. But
i'm really excited that an affordable phone like this can land in the hands of
more developers to work on mobile OS's.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
Yeah, it's really neat. I got the iPhone 11 because I need something reliable
for now for work purposes, but my hope is to switch to my PinePhone when I
feel it is ready.

------
m463
Although I agree with the actions this person has taken, and I agree that
privacy is an excellent reason, his webpage describing adwords and adsense was
not that scary at face value.

I think it is much more scary if you realize that google works very hard to
identify who you are accurately, and even matches it with things like offline
purchase data.

The opposite of privacy is identification, and google is arguably the most
capable and well-funded identification service on the planet.

I also think we as tech people should set a good example.

We could map the path for the less technically adept folks around us to take
steps in the right direction.

We could provide support instead of ridicule when people make inconvenient
choices instead of giving in.

And we could BE people who care about privacy, even if it is just to read the
privacy policy, or block some trackers.

~~~
GoblinSlayer
Hmmm... I did give in :) Google locked my account and I was like "okay.jpg",
no google for me anymore. Uneventful story, not even enough for a blog post.

------
lucb1e
> I probably just lost 99% of you

Yeah, moving from Google over to Apple is just cheating. It's better for
privacy, but I'd rather thinker with my system to remove the spyware than
remove the spyware and largely give up the ability to easily tinker with my
system.

~~~
bottle2
I don’t know. I’m a tinkerer but if we think about phone ecosystem, then I
just want my phone to work and not spy on me. I’ll tinker with my other
devices, but after bricking one phone, I won’t do it again.

~~~
lucb1e
The tinkering doesn't have to be invasive or risky. I share your worry and am
rather scared of breaking anything because of the amount of work I put into
the configuration. My solution is to root very early on, just after testing
everything and making sure I don't want to make sure of my 14 day return
right, so if something goes wrong there I don't lose data. After that, I use
root for all sorts of things, but after configuring everything I don't do
invasive things like installing different ROMs or removing system apps or so.

------
BerkhanBerkdemi
I still don't understand why people are moving from G products and use
Apple+self-hosted? The author is saying he is hosting the e-mail server but,
for example, not an iCal server.

~~~
louismerlin
Google has no problem browsing through your data to serve you "better"
advertisement, while Apple claims to respect your privacy (I would be tempted
to believe them).

~~~
RealStickman_
Note that Apple respecting your privacy only applies in countries where they
can continue to do business after refusing government requests.

~~~
three_seagrass
A good summary here for anyone doubting you:
[https://www.wired.com/story/apple-china-censorship-apps-
flag...](https://www.wired.com/story/apple-china-censorship-apps-flag/)

------
jain9rajat
I wonder what people have to think about Outlook (M365) for many of these
things (email, calendar, storage, photos)? Assuming people are fine with paid
subscriptions. The author himself is using paid services from apple.

------
Semaphor
> Cyanogenmod but it was always so buggy

Huh? LineageOS has been rock stable for me for years as long as I go with
stable builds. Maybe the author meant using something like microG to replace
all the google frameworks?

~~~
RussianCow
For some phones, proper hardware support is iffy at best, and things
constantly crash at worst. The stability of LineageOS seems to correlate
roughly with how popular that phone is with LineageOS devs, so if you have a
phone with only one maintainer, chances are that some things might not work
super well. (It also depends on how committed to open source the manufacturer
is, but these days, the answer is "not at all" for the vast majority, so it
doesn't really matter.)

Source: I've been using Cyanogen/LineageOS for years on various phones, and
even tried getting it working on an officially unsupported phone (without
luck).

~~~
Semaphor
Ah, my last 3 phones were all OnePlus and I think those are pretty popular ;)

~~~
RussianCow
Yes, and I believe OnePlus is one of the few manufacturers that is fairly
welcoming to open source and third-party ROMs (which makes sense since their
original phone was based on Cyanogenmod). My current phone, the Sony Xperia
XA2, is similarly very stable, even with microG, because Sony provides open
device configurations for most (all?) of their phones. But almost all of my
past phones (mostly Motorola and HTC) have had various stability issues that
didn't exist on the built-in ROMs. It's still worth it for me, but I would
definitely not recommend it to anyone that isn't willing to roll the dice and
potentially put up with some pain.

------
markosaric
I've made similar progress too:

Replaced Chrome browser with Firefox

Replaced Google search with DuckDuckGo

Replaced Gmail with ProtonMail

Replaced Google Maps with OpenStreetMap

Replaced Hangouts with Telegram

Replaced Google for news with Feedly

Replaced Google Translate with DeepL

~~~
lucb1e
+1 for Deepl. Google Translate's quality is _very_ close to Deepl and for a
long time I couldn't tell which is better, but I recently discovered that
Deepl does German brainfuck sentences correctly and Google and Microsoft
Translate both mess it up. (In German you can say "the ball has the dog" and
by conjugating "the" correctly ("der ball" and "den hund", iirc, or the other
way around, I can never remember) it can mean "the dog has the ball" despite
being in the wrong order.)

Aside from self-hosted email, my list is very similar to yours, I just wanted
to highlight Deepl because few people seem to know it and it's a German
company so I trust that a whole lot more from the outset.

~~~
TheArcane
Is there a reliable DeepL based addon for Firefox?

~~~
lucb1e
I just go to their website so I don't know, sorry.

------
louthy
I started degoogling when they killed Inbox. I would have happily paid for
that, it was the first time I’d ever been able to maintain ‘inbox zero’.

So, I’ve switched browsers (Edge), switched search engine (DDG), but I don’t
know an email system that’s as good as Inbox was, so I can drop gmail?

------
nunorbatista
I'm surprised by not seeing more comments against the OP moving from Google to
move almost everything to Apple & Facebook. I've also started a similar
process but haven't managed to ditch Google completely yet, mainly for
convenience. Because my concern was mainly privacy, I started by adding a pi-
hole in the home network and that allowed me to block an infinite number of
tracking codes and ads. This improved the overall internet experience for
everyone. I've also attached a HDD to the raspberry pi and created a network
drive. With the help of a good script the backups are automatic and silent.

For messaging, Telegram FTW, but can't seem to convince a lot of my friends to
move over.

~~~
codethief
Why do you use Telegram if you're concerned about privacy?

~~~
nunorbatista
Telegram changed in the last couple of years. You can choose between secret
chats (e2e encrypted) and normal which are just user-server storage-user
encrypted. End-to-end voice calls is also a feature. If you ask me between the
Google / Facebook messaging apps (Whatsapp, Messenger, etc) and Telegram,
today I'd say Telegram has an advantage because it has a good UI, works across
devices and the desktop client works like a charm. For someone that wants to
ditch the Google / Facebook environment and be sure their grandmother can use
it, I don't see much better options.

It's not as faulty as it used to be, but I see the old times made a reputation
for it.

~~~
codethief
> You can choose between secret chats (e2e encrypted) and normal which are
> just user-server storage-user encrypted.

I am aware of that, though I think in the second case it's better to pretend
messages are not encrypted at all on the server side since mere storage
encryption can be circumvented all too easily.

Anyway, having the choice between encryption and no encryption is exactly the
problem. How many Telegram users _choose_ e2e-encrypted chats? AFAIK you have
to enable this for every conversation separately, right?

~~~
nunorbatista
Yes, you would still have to create a new "Secret chat" to have the e2e. The
reason for that is explored here: [https://telegra.ph/Why-Isnt-Telegram-End-
to-End-Encrypted-by...](https://telegra.ph/Why-Isnt-Telegram-End-to-End-
Encrypted-by-Default-08-14)

It's their approach and I'm personally ok with it. Due to my friends I use FB
messenger a lot and they say it will take years to be e2e encrypted, so I
believe it's a fair compromise from Telegram.

------
phinnaeus
I started a similar journey a couple of years ago. Honestly the biggest
challenge was getting people to use my new email address instead of my Gmail.

I made mostly the same choices, but swapped in:

    
    
      * Email/Calendar/Contacts: Fastmail  
      * Docs: I don't use a hosted solution for this  
      * Messaging: iMessage/Signal/Discord  
      * Music: local music library
    

While I lived in Seattle I was using Apple Maps, but since moving to Sydney I
have switched back to Google Maps.

Oh, actually I am a Google Fi customer as well -- it's the cheapest way I've
found to keep my US number active.

~~~
andrepew
Try looking at a VoIP service like voip.ms for parking and forwarding numbers.
I think I pay less than a dollar a month to maintain and forward each one of
my phone numbers. Flowroute is another provider to look at as well. I’ve used
both for years and don’t have much to complain about.

~~~
00811050
sip.flowroute.com:5060 : 77869806 : GNggaHF7HKde Line 1471:
sip.flowroute.com:5060 : 00811050 : MJwCnW3b4wzn Line 1472:
sip.flowroute.com:5060 : 05012270 : rXaRN6yK9NYz Line 1473:
sip.flowroute.com:5060 : 08094747 : pGtxg6ymPK4G Line 1474:
sip.flowroute.com:5060 : 08352915 : 9p6DmcDXhpGz Line 1475:
sip.flowroute.com:5060 : 08595647 : XJKTXEJgTwqD Line 1476:
sip.flowroute.com:5060 : 09162079 : q7ePqchJHXnD Line 1477:
sip.flowroute.com:5060 : 10959234 : fdgbqNJRWGnE Line 1478:
sip.flowroute.com:5060 : 13714708 : aPRYMAkzdmEb Line 1479:
sip.flowroute.com:5060 : 17504284 : Md3HA4Mgwp7b Line 1480:
sip.flowroute.com:5060 : 20772225 : DHMNGbMpdqbt Line 1481:
sip.flowroute.com:5060 : 25614372 : PhTTKNhYfeD9

------
rakoo
A lot of people praise DDG and I'm also one using it as a default search
engine, but it's not exactly clear how much independent it is. I've started to
consider using Cliqz ([https://cliqz.com/](https://cliqz.com/)) as an
alternative or at least a parallel experiment; they claim to be totally
independent and to care for user privacy at least as much as DDG does.

Does any other HNer have experience with their search result ? I'm still not
using it enough to have a reliable conclusion of my own.

~~~
camgunz
I've been using DDG pretty exclusively for over a year, and I have no
complaints. It also handles pretty tough searches reasonably well. Maybe I'm
not a power user or whatever, but DDG works so well for me I'm not even
enticed by Google's search (especially w/ the redesigns). I think of it less
as a "real" search engine and more of a data gathering trap--meaning that
aspect of it is more significant than its search result quality.

------
wideasleep1
I'd recommend trying these Google Alt's: Protonmail or Fairmail for email.
DuckduckGo or Bromite for low-ad/tracker browsing, or button down your Chrome
with Umatrix/UBO and a host of other extensions (Privacy Badger, Canvas
Blocker, etc.) Been using Protonmail beta's Calender feature with success,
can't wait for their Android App. Have begun pulling all my photos off Photos
and moving to both local drives and PCloud, and considering encrypting them at
rest there too. DDG/SearX for Search. NextDNS for secure and adfree DNS
mimicing PiHole (which I have at home) when away. If you want to keep your
awesome Android hardware (OnePlus6T here), you can disable Google Services
Framework and neuter everything at will using NetGuard, with the paid version
allowing individual link granularity, so you can stop that Facebook link
Spotify spawns upon launch, among all others. This allows you to fine tune
each app to comm with only links you allow. FB is particularly pesky..once it
fails to connect to it's obvious servers, it spawns other numerical IP's that
you have to do lookups on to see where/who they are...often returning to FB,
so it's an ongoing task, recommended only for those most commited. I was on
this path well before Shoshana's book, but her presentation was reaffirming.
EDIT: of course...Signal, how did I forget that..most used app of all.

~~~
tommica
Formatted:

I'd recommend trying these Google Alt's:

Protonmail or Fairmail for email.

DuckduckGo or Bromite for low-ad/tracker browsing, or button down your Chrome
with Umatrix/UBO and a host of other extensions (Privacy Badger, Canvas
Blocker, etc.)

Been using Protonmail beta's Calender feature with success, can't wait for
their Android App.

Have begun pulling all my photos off Photos and moving to both local drives
and PCloud, and considering encrypting them at rest there too.

DDG/SearX for Search.

NextDNS for secure and adfree DNS mimicing PiHole (which I have at home) when
away.

If you want to keep your awesome Android hardware (OnePlus6T here), you can
disable Google Services Framework and neuter everything at will using
NetGuard, with the paid version allowing individual link granularity, so you
can stop that Facebook link Spotify spawns upon launch, among all others.

This allows you to fine tune each app to comm with only links you allow. FB is
particularly pesky..once it fails to connect to it's obvious servers, it
spawns other numerical IP's that you have to do lookups on to see where/who
they are...often returning to FB, so it's an ongoing task, recommended only
for those most commited. I was on this path well before Shoshana's book, but
her presentation was reaffirming.

EDIT: of course...Signal, how did I forget that..most used app of all.

------
crashbunny
I've done a similar thing, qwant, protonmail, firefox (4 different profiles
and scores of containers), privacy badger, ublock origin, decentral eyes, but
I'm convinced it's not possible to stop tracking. My browser finger print is
unique and it doesn't seem possible to change that.

Also I have an android phone with google apps, facebook, twitter, scores of
other apps tracking me. There's not much I can do about giving google my
location data atm. I like waze and fitness apps too much.

~~~
dao-
Have you checked what factors make your browser fingerprint unique?

~~~
niyaven
If you're using firefox, you're already in a bucket of only 4.42% [0]. But
even without that, just take your screen resolution, browser + os version,
font list, your time zone, and you're almost already unique.

[0] [https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-
share/](https://gs.statcounter.com/browser-market-share/)

~~~
crashbunny
having my timezone set to utc was probably the most annoying thing about the
firefox anti fingerprint setting. I never got quick and efficient at doing
quick math to know what the local time was in my head.

------
bsharitt
I posted a similar post on my own blog
yesterday([https://sharitt.com/2020/04/28/practicality-vs-
purity.html](https://sharitt.com/2020/04/28/practicality-vs-purity.html))

Oddly one of the few things I actually kept is Google search itself after
noticed that I basically add !g to every DDG search, and I've tried to
firewall it off as much as I can.

~~~
q92z8oeif
Having used DDG for several years now as the default on all my devices, i can
say that since December the results are completely useless. Not sure what
happened.

I had never to use "!g" before. Now it is required for 1/3 of my regular
searches, and "!ig" for 100% of the image "!i" searches.

~~~
lucb1e
> "!ig" for 100% of the image "!i" searches

I replaced 90% of my images searches with Bing Images. I like the UI better
and the results are almost as good. Since I use DDG for ~80% of regular
searches and Google for the remainder, not giving one party all information
seems like it should somewhat level the playing field.

Also, I was going to type that a small percentage of my image searches still
go to Google for their license selection feature, but I figured I should
double check, and whaddayaknow? Bing can do license filtering too. Not sure
how good it'll be, but I'll definitely be trying this.

Note that instead of typing !something (which I find quite annoying), you can
just bind your browser to a keyword. I type "bi test" in my address bar for
Bing Images "test" search, instead of having to type a bang and some by-ddg-
defined shortcut and giving DDG the data (not that I distrust them, but need-
to-know...). Wiki searching is also super convenient like this: wi for
wikipedia, dwi for deutsch wikipedia, owi for openstreetmap wiki, etc. Right
click in the search field and choose 'Add keyword for this search' usually
does the trick.

~~~
q92z8oeif
i naively like the ! shortbuts on DDG because i like to think they use this as
data to improve their results.

~~~
lucb1e
That's an angle I hadn't thought of, that it might contribute to DDG's attack
on Google by supplying them more data, particularly the queries one goes to
Google for. Good point.

------
mark_l_watson
Amazingly how similar my path is to Aaron’s. I use paid for Google services
(GCP, buy lots of movies and books) but I have mostly moved to DDG,
combination of FastMail and ProtonMail, (sort of) trust Apple walled garden,
and rely heavily on FireFox containers to separate data for all web properties
that I visit and use.

I do still use Google Photos and Microsoft OneDrive for secondary backups for
my photos on iCloud (my iPhone auto exports to all three when I am on WiFi)
and I sometimes use Google Search in a FireFox container (I use one container
for all Google web properties).

Respect to Aaron for running his own email service. I think about doing that
but never do. My problem is that I enjoy spending time writing, and designing
and writing code, and I don’t make time for some things that I would like to
try. Time management is a pain sometimes.

EDIT: something I forgot to add: when following a web link, copy the URI and
then open the appropriate FireFox container for the domain and copy the URI to
a new tab in the correct container. Good hygiene.

~~~
geekgonecrazy
right click->Open Link in New Container Tab is great! Can easily pick which
container to put it in.

Email was the hardest for me. But felt the most freeing also.

------
niamsidri
After seeing similar threads on HN, I’ve also started a similar journey. I
managed to migrate to Firefox with DuckDuckGo as the default search engine.
But I’ve also added a shortcut for Google search: if I feel like I am missing
something I open a new tab and type “go [keywords]”.

~~~
jbmsf
You know you can prefix your ddg search with !g to use Google?

Useful for technical searches, where ddg is sadly, not good enough.

~~~
Timpy
You can actually use !g anywhere in the search strings. It's useful when you
finish typing your query, you can change your search engine at the last
second.

------
A4ET8a8uTh0
I understand the reasoning and I applaud the effort. As the author correctly
identified he loses people by switching from Google to Apple, since ,when it
comes to cell phones, it seems like choosing a lesser evil at best.

edit: clarity

------
decasteve
I’ve been using DuckDuckGo since it launched. But are we down to two search
engine choices now? Google or DDG? What other alternatives are there?

De-Googling services is quite easy for the most part as there are many
competing alternatives including good self-hosted options.

As a web user, I block all Google JavaScript that gets embedded in 99% of
sites using a combination uBlock, NoScript, and my own DNS. Most sites load
fine but some that use the Google API fail to show anything—which is silly
when most of them are plain text and image articles.

------
spondyl
Fastmail is really nice alternative, not just for the email but because it
comes with a calendar and contacts.

You can sync contacts via CardDav and your calendar via CalDav.

Even better, if you have a work Google account like I do, you can import your
calendar as an overlay on Fastmail's calendar using OAuth2.

If you'd like your calendar without the pesky forced management profiles, it's
a neat workaround while still remaining relatively secure. It also doesn't
break when your arbitrary forced password rotation kicks in every 90 days ;)

------
totorovirus
de-googling: appleling

~~~
glogla
Yes, there are just two generally usable mobile OSs - ios and android. The
only way to not share you every living moment with google while still having a
snartphone is to have an iphone.

It's fucked up that's the way world is, but it is the way the world is.

~~~
DeathArrow
>The only way to not share you every living moment with google while still
having a snartphone is to have an iphone.

Not really. You can install LineageOS an many Android phones.

LineageOS is a de-googled Android.

And the latest Huawei Android devices are also Google-free.

~~~
glogla
That's what I meant by "generally" usable. You can install Lineage. I can as
sell. But most people can't.

But the worst thing is that to get most use of Android, you have to have Play
store and attached surveillance services. There's a lot of cool stuff on
fdroid, but your city's public transport? Your bank's app? Your local taxi's
app? Your city's meal delivery app? You're not getting that without Google
Play.

You can get some stuff from sites like apkmirror, but that's at the risk of
getting malware (again, the two of us can see what's malware and what's the
actual apk, but most can't) and at the cost of automated security updates.

I lived like that for a while, and it's not worth it. Maybe if you don't mind
you're smartphone is actually a dumbphone - which is a good thing for some
people who want it that way because of minimalism and somesuch, but most
people don't.

~~~
ajayyy
Lineage OS has auto updates. As well, APK Mirror does test the checksum, so it
will contain no malware that isn't on the play store.

------
mouldysammich
I've been slowly de-googling/de-large-corporationing.

\- DuckDuckGo for search mostly, trying out qwant

\- Runbox for email, I like the service and its incredibly cheap and have my
own domain

\- Youtube -> miniflux for subscriptions & newpipe on my phone

\- I cant delete facebook but I've mitigated it to using matrix + a
facebook->matrix bridge

\- Using osmand~ and open street maps for directions, i dont have a way to get
public transport directions, I helped write a program that does this in
college but,, its not very good

~~~
lucb1e
> I cant delete facebook

And people ask why I have su on my phone. I want ownership, nothing more...

Anyway, for public transport directions, have you checked the apps available
in F-Droid? The main ones that come to mind are Transportr and Öffi, I don't
know if they work (well) whereever you're located though. Newer versions of
OsmAnd can also do this to an extent, but doesn't pull the schedules (let
alone realtime delays) so it only shows you "you can take bus 6 and then train
9" without knowing anything about their schedules, so that's largely useless
at the moment.

------
client4
I'm actually in the slow process of this as well. Moving to DDG is the easiest
starting point; in the beginning it's tempting to type g! with every search
until you start trusting the results. Next I changed from my Pixel 2 to a
SailfishX on a Sony phone. I'm planning on moving to Owncloud for
contacts/storage/docs next. It's surprising how I've paid for Google to deeply
invade my life.

~~~
niemenmaa
I bought an used Xperia and installed Sailfish on it. LOVE IT! The gestures
feel so natural way to use phone, ambients make it look badass and the program
management is really creative.

Android app support is what allowed me to transition because of banking apps
etc. It's not 100% polished (especially the Android app usage) but at its
worst works well enough and at it's best, the experience IMO tops any other
phone OS that i've used.

Wish it had more native apps though.

~~~
client4
Agreed, if I could have Sailfish on a Huawei P40 I'd be ecstatic. As it stands
using Here maps, built in browser, and basic phone tools get me 90% of the
way. I'm cheating a little in my transition -- I've moved my _must use_ apps
over to my iPad pro. 2FA, Instagram (a drug habit I hope to kick later in the
summer), Keybase, mobile check deposit, etc.

I need to find a replacement for Google Keep (love how easy it is to move
text/urls/photos between devices, jot down ideas / record thoughts) and
Hangouts Dialer still.

~~~
niemenmaa
For files/photos I recommend self-hosting NextCloud. The new version of
SailfishOS containts native Nextcloud services(!!!). For 2FA you can install
Android app Authy. Foil Auth is a native one, but haven't tested it though.

Feel you on Instagram habit. I de-social-mediaized (?) in late 2019 and
haven't looked back, but it was tough!

------
TedDoesntTalk
> I’ve already pulled down my 2-300GB Google Photos archive

How? I've tried several times and can never complete the download. Wired
ethernet, not wifi.

~~~
cuu508
Takeout doesn't work in practice for bigger collections (archive creation
routinely fails, timeouts while downloading, 50GB max size results in many
splits)

I've used this 3rd party tool and it worked OK:
[https://github.com/gilesknap/gphotos-
sync/](https://github.com/gilesknap/gphotos-sync/)

~~~
exhilaration
Thanks! Quick question, does gphotos-sync download the images in the original
resolution? One of the limitations of tools like this in the past is that they
could only download the "high resolution" (compressed) images.

------
manigandham
I have Fastmail and other private email services but I've been unable to
really move over because of all the integrations that Gmail has. Automatic
email scanning for trip details, calendar integrations, searches from the web
also surfacing details from emails, google voice, tons of other apps and
extensions.

It would be a nice if there was a way to get all this functionality beyond
Gmail.

~~~
Yetanfou
I use a private Searx instance which includes searches over my own document
archive in its results. To achieve this I made a new Searx 'engine' [1] -
which is essentially a proxy between the Searx instance and another search
engine - which connects Searx to a Recoll instance. Since Recoll can also
search email it would be fairly trivial to include results from there as well
although I have never used this. The 'engine' would need to be extended in
such as way as to communicate the (logged-in) username to Recoll so it returns
results from the correct email account (or no email account for anonymous
users) but that is a fairly trivial change.

[1]
[https://github.com/asciimoo/searx/pull/1257](https://github.com/asciimoo/searx/pull/1257)

------
znpy
I am surprised that nextcloud isn't cited in this article.

It could effectively replace iCloud, hackmd (maybe) and has calendaring
features too.

~~~
jaflo
The author mentions it twice: under Contacts/Calendar "I’m thinking about
using nextcloud." and under Docs "Nextcloud might fill this gap. But I don’t
feel a void to fill right now."

------
adiabatty
Since this place, at this time, seems to be as good as any to ask for
recommendations:

Is there a paid service that's similar to Google Voice where I can get an
extra phone number and have calls to it routed to my normal phone? I'd like to
have a phone number that's "out there", so to speak, but not my real number.

~~~
geekgonecrazy
Twilio I think you can do this right from their UI.

Calling out might be a bit more tricky though

------
joering2
For photos storage and sharing you may want to check pCloud. They offer
lifetime plan at $350 for 2TB. I'm in no way related; just a happy customer.

[https://www.pcloud.com/cloud-storage-pricing-
plans.html](https://www.pcloud.com/cloud-storage-pricing-plans.html)

~~~
mceachen
After having n photo startups (paid and free) disappear into the mist, along
with my photos and videos, I decided self-hosting was the only thing I could
trust. I couldn't find any software that would reliably scale to my library
and fix my mess of duplicates and bitrot files, so I made it. I'm providing
access to the beta for free in exchange for feedback, if you'd like to try it.
[https://photostructure.com/about/v-0-8/](https://photostructure.com/about/v-0-8/)
is dropping this week.

~~~
joering2
Kudos to author! Seems like lots of hard work and dedication went into your
software. Respect.

------
dude3
One thing to add to the list. Signal rather than Whatsapp. It's the best.
Protonmail isn't bad too.

~~~
ekianjo
Signal does not play nice with other protocols and centralizes everything.
Hardly an improvement. Better go for real alternatives that will likely
survive way longer like Riot/Matrix.

~~~
Yetanfou
Or 'plain and simple' XMPP with OMEMO [1] encryption. This is easy to host
yourself using Prosody or Ejabberd or another XMPP server, Conversations (or
one of its forks) on Android, Monal or Siskin or iOS, something like
converse.js in a browser, etc.

[1] [https://omemo.top/](https://omemo.top/)

------
jackallis
They do have lineage OS now. Not that buggy. Have been using it in my Samsung
S5 for a while now.

------
ComodoHacker
>Then force Thunderbird to fully download all of my mail and then push it all
back up.

I didn't know it's possible to upload mail (without actually sending it) with
IMAP.

Do hosted providers allow that? Looks like it's additional cost with no
benefit if you don't data-mine email.

~~~
geekgonecrazy
So far I haven’t seen any limitations by providers. I can see potentially rate
limiting. But I’ve done this before even helping move client emails via
outlook to another provider. The client just happily syncs any email you toss
in

------
bbutterworth
If everyone did this, google wouldn't exist, a lot of the open source google
software wouldn't exist. Isn't the main point of de-googling, is that everyone
does it. Because you can be influenced indirectly even if you do de-google,
and that the benefits of de-googling should emerge with popularity. I'm sure
some people are de-googling because of personal privacy, but most people
aren't targets so this doesn't matter. One of the benefits I can see is that
it reduces the quality to the users, and the value to the large companies.
That way, data/ power is not consolidated, and we have privacy by segregation.

In summary, I don't see the purpose of de-googling as an individual. And if
de-google collectively, we're all worse off. And yet I de-googled last year.

PS: I use Brave, Android, flutter & duck.com, which only exists to its quality
today because of Google.

~~~
ForHackernews
> but most people aren't targets so this doesn't matter

What do you mean? Everyone on the planet is a target. They want data on
everyone so they can target ads to everyone.

~~~
bbutterworth
Oops, by 'target', I meant on the receiving end of exploitation (governments/
politics/ free speech). You might consider targeted adverts exploitation, but
I didn't include that in the use of 'target', because I think people prefer
targeted adverts and can just turn them off anyway.

------
mikedd
Maybe this for backups and GPhotos alternative?
[https://www.jottacloud.com/en/](https://www.jottacloud.com/en/)

------
novok
For photos, I've been liking mylio. Private, local, encrypted on cloud
services if you want to use them and it syncs with your mobile phone too.

------
prodave
Do de-googlers consider Startpage to be acceptable? The results are from
google but they claim that your privacy is protected.

~~~
dredmorbius
Pretty questionable.

A listing of search alternatives, including Qwant (French-based, so EU/GDPR),
SwissCows, SearX, and others, with good rationales:

[https://restoreprivacy.com/private-search-
engine/](https://restoreprivacy.com/private-search-engine/)

~~~
karinakarina
Hi - Startpage person here. Maybe I can clear some stuff up.

1) Startpage provides Google results, but Google never sees you. Startpage
submits your query to Google anonymously, then returns Google results to you
privately. For more info on we keep your search private:
[https://www.startpage.com/blog/privacy-awareness/how-does-
st...](https://www.startpage.com/blog/privacy-awareness/how-does-startpages-
private-search-engine-work). 2) Startpage is HQ'ed in the Netherlands, meaning
we don't have to comply with US government or law enforcement and comply with
EU/Dutch privacy laws such as GDPR. Also, we’re not likely to receive requests
by governments to hand over user data – simply because we don’t have any. 3)
In 2019, Startpage announced an investment in Startpage by System1 through
Privacy One Group, a wholly-owned subsidiary of System1. With this investment,
the plan is to further expand privacy features and reach new users. (Lots of
new privacy features in the works!) The Startpage founders have control over
the privacy components of Startpage. And! After conversations with the privacy
community, Startpage was recently relisted in PrivacyToolsIO. More info on
that:
[https://support.startpage.com/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Artic...](https://support.startpage.com/index.php?/Knowledgebase/Article/View/1275/0/what-
is-startpages-relationship-with-privacy-onesystem1-and-what-does-this-mean-
for-my-privacy-protections)

That's a lot of text, but I hope it helps.

------
cft
I switched to Bing first for all queries that can result in non-PC content,
and then discovered that technical search is better on Bing also. I first
switched to Firefox because I wanted to read newspapers. I find it hard
without Bypass Paywalls Firefox add-on, that is banned by Google Chrome. As a
result, Firefox with Bing default search is my browser. Things like deletions
of alternative viewpoints (e.g. Dr. Erikson Covid19 briefing yesterday) and
unbearable ad load are making me switch from Youtube. Unfortunately there is
no good alternative to Youtube yet.

~~~
DeathArrow
I've found that if you aren't using Chrome while signed in Google account you
are punished by annoying recaptchas triggering often and when trying to use
Google search, clicking on second on third results page will trigger anti-bot
response.

That's not very friendly behavior.

~~~
kelnos
As someone who has been using Firefox for years and is always signed into his
Google account, that has absolutely not been my experience at all.

Perhaps it's something else, like your IP range, that's triggering it?

------
macarthy12
Why not vCard and vCal instead of Apple ?

------
geekgonecrazy
Wow on hackernews this is a first for me

------
schnischna
For email I just use the email plan that comes with my very cheap blog hosting
plan.

------
jlarocco
I'm a little bummed out that I just switched back to Chromium after several
months on Firefox, but Firefox has some very annoying bugs that were driving
me crazy.

On the plus side, it's the only Google software I use on a regular basis.

~~~
Naac
What bugs specifically have you encountered?

~~~
galkk
The amount of random crashes on the Youtube pages is crazy

~~~
Naac
I'm not sure what you mean, I haven't experienced that behavior. Maybe try
with a clean profile?

------
rezeroed
Also, if you get a new laptop (or any installation) keep it free of google.
Avoid it from the start.

Also, I have a website which isn't precious; I'm going to reject chrome
requests, with a message recommending firefox.

~~~
lucb1e
Nice one. Similarly, I removed my sites from the Google search index by
blocking their crawlers. Someone wants to find my content, they better use a
different search engine. _Anything_ but Google will do. Their favoring AMP
results and forcing websites (the ones that rely on people coming from search
for income) to implement that crap ticked me off just a little too much.

------
endisukaj
So he moved from Google to Apple and Facebook.

------
known
Aren't we revisiting [https://prism-break.org/en/all/](https://prism-
break.org/en/all/)

------
overfitted
Interesting!

Your first concern and reason for De-Googling was privacy, so I'd say moving
to iPhone, iCloud, WhatsApp (owned by Facebook) and the like doesn't help you
much.

I also think you forgot video-conferencing/video chat. I'd go for Zoom, but
there's a bunch of alternatives. Most have their drawbacks.

Lastly, move to Europe where we have GDPR. I actually can not read some news
articles that are hosted in the US since the site might not have bothered to
implement Privacy features and thus chose to just block EU visitors. Tells you
something about the 'issue'.

~~~
kortilla
What privacy issues do you think the iPhone has?

~~~
noisem4ker
Perhaps most of the apps that you install from the store, which are just as
riddled with analytics and tracking as their Android counterparts.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
iOS provides a lot less ways for third party apps to dig into the OS and
interact with other apps. The same thing Android fans hate about it, the lock-
in and lack of customizability, offers it a lot of additional privacy
protection.

In general though, regardless of your phone ecosystem: Remove as many apps as
you can from your device. Only install the ones you need and remove ones you
don't frequently.

------
aembleton
What are you using instead of Google maps?

~~~
manuelmagic
I'm using Here Maps[1] since 2013, both on PC and mobile.

[1] [https://wego.here.com/](https://wego.here.com/)

~~~
tasty_freeze
Wow, this is the first time trying this. Very responsive, and has real-time
traffic information, which was the killer feature of google maps for me.

Maps and youtube are the two google features I routinely use. I'll have to
install this on mobile and see how it goes.

Thanks for the tip!

------
rdallman
I've done this a couple years ago now for anyone interested in the subject,
hope it's useful to compare: [https://medium.com/@rdallman10/degoogling-
eb3709bdfd4c](https://medium.com/@rdallman10/degoogling-eb3709bdfd4c) (I will
get my blog off medium, promise!)

It's great to compare with people who have done similar, thanks for sharing
your journey. It is an inordinate amount of work that non-computer-interested
most likely aren't interested in. I do wonder what it takes (restoration of
privacy rights enacted through judicial interpretation enforced upon companies
like e.g. GDPR?) to have default UX that is E2E across most services, probably
widely used companies like Apple doing it (which may compel Google, et al,
to?). It surprises me to some degree that companies seem to _want_ the
liability involved with associating people with their data? This seems odd, as
the data is just as useful assigned to some random identifier that can be
carted around the internet that can't be tied to our person, and I wonder how
the cost of liability remains worth it when technologically it's unnecessary.
The human aspect of social networking seems like the weak heel for removing
names there, but still things like chat seem like things companies wouldn't
want to store (who knows how strongly gov is compelling them to do so to make
it worthwhile, maybe, with $$$ or threats). Even things like imessage, most
people use icloud to backup and in this case the messages are recoverable by
Apple (for law enforcement as it is or their own purposes maybe, more
cynically) - this is heavily marketed E2E but in practice isn't, Apple says so
on their security page even (this is nice of them):
[https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT202303](https://support.apple.com/en-
us/HT202303) \- I hope that as an industry we can work towards pushing
ephemeral UX that users can adjust to but it will take adjusting, nobody needs
a message from Nonna from 2014 and if it was the prized bread recipe, save it
somewhere else! In any event, I hope this continues to get better for the lay
user.

I haven't changed most of my choices since making the switch. I do use mullvad
with wireguard now and I consider moving off of 1.1.1.1 for similar reasons to
leaving google (see recent news about large gov partner here). I don't have
many complaints. In the past year, I've also stopped reading twitter/reddit
and moved to reading the news once a week in some attempt to rewire my brain,
I'd say it's mostly good, I spend more time thinking and reading more
interesting things and it gives me some perspective, the trade offs are being
more disconnected from society (not up to date on memes, miss seeing what
friends are cooking!) which has pros/cons. I'm rethinking this, it's all about
values really, I do think social media can be used in a privacy preserving way
to still keep in touch with friends/family (fingerprinting is slight issue)
that doesn't have to constantly fight for your dopamine receptors. Anyway,
it's interesting to discuss with like minded people, I know very few who
aren't constantly plugged in now and it can be hard to relate (ie talk about
more interesting things imho).

