
DeGoogle My Life - app4soft
https://homehack.nl/degoogle-my-life/
======
Jaruzel
Every time I read one of these articles about cutting Google out, it becomes
quickly apparent that the author uses the internet primarily as an
entertainment or social platform which isn't my use case.

I'm old school, I use the internet as an _information resource_. As such good
search results are paramount. Try as they might, but other search engines are
nowhere as comprehensive as Googles. As long as I flex advanced search queries
and ignore/adblock all the sponsored rubbish, Googles results always get me
what I need, unlike any of the others. I can't see me switching away from
Google search anytime soon.

I have never trusted cloud storage, so I'm not as deep into the Google
infrastructure as most. I don't even use my Google account for email.

Primarily, people have enjoyed Googles services free for years, but now are
suddenly saying 'omg, they are using my information for their own purposes!'.
There's a very old saying 'Don't look a gift horse in the mouth', which
basically means if something is free, there WILL be a catch.

If having a large corporate spying on you and your data is really an issue,
then pay for the same services from a smaller independent outfit. You'll be
supporting smaller business, and as a paying customer have some recourse if
they sell your data.

IF like me, ditching Google completely is not an option, then you can always
mitigate the problem by installing an adBlocker (white-list those smaller
sites!) and an automatic cookie eraser.

~~~
fwn
I realized that most of my searches are completely trivial. (Calculations,
common sites, etc.) I switched from Google to DDG and told myself to just
Google whenever a result isn't optimal. For me it's best of both worlds;
Google searches are probably around 10%.

> There's a very old saying 'Don't look a gift horse in the mouth', which
> basically means if something is free, there WILL be a catch.

Just a small nit-pick: I think the phrase is more about a lack of appreciation
than the idea that every gift is necessarily flawed.

> Do not unappreciatively question a gift or handout too closely. [...]
> Related terms beggars can't be choosers

Src.:
[https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/don%27t_look_a_gift_horse_in_...](https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/don%27t_look_a_gift_horse_in_the_mouth)

------
P4wl0w
How about some generic "how to not buy into a single ecosystem that will maybe
screw you one day".

Most important is a personality that prevents you from doing things just like
everyone else or this urge to always use the newest tech because it is sexy.

Also important is to be able to feel more pain and to have to work more to
achieve a solution that follows this rule and to accept this.

Using Google etc. products is easiest and only people who are strong willed
enough and maybe have more skills in IT (pro user instead of average user) can
really be free.

Then separate it into personal and work because in the first sector you have
an own choice whereas in the second one you will have to comply most of the
times.

Also: Storing stuff in proprietary systems which does not provide an export
capability (using an open format) is a bad idea - always.

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dvcrn
Why do we keep getting posts of people making such a big deal out of
"DeGoogling"? Don't want to use Google Drive? Use a different cloud service.
Don't want to use search? mail? there are more than enough alternatives.

IMO it's not as big of a deal to cut out one companies services as posts like
this make it seem to be

~~~
ffpip
Google is extremely hard to let. Facebook was way easier. Exported my data and
deleted all accounts in 2 days.

Google has drive, YouTube, my old @gmail , plus recaptcha on every site.

~~~
wodenokoto
> Exported my data and deleted all accounts in 2 days

Did you ever look at the export? Did you use it for anything useful?

~~~
ffpip
I mean, there is nothing to look at more than once. It was about 11GB in size.
6-7GB was photos, 1GB was drive.

I look at the old photos sometimes. The rest was just old mails, my
location/steps walked/activity info, some YouTube videos I had liked and 2
comments. There was also some activity with Google Assistant

------
mshekow
I also found it very difficult to DeGoogle. I've documented my efforts here:
[https://www.augmentedmind.de/2020/03/15/without-google-
servi...](https://www.augmentedmind.de/2020/03/15/without-google-services/)
(that article links to a companion article specifically for replacing Android
apps made by Google). I'm fairly convinced that noone who reads these articles
(mine included) will do anything that is written in them. Powered by laziness
and "I don't care" syndrome :).

In the end, my practical recommendation is to just reduce the number of
services - not necessarily get down to 0. You'd be at a loss. There is no good
GMaps alternative (not in Germany anyways, the level of detail of the maps
data and/or search results of any competitor is poor in comparison, including
HERE WeGo or OSM). Same for web search / google.com. I have experienced many
times that DDG/Startpage/Bing would not find what I was looking for, then I
switched to Google, and found something relevant right on page 1.

Other services, especially those with standardized exchange-import/export
formats are easier to migrate, though. For instance, GMail, including calendar
and contacts sync, or using another provider for your files (GDrive).

~~~
app4soft
> _I 'm fairly convinced that noone who reads these articles (mine included)
> will do anything that is written in them._

> _noone_

I already created few accounts on Mastodon servers to be ready out from
Twitter circle (if Twitter would deeply go wild).

Google Search is now my 3rd search after DDG and StartPage.

In most cases, life without Google/Microsoft/Facebook/Twitter/etc. (or any
other corporation) services is possible and there are plenty of replacements
around the Internet (yet).

So, _noone "minus" 1_, at least.

------
jbj
today I wanted to use google maps to get bicycle navigation to a particular
café. Searching in google maps, it gave me the right café in the top, I
obviously expected the address/location/navigation, but all I got was info on
how many times google meant I had been there before, other users photos, phone
number, menu, website.

They aggregated so much infotmation that the map option itself drowned.

If google continue this way with their other services, it is not just people
who wish to degoogle who will look for alternatives, it will also be people
looking for better functionallity.

In the end, those services that are not open may be aquired. But I do think
nonprofits also have a chance. (wikipedia seem to have found a strong brand,
and signal is also getting traction)

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timbit42
1) Use alternatives if they are good enough.

2) If alternatives are not good enough, use Google's but don't login if you
don't have to, and clear cookies between visits (cookie autodelete plugin
helps with this).

3) If you have to log in, use a separate account for each service (multi-
account containers plugin helps with this).

------
innagadadavida
Gmail. They have all my purchase history, finances, real estate details and
what not. Updating emails across all third party services is super painful. If
only there was an easier way.

