
Alternatives to Google Products - wuschel
https://restoreprivacy.com/google-alternatives/
======
zbraniecki
Hi all,

I'm an engineer working on Firefox Platform (Gecko). In the linked blog post,
the author recommends Firefox (thanks!) and links to a "privacy
recommendations" for it, which include items such as "resistFingerprinting"
settings.

I'd like to remind everyone that turning on this setting has far fetched
consequences to how you experience the Web. Your dates, timezones, preferred
languages will all be masked which will result in weird experiences.

The option is behind a flag and without UI precisely because it is a pretty
complex feature, that we didn't iron out yet, and which should be well
understood before being used.

It concerns me to see it being references and recommended without any
explanation whatsoever.

Of course I'm likely biased because I'm on the receiving end of bug reports
from people who experience the Web in weird languages and with wrong timezones
because they followed some tutorial that recommended it. :(

~~~
oldcynic
After the constant succession of revelations of the sorry state of privacy,
along with myriad data breaches, all I want a browser to do is lie and
obfuscate. So I'll gladly take the sledgehammer boolean of
resistFingerprinting for now.

I've yet to come across an extension that does something like this so I'm
presuming it's not possible via extensions?

Are Mozilla working to make this more granular and let me whitelist individual
features on a per site basis?

I'd far rather lose tracking than get the very minor benefit of a (slow
loading) web font or en-GB over en-US. Especially if I can opt in the few I
trust or need those features.

~~~
Skunkleton
> After the constant succession of revelations of the sorry state of privacy,
> along with myriad data breaches...

I remember reading an article about how Richard Stallman interacts with the
internet a while back. I remember thinking that it seemed totally insane. But
in light of the reality of 2018, I am coming around. The way I see it, I can
keep tweaking privacy settings in a browser, or opting out of collection, or
doing any number of other things to attempt to protect my privacy, _or_ I
could just stop using services that do not respect my privacy in the first
place. Perhaps certain aspects of modern life have taken too much, and they
need to be abandoned until they are reformed?

~~~
pieterr
> I remember reading an article about how Richard Stallman interacts with the
> internet a while back.

One of these you mean?

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16869515](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16869515)

[2] [https://stallman.org/stallman-
computing.html](https://stallman.org/stallman-computing.html)

~~~
Skunkleton
It was directly related to #2, but I only made it there as a result of reading
some other article. It has been a while and I don't remember the source.

------
nemothekid
I'm a little discouraged when I see articles like this that seem to be
completely tuned for developers or look over completely decent pro-privacy
alternatives like Apple.

For example, the "best" calendar alternative is Etar which looks to a Github
repo. Really? At the very least you could mention Apple Calendar. Is Maps.Me
(which uses AdSense) really better than Apple Maps? I'm not a fan of hooktube
either - it just further cements YouTube's monopoly.

I think what what bothers me is that "privacy focused" tends to be conflated
with FOSS. I'm really thankful for organizations like Mozilla and Signal that
are trying to deliver privacy focused applications to real people. However I
also think we should recognize Apple-like companies who are also privacy
focused without necessarily being FOSS. I think that will help move more non-
technical people out of central databases.

~~~
cosmojg
It's not that "privacy-focused" tends to be conflated with FLOSS. Rather, it's
nearly impossible to guarantee privacy in proprietary software. The
transparency of FLOSS makes it trustless. Want to know what data of yours, if
any, is being collected? Look at the code.

This is why, when it comes to privacy, Apple isn't worth consideration. All we
have is their word, and that simply isn't enough.

~~~
bartread
> Want to know what data of yours, if any, is being collected? Look at the
> code.

I find this to be an extremely un-compelling position. A relatively small
proportion of the general population has the skills to meaningfully look at
the code, never mind the time. Moreover, even for someone who is capable, such
an exercise quickly becomes non-trivial on an unfamiliar codebase for an app
of any complexity.

In many cases there's also no guarantee that the code you're reading is the
code that's running.

~~~
JumpCrisscross
> _I find this to be an extremely un-compelling position_

It's more damaging than that. The bundling of privacy and FOSS advocacy
weakens the former. Few without deep technical knowledge is sympathetic to
FOSS. The potential audience for a privacy pitch is broader. By bundling the
two, however, the technical advocacy community limits the appeal of the former
to those supporting the latter. This is an issue because the opponents of
privacy rights are not similarly limited. Hence, we find ourselves reliant on
Google, Apple, Facebook and Amazon being benevolent dictators, in their
services and Washington.

~~~
Torwald
> Few without deep technical knowledge is sympathetic to FOSS.

Few without deep technical knowledge do even know what FOSS is.

~~~
nothrabannosir
Yes, all they know is “this is impossible to install” and “what is a GitHub”
and “where do I log in to the cloud?” and “this is the ugliest software I have
ever seen in my life”.

Unless we’re talking about hosted FOSS, in which case you get the worst of
both worlds.

I run my own mail server so this comes from a place of love: FOSS for server
side products for consumers is a joke.

------
halflings
> All they do is repackage mass corporate surveillance into convenient, free,
> trendy applications that suck up all your data. Your private data helps
> Google dominate the online advertising market.

Google has what I think are the most transparent and user friendly controls
for visualizing what personal data is collected, and disabling it (most often
per product, for ex. disable location history and YouTube viewing history, but
enable personalized ads).

\- For most of the products mentioned in the blogpost (YouTube, Search, ...),
people can just go to MyActivity [0] and delete any data they want to. They
can also disable data collection here. [1]

\- Emails received in Gmail are no longer used for advertisement in other
Google products, only used for Gmail ads, and features like searching your
emails, spam prevention, parsing orders/flights/etc. to display them in the
app. Also note that emails received in GSuite ("enterprise Gmail") were never
parsed for these purposes. [2]

[0] [https://myactivity.google.com/](https://myactivity.google.com/)

[1]
[https://myaccount.google.com/activitycontrols](https://myaccount.google.com/activitycontrols)

[2] [https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/23/technology/gmail-
ads.html](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/23/technology/gmail-ads.html)

Important disclaimer: I work at Google [but only voicing my own opinions, as
it goes], and only working there because I realize they are doing all they can
to respect user privacy.

~~~
shawn
_Google has what I think is the most transparent and user friendly controls
for visualizing what personal data is collected, and disabling it (most often
per product, for ex. disable location history and YouTube viewing history, but
enable personalized ads)._

I don't think this stops Google from collecting your viewing history. If it
did, Youtube recommendations wouldn't work at all, because they would know
nothing about what I like or don't like. But I'm pretty sure recommendations
work regardless of your settings -- meaning you're being tracked.

I happen to like the recommendations, so I don't mind this. But it's a hard
problem.

~~~
halflings
The second link I posted allows you to explicitly disable search and viewing
history on YouTube, which also disables recommendations (at least those based
on your profile; you will still get recommendations after watching a specific
video).

~~~
shawn
Fair enough, though that would require me to sign in.

Does that actually prevent the data from being stored on Google's servers? I'd
like to believe that the data isn't being vacuumed up regardless of what the
user says, so if you're willing to vouch for it then that would mean a lot.

~~~
0xmaverick
How can you ever trust anyone like that ? Unless, you see the line of code
that is deleting the data ?. It's kind of unfair when people on HN take Apple
by their word and for Google "oh is it really deleted though" ?

~~~
kerberos84
Because google makes its revenue from user data.

~~~
0xmaverick
Do you have a better solution ?. No one will use the products if it costs some
non-trivial amount. And no this thread doesn't represent the billions of non-
US non-rich people that use Google.

------
jedberg
This is all fine and well, but to be honest, I _like_ how Google integrates
all the different products. I get a better experience when search is
customized to what is in my email, especially when I search for flight info
and it tells me about flights I already have booked, or better yet, flights my
in-laws are on that they forwarded to me and I'm now tracking to go pick them
up.

Sometimes the ads it gives me are so relevant I actually click on them and I'm
glad I did!

I just have a better experience where I'm constantly delighted by Google
anticipating what I want because it knows so much about me.

I should be paranoid, I know, but I just like the convenience so much.

~~~
blub
Well, most people are boring and don't rock the boat.

Things can get tricky if they pop up (thorough bad luck or as a consequence of
their actions) on the radar of someone that wants to make their life miserable
or if they bother someone with power.

Otherwise I assume you're well off financially by now, so getting screwed on
insurance should be a non-issue. Discrimination is likewise a non-issue.

In general money helps and being a US citizen, straight, not muslim, healthy,
male etc also helps.

~~~
edanm
While all these things _help_ , I still think it's true that for 99.9% of
people, nothing really bad will happen because of info that Google collects. I
mean, as terrible as "getting on the radar of someone that wants to make
[your] life miserable" is, it's a relatively rare occurrence, and I doubt that
Google is really making it that much worse (if at all).

Disclaimer - would be happy to be proved wrong if you want to provide contrary
evidence...

~~~
blub
Disadvantages as a consequence of being spied on by the "googles" of the world
are difficult to _prove_ , because of information asymmetry:

* were you denied entry in a country because the agent had a bad day or because of something you wrote on twitter?

* did your insurance rates increase because of a market adjustment, or because of something your car mechanic or car manufacturer shared with the insurer?

* were you denied that job because they found a better candidate or because they found some thought crimes on your social media?

* were you stopped by the police for a random check or because the cameras matched your face to suspicios online purchases?

* did you lose your global entry access because you're a threat to national security or because you accidentally ordered a fake bag on Amazon that you never even received?

* were you passed for promotion because you're not good enough or because your employer found out through LinkedIn that you were looking for another job last year?

In a world increasingly controlled by algorithms and data, you won't even know
when you are being harmed.

~~~
edanm
Look, I semi-agree in the abstract. It is difficult to prove in the individual
case. In the _aggregate_ , it's not _impossible_ to prove, if still a bit hard
- this is what economics/sociology research does, and a lot of governments
have statistics/open access/FOIA/etc. So we _can_ know how often these things
happen.

Specifically to the things you list - again, I don't have statistics here, but
based on my gut feeling - most of them barely affect anyone. Do you really
think a large amount of people are barred entry into a country because they
wrote something on Twitter? I'd imagine this almost never happens, at least
today.

And btw, I kind of disagree with at least some of your items, like "were you
passed for promotion because you're not good enough or because your employer
found out through LinkedIn that you were looking for another job last year?".
This is _not_ what we were talking about, a case in which "Google" spies on
you. This is your employer "spying" on you through your (supposedly public-
enough) actions on social media. Changing the place you are looking for a job
for from LinkedIn to "NewLinkedIn" won't make any difference for something
like this, and is not the fault or responsibility of the company.

~~~
blub
The negative consequences will never affect most people, just those that have
bad luck or have upset someone in power. Kinda like how only some journalists
commit suicide by shooting themselves 5 times in the head in Russia.

It's impossible for us to know what's happening, baring various leaks. Given
the last decade my gut feeling is that if it's not happening, someone's at
least thinking about how to implement it.

Re LinkedIn: I didn't mean good old social network stalking. There's nothing
stopping LinkedIn from offering this as a sevice to companies. They already
allow recruiters and paying members more privileges.

------
tehabe
The worst thing, the absolute worst thing is, you know all that but you have
gotten so used to the way Google services work, that you simply have a hard
time to switch.

E.g. thank to Gmail I rarely use an email application on my computer and use
webmail. When I tried out Posteo it was extremely annoying that it logged me
out every few minutes and I couldn't get my email. They said this couldn't be
changed.

Google really did an excellent job of supply me with services which I want to
use. Not just tools which are working well.

BTW, Google doesn't use all its services to sell or personalise ads. Which
doesn't mean they don't use them to learn more about you which in turn is used
to improve the services so that you them even more.

So as much as I wish I could restore my privacy by leaving Google, I think
Google knows me too well that I won't for now.

~~~
godzillabrennus
I haven’t found a replacement for Gmail yet. I’ve tried fastmail and
ProtonMail but both have limitations.

From a search engine perspective I’ve switched to DuckDuckGo and I’m impressed
with how good it has gotten.

With maps I’ve tried various solutions including mapquest, Microsoft, and
Apple but nothing comes close to Google Maps.

~~~
brongondwana
I second those asking what limitations you ran into (specifically with
FastMail, since I have more chance of being able to fix those than the
limitations with Protonmail - though I'd love to know both!)

If it's "costs money", we're not planning to change that! We (FastMail) are
proudly a paid-only service.

~~~
melloc
The biggest thing I've been missing since I started using FastMail is labels.
My workflow in GMail used labels pretty heavily, and I've been able to get
pretty close using saved searches and folders, but it's not quite the same.

~~~
brongondwana
Right, hopefully when JMAP arrives (soon!) you'll be able to use that nicely.
It will give label-style handling by allowing the same message to exist in
multiple folders.

~~~
bpye
Kinda hijacking this. When using FastMail with a custom domain can I setup a
catch all address and then have each different address somehow tagged? It
would be nice to be able to have proper unique email addresses for each
service so I know where spam ends up coming from.

~~~
sirn
You can create an * alias in FastMail which will act as catch-all address. The
received email will retain the original To: field so you can use rules to
match them.

------
robbrown451
So I'm one of those who doesn't care if Google tracks me or sells me as a
product. [ * ]

Is there actually some real, tangible harm that can come to me from using
Google products? Not theoretical stuff, not stuff that is less likely than
dying in a plane crash. Something that is actually likely to happen, that will
affect me in measurable, negative ways?

I'm really trying to come up with something, and I'm really trying to care.

* actually I don't agree with that last one: ads are a product of Google, and various things like Gmail are products of Google. The latter is paid for with ad viewings rather than currency.

Really, there is no need to redefine "product" to include humans being
advertised to and tracked. There was (and I guess is) a thing called
"slavery," where humans were bought and sold....my voluntary use of Gmail is
not comparable.

~~~
blub
Has it become some sort of fashion statement to be ignorant about privacy?

Whenever I discuss this topic people seem to almost take pride in giving their
information to Google, Facebook and the thousands of other companies they have
no clue about.

I think it's cognitive dissonance rearing its ugly head again: those people
have tied their identity at some level with the use of the products and an
attack on e.g. Google becomes an attack on them.

The concept of fairness also plays a role. Most people feel that Google should
get _something_ for providing their services and they also feel that it's ok
if they are shown some ads. Fair deal. What they have no idea about is _how
much_ data is extracted from them, _who_ it's shared with and _for what_
purposes it's used. But we can be almost certain the answers to those
questions is more and more data, more and more parties and more and more
purposes, because data is forever.

And yes, real harm can come to you if you are promiscuous with your
information. Additional information should be accessible through your
favourite search engine. Hint: home invasion.

~~~
bobsoap
I find I'm having trouble arguing in a meaningful way with people who don't
share the same concerns regarding the privacy of their data. I'm running out
of arguments - no matter what I say, they'll respond with a shrug.

"So what? I don't have anything to hide."

"So what? They are a big company, surely they won't abuse my data."

"So what? How has Cambridge Analytica affected me?"

And for the ultimate capitulation: "So what? They already have so much data on
everyone, you can't avoid it anyway."

Brave new world.

This is not only coming from folks with little understanding of tech, but also
from "technologically literate" people who _should_ know better. Sticking your
head in the sand is just so damn convenient.

Even a comparatively widely reported privacy scandal like FB's can't seem to
sway these folks... apparently because they feel like it hasn't affected them
personally.

How do you deal with this kind of attitude?

~~~
robbrown451
You deal with that by giving an actual example of something bad that has
happened to someone who has not worried about what Google tracking them. I
haven't seen one.

I mean, people who advise me not to text and drive can give real examples of
people who died because they did that. That's tangible. All I hear is a lot of
people telling me what I should care about but refuse to supply anything but
intangibles and theoreticals.

And I'm talking about Google here, not Facebook.

~~~
blub
Do you actually play an important role in society which gives you access to
the information of many people or which would make others interested in
blackmailing you? If yes, you'd hopefully already be aware of those risks and
also educate your contacts on how to act in a provacy-conscious way.

Otherwise use Google, use whatever you want, nobody cares.

------
matthberg
While the advice here is quite solid, when I went to figure out what their
favicon was doing(it had partial transparency, apparently due to downscaling
blending opaque and transparent parts), the first thing I saw was a big block
of code that appeared to enable tracking by Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, and
Linkedin. (It was a sharrre function with enableTracking set to true on each).

Not entirely relevant, yet considering the topic of the site it's a tad
ironic, and a reminder of the prevalence of sites complicit in the tracking
they advocate against.

~~~
crtasm
Yep, they're using a jquery plugin called Sharrre to add social media buttons
and have overridden its default off setting for "enableTracking - allows
tracking social interaction with Google Analytics".

------
deadcast
I've enjoyed fastmail for many years as an alternative to gmail. I've never
once had any issues with them and their UI has been very responsive. They also
give you a MASSIVE list of domain names to choose from! ^_^

~~~
bthrm
Unfortunately, Fastmail is very expensive.

~~~
brongondwana
Unfortunately it costs money to hire people and run servers, and we have to
pay for it somehow! Over 1/3 of our staff are first line customer support, and
you get through to the engineers actually building and running the product
quite quickly if you find an issue that the support team can't help you with
directly.

The alternative is trying to monitise the userbase some other way, and we're
not interested in that game. We have no advertising, no data sales, and no
ethical conundrums or regrets about that choice!

Cheers.

------
JulienRbrt
I am personally using an often not mentioned solution.

I use Gandi.net as registrar for my domain name and they provide email
hosting[1], CalDav and CardDav with it. They even have a web interface (using
SoGo[2]).

So all my emails, contacts and calendars are properly managed[3] by a French
company.

[1]
[https://www.gandi.net/en/domain/email](https://www.gandi.net/en/domain/email)

[2] [https://sogo.nu/](https://sogo.nu/)

[3] [https://www.gandi.net/en/no-bullshit](https://www.gandi.net/en/no-
bullshit)

------
Bucephalus355
Recently I started shelling out $25 a month for a G-Suite account. I wish I
could have kept my @gmail email address, as I think your own vanity URL looks
a little tacky, but oh well.

Anyway, for privacy but also security it’s been amazing.

DKIM, DMARC, SPF, and S/MIME for mail. All attachments are executed in a
special sandbox before moving to your inbox (delays mail a little bit). None
of my personal data / content is scanned or looked at (I think?). Plenty of
security rules, alerts, and audits I can set up. Also an actual support _phone
number_ I can call for help whenever.

Why can’t Google move to a paid model? It’s worked for both Oracle and
Microsoft for the last 40 years.

~~~
mattnewton
I’m not sure what you mean, isn’t your experience using G Suite as a paid
service?

~~~
patmorgan23
I think he wants something in between gsuite and free Gmail. A Gmail+ that
lets you keep the @gmail address and take out all the spyware.

------
mvexel
What does Google Chrome track beyond what you can disable under the Privacy
and Security settings, when you're not signed in with a Google account?

~~~
Sylos
1) That's a lot of precursors. Many people want Sync functionality, which
Google uses to track your browsing history. And most people don't go through
the privacy settings.

2) We don't really know, Chrome is not open-source and it's hard to tell from
network traffic, since nowadays pretty much every webpage loads something from
a Google server in encrypted form anyways (and with those request, Google
could send all kinds of data).

3) For Chromium (which's source code is basis for Google Chrome), this project
tries to collect and fix all the privacy-infringing stuff:
[https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-
chromium](https://github.com/Eloston/ungoogled-chromium)

4) There's many ways in which Chrome doesn't actively track you, but infringes
on your privacy by just being terrible at protecting it from webpages'
tracking. As in millions of lines of code, tens of thousands of design
decisions, all made by the biggest tracking company on the planet. No
journalist can report about all of these, but it'd be foolish to assume
innocence until proven guilty.

------
Iv
A French non-profit named Framasoft [1] started a few years ago an effort
named "degooglify internet" [2] and provides several open source solutions
that you can self-host or use on their (arguably slowish) servers.

[1] [https://framasoft.org/](https://framasoft.org/)

[2] [https://degooglisons-internet.org/?l=en](https://degooglisons-
internet.org/?l=en)

~~~
newscracker
I’ve used the freely hosted online spreadsheet from Framasoft. It’s somewhat
primitive for today, but gets the job done! It will remain one of my goto
solutions to use where I need more privacy.

------
dvko
We've been working on something that has yet to be added to this list, but I
feel it's worth mentioning.

It's a self-hosted OS alternative to Google Analytics, much like Matomo
(formerly Piwik) but less focused on developers and way more opinionated in
terms of what data is visualized.

It's called Fathom Analytics[1]. Eventually we want to provide a paid hosted
option much like what Ghost is offering to make sure we can keep on supporting
it. For now, our development efforts are paid out of our own pockets.

[1] [https://usefathom.com/](https://usefathom.com/)

[2] [https://github.com/usefathom/fathom](https://github.com/usefathom/fathom)

~~~
hardwaresofton
Hey wanted to know that I'm super excited to see/use fathom -- I've been using
Piwik (now Matomo) for a while, but found that it kinda did too much,
envisioned myself writing something like Fathom to scratch the itch, glad I
don't have to! :)

It looks like fathom has just the stuff I want to see in a nice stripped down
view

~~~
dvko
Hey, that's awesome, we plan not to disappoint.

We'll be setting up a public roadmap over the next few weeks so your feedback
while we built this would be very much appreciated!

------
RomanPushkin
Also: Awesome AWS alternatives [https://github.com/ro31337/awesome-aws-
alternatives](https://github.com/ro31337/awesome-aws-alternatives)

------
notafraudster
One thing that I think would be helpful would be some editorial
contextualizing how good these products are. A lot of people would like to
incorporate privacy into their decision-making calculus, but not to the
exclusion of the quality of the experience. In some of these categories, there
are great alternatives. In some of these categories, the alternatives are not
serious.

This comment intersects with nemothekid's great comment below which highlights
how there are some major player alternatives which, while they aren't OSS and
may have some privacy considerations, probably are still worth mentioning as
an alternative to Google.

------
majidazimi
We are facing two issues:

1\. Privacy against advertisers 2\. Privacy against security agencies.

From my perspective, first issue, is more important than second one. I think
Apple does pretty decent job regarding first issue. MS holds second position.
Google/FB hold the worst position.

So even though Apple/MS are closed source, I think our privacy will improve
considerably just by installing an ad-blocker and sticking to Apple/MS
products.

Second issue is more involved and you'd probably need to give up on all sort
of mobile devices. On desktop you have to move to Linux/BSDs. No online
storage (or at least move to self hosted solution). No hosted email(Or maybe
just protonmail, ...). Life becomes tougher, if you decide to improve privacy
against security agencies.

People tend to treat privacy as a binary issue. (either no privacy or full
privacy). However, as said, majority of people experience much higher privacy
just by dumping Google/FB and using an ad-blocker.

~~~
radiorental
Something I'm pondering..

If advertisers can't reach me then why should I be concerned what they collect
about me?

I do not see any ads, I use gmail and gcal. Genuine question - I understand
I'm still 'the product' as far as they're concerned but it's a broken loop if
they don't get my eyeballs. Help me understand anything I'm missing.

I'm currently not motivated enough to move out of google products.

~~~
majidazimi
It might sound a bit radical, but I think, even using rival's products to
decrease Google's monopoly is an achievement on its own. To be honest, Firefox
is somewhat an inferior product compared to Chrome, but I use it just to
increase diversity in browser marketplace.

------
vortico
A rule of thumb is that the more you pay for online services, the more
pleasant, more privacy-respecting, and better support you have in the services
you use. I use email hosts, file hosts, git hosts, and video hosts that are
quite expensive, but the cost is totally worth it when you get used to the
quality of service and product you get. There is very little reason for a
company to sell your data when they make $200/yr from you. Even a slight rumor
based on a misinterpretation of their privacy policy could lose them thousands
of customers and thus 6 figures, and unlike the free services that couldn't
care less if they lost thousands, they try very hard to keep their privacy
policies honest and clear. It's just an application of the saying "you get
what you pay for."

~~~
Reedx
It would be interesting to check those out - who are the providers?

~~~
vortico
I don't want to feel like an advertisement, but here are some "expensive"
services that make me feel that I'm using their product instead of being their
product. The following are some services I'm proud to pay their amount for.

[https://www.fastmail.com/](https://www.fastmail.com/) for email

[https://vimeo.com/](https://vimeo.com/) for 4K HD video uploads

[https://www.backblaze.com/](https://www.backblaze.com/) for backup

[https://www.rackspace.com/cloud/files](https://www.rackspace.com/cloud/files)
for sharing files and photos to people

[https://www.shopify.com/](https://www.shopify.com/) for processing payments
for my company

[https://www.linode.com/](https://www.linode.com/) for frontend hosting

[https://www.heroku.com/](https://www.heroku.com/) for app hosting

I don't use online services for calendars, project management, to-do lists,
etc. so I can't help there.

------
MatekCopatek
After convincing myself to do this kind of a switch, I noticed the experience
using open protocols (IMAP, CardDAV and CalDAV) on Android isn't perfect.

First of all, I had to buy a 3rd party app that does CardDAV and CalDAV
syncing, because unlike iOS, Android doesn't support it natively.

Secondly, IMAP doesn't come close to what I was used to with Gmail. And I'm
not talking about the lack of good global search, I mean the general
responsiveness when reading emails. No matter which client I use (I currently
settled on Outlook), things seem to load for a long time, sometimes freeze,
etc.

Thirdly, all the Google supplied apps technically have support for other
providers, but the Google account is clearly a first class citizen. E.g.
adding/removing a generic IMAP account simply makes it appear/disappear from
the sidebar in the Gmail app. You can never truly hide the Google account. You
CAN disable syncing, but it will remain in the app and you can easily re-
enable it accidentally if you just tap it in the sidebar.

Anyone have similar experience? What do you recommend? Are there any
commercial clients with a better user experience? Should I give up and move to
iOS?

~~~
bad_user
> _First of all, I had to buy a 3rd party app that does CardDAV and CalDAV
> syncing, because unlike iOS, Android doesn 't support it natively._

Android is made by Google and they now have an interest in not promoting open
protocols. They are no longer the underdog, so it's in their best interest to
push their proprietary protocols. It doesn't always work, the former Google
Talk was great because it was light and compatible with XMPP, it all went to
shit after Hangouts happened and I'm glad that Hangouts is almost dead.

Either way, you need to recognize that if Android doesn't work well with
CardDAV / CalDAV, that's a problem that Google is creating.

> _IMAP doesn 't come close to what I was used to with Gmail. And I'm not
> talking about the lack of good global search, I mean the general
> responsiveness when reading emails. No matter which client I use._

If you're using Gmail, again, that's not fair because their IMAP
implementation isn't that great. I haven't had any problems with iOS's Mail or
with MailMate ([https://freron.com/](https://freron.com/)), in combination
with FastMail.

Speaking of which, I use MailMate with my Gmail accounts too, because I love
it and all third-party email apps work better with FastMail, because Gmail's
IMAP is not standard; e.g. labels are IMAP folders instead of IMAP keywords,
so you get duplicate emails and the client needs to do tricks to reconcile the
two.

I also use Gmail accounts on iOS and Gmail doesn't do push email on iOS
(FastMail does), but I don't mind it so much to be honest. I don't like being
bombarded with notifications, so if email notifications from Gmail are a
minute late, it doesn't matter.

And it should go without saying that if you want push notifications on
Android's Gmail app, then you can't use IMAP. I don't know of any good
solutions for Android, I was a user of K9 because it's open source and does
push notifications for IMAP, but it's not great.

And now I'm an iOS user because it has better support for open protocols, even
if I was a die hard Android fan. I might reconsider for my next phone, I might
get back to Android, but when I do, I'll factor in the cost of using open
protocols, because it's Android's fault for IMAP, CardDAV and CalDAV not
working well.

------
neurobashing
It's always funny to me to see alternatives to YouTube. The creators I like
are on YouTube and rarely anywhere else. So while if I wanted to start
vlogging, I might choose Vimeo, I'm tied into going to YT to see the content I
want.

It's like saying "for an alternative to NBC, try CBS". OK fine but Cheers airs
on NBC, now what.

~~~
beagle3
You can use Youtube as a producer, or a consumer (or both). You are right that
as a consumer, you are part of a captive audience.

But as a producer, the others might be a good alternative - especially if you
are not trying to monetize and/or rely on YouTube recommendation to get
discovered. If you're posting family videos for aunt Mildred, and an
instructional video linked to your blog post - then there are perfectly fine
alternatives to YouTube - of which most people are completely unaware.

------
jhoh
Last week I tried to improve my online privacy and removed all Google products
from my life. In short, here's what I did:

1\. Replaced my Google G-Suite with Proton Mail and a self hosted Nextcloud
The process was fairly easy: Just export all your mails and import them into
Proton Mail. After that I've exported Google Drive data, contacts and calendar
and imported everything into Nextcloud. This all took around two hours
(including the Nextcloud setup).

The only "issue" was dealing with services where I use my G-Suite account as a
login, but most of them allowed you to set a password so you can log in with
email.

Nextcloud has amazing one click install apps that offer the same features that
Google has (video calls, docs, notes etc.).

2\. Removing Google from my Android phone For that I flashed LineageOS for
microG. The great thing with this is, that you can install and use all apps
you normally have but without having Google Services installed. As a PlayStore
alternative you can use F-Droid and Yalp Store. Anyone who installed a custom
ROM before will have it running in under an hour.

3\. Securing my network with a PI-Hole and Proton VPN For devices like my
phone, laptop and desktop I installed Proton VPN. As a browser for mobile and
desktop I use Firefox with uBlock origin. For everything else (like "smart"
devices etc.) I installed a Pi-Hole (basically Easy-List on network level) to
remove ads and tracking scripts.

These were only the major steps that I've taken. So far I don't have any
regrets about it and I haven't faced any limitations with the alternatives I
use now.

If anyone has questions or ideas for further improvement, let me know.

Links: [https://protonmail.com/](https://protonmail.com/)
[https://nextcloud.com/](https://nextcloud.com/)
[https://lineage.microg.org/](https://lineage.microg.org/)
[https://protonvpn.com/](https://protonvpn.com/)

------
auslander
People, turn off automatic content download in your email clients. It
immediately leaks when and from where you opened my email.

And Search suggestions in browser, when you type into address field.

~~~
taneq
Are there any clients these days which don't have external content downloading
disabled by default?

~~~
auslander
I know that apple Mail and ProtonMail's are enabled by default. Don't know
about others - I don't use them, but I expect it to be same, as defaults are
always set for user convenience, not privacy.

~~~
brightball
Proton’s is definitely not on by default

------
trumped
You probably should install something like LineageOS to replace stock Android
and avoid installing any Google apps/services if you want to be Google-free...
(use f-droid or Yalp to find apps). Because if you replace all Google products
with alternatives but have a Google service running on your phone 24/7, what's
the point?

~~~
tty89
One problem that I found with Lineage without GApps (using microG) was that
GPS was done for. I couldn't use any map application for navigation, nor book
a cab using Uber (their web interface kept denying my payment methods), etc.
There were times when I was at a tough spot with friends and family -- trying
to book a cab but couldn't. Again, using Uber is sending a tracking signal but
it's either that or paying 2x the amount to a local cab.

So google play services is the necessary evil that I have to keep using even
after switching to Lineage. I'm back to using them again, but PlayStore and
PlayServices are the only two google apps that I have currently. I try getting
most of my apps from FDroid -- my filter for "good" apps is mostly how active
the repo is, not great but it works.

I've moved my mail over to Fastmail, and looking alternatives to Google Drive
(Backblaze B2 is one that I'm thinking of). The problem with all of these non-
google alternatives is although they're only slightly inconvenient for me,
they're almost impossible for my family to use (B2 for example doesn't have an
app).

------
omegote
Funny how a website that announces alternatives to Google Products has a flash
of unstyled content because it uses... Roboto as the main body font.

Roboto is a typeface developed by Google...

~~~
hargup
Using a font developed by Google doesn't help Google track you. Protecting
your privacy != doesn't mean rejecting absolutely everything by Google.

~~~
omegote
> Using a font developed by Google doesn't help Google track you Oh you bet it
> does, if you load it from googlefonts.com

------
VikingCoder
I think we should all be looking a little harder at Sandstorm.io, and trying
to get more Alternatives to Google Products running well on it.

It's hard to explain well, but roughly it lets lay people run cloud software
on their own hardware (or in the cloud) with minimal fuss.

------
jmcnulty
I wonder, am I the only one who's actually happy to be a paid up Google
customer? I own a Chromebook and an Android phone and have migrated absolutely
everything onto google drive, play and photos. It's a wonderfully relaxing
compute experience. Everything just works and works well.

Yes I know they're mining data about me and are likely making money off that.
But has that actually had a tangible negative effect on my life in any way at
all? I'm not aware of anything bad, and their products are a boon to my life.

I've invested in a couple of other web sites to satisfy my requirements (like
picmonkey) and have a DigitalOcean account for my VM needs, but that's it.

------
mnm1
I installed etar, but I fail to see how this is a replacement for Google
calendar. It is a nice app with seemingly identical functionality that still
reads and works with my Google calendar feed and seemingly nothing else. If
Google still hosts my calendar, then this app isn't providing anything of
value privacy wise. Am I missing something here? I've been looking for a
Google calendar replacement that respects privacy for years. I hear rumors
proton mail might get one at some point... but I'm not holding my breath.

------
shortformblog
This site is so obviously trying to sell everyone VPN software for affiliate
revenue. The aggressive SEO structure is a pretty clear tell. So color me
skeptical in terms of their advice.

------
erikdared
Google Photos would be the most difficult thing for me to leave behind.
Nothing to my knowledge even comes close in terms of functionality. A year or
two ago I tried Microsoft's equivalent in OneDrive and it was absolutely
abysmal, the web interface barely functioned with a few thousand photos.

Not to mention the search works so well, I don't know how I'd replace it for
finding things. I would take an eternity to go back and tag all of my photos.

------
mobitar
Alternative to Google Keep: Standard Notes.

[https://standardnotes.org](https://standardnotes.org).

Encrypted, open source, and cross platform :)

------
tkim90
Anyone know why G Suite (the paid version of Gmail) is not considered private?
From the site it says they are encrypted, regularly audited by 3rd parties and
not used for ads.

I've used alternatives (namely ProtonMail), but the experience is not as good
as Gmail.

[https://gsuite.google.com/faq/security/](https://gsuite.google.com/faq/security/)

------
dschuetz
I would like to see more projects that make robust self-hosting easier and
friendlier. That would make decentralization of the Internet services actually
more fun.

Today, only people who basically _live_ inside terminal emulators have a fair
chance of correctly configuring and running a server with
mail/webdav/www/webindex/dns/git, and all of that with letsencrypt.

------
hellofunk
I switched to DuckDuckGo for a while, and noticed I was having trouble finding
things. When I then compared specific searches with Google, it was clear to me
that I was getting a superior quality of searches with Google. This
disappoints me. I would gladly prefer the alternative, but I can’t add many
minutes to my day of work trying to find stuff that should be easy.

~~~
SOLAR_FIELDS
Advice here is to toss the !g bang on when you think you aren’t getting what
you need. AFAIK this is still better than using google itself because the
search is from DDG’s servers and not your personal IP (I could be wrong here
though)

~~~
GLjEI4YbnGD27LB
I was tossing !g in to so many searches that I eventually just switched back
to google from duckduckgo and startpage.

------
fuzzy2
I tried. However

\- On Mailbox.org I receive spam. Lots of it. Why? Because they don’t look at
message contents in their spam filter. Privacy, remember?

\- On other search engines, I don’t find what I’m looking for. Not even
remotely.

\- Firefox Dev Tools suck. You have to test across all browsers anyway.

In the end, I will keep using G Suite. There is simply no equal alternative,
with my own domains for mail and whatnot.

------
saintPirelli
Aside from the philosophical argument that is being had in the comment
section, there are obvious services missing. Android, for one, because what
good are all these alternatives if you run it on a Google OS and then there
are the actual moneymakers, namely Adsense/Adwords. What's the alternative for
those? Are there any?

~~~
phito
For Android, there's Lineage OS and microG

------
ccozan
Again, like I or others mentioned before. If you don't want to be the product,
you just have to pay the equivalent of a beer in month [0]. You need a own
domain, but who doesn't these days?

[0]
[https://gsuite.google.com/pricing.html](https://gsuite.google.com/pricing.html)

~~~
newscracker
Some people trust a company to outlive their domain registrations, and hence
prefer not to use a custom domain.

A custom domain, commonly of the <firstnamelastname> format, also leaks
personal information every time it’s used, whereas a consumer mail provider
domain name doesn’t (as long as one chooses a somewhat random address).

~~~
driverdan
> Some people trust a company to outlive their domain registrations

That doesn't make sense. Domains last for as long as you pay their <$10/year
fee. How many people here still use hotmail.com or yahoo.com emails?

> A custom domain, commonly of the <firstnamelastname> format, also leaks
> personal information every time it’s used

It only leaks the info you want it to leak. Want to be pseudo-anonymous?
Register something that's not your name. Wow, that was tough.

~~~
newscracker
> That doesn't make sense. Domains last for as long as you pay their <$10/year
> fee.

That exactly is the problem. Would most people feel confident that their
offspring/relatives/friends keep their domain renewed after they're dead? If
that doesn't happen at least for a decade or a few decades after the domain
owner's death, then anyone who buys that domain may end up getting many
external emails that reveal sensitive and confidential information. And what
about forgetting to renew a domain within the approximately two months after
expiry when it becomes available for someone else to grab it?

> How many people here still use hotmail.com or yahoo.com emails?

This is a complete non-issue in this context, because anyone who had these
accounts and died (or forgot about them) wouldn't have their dead/deactivated
email accounts taken over by someone else because the major providers don't
recycle deleted or deactivated email addresses. Hence my point about some
people trusting a company to outlive their domain registrations.

>> A custom domain, commonly of the <firstnamelastname> format, also leaks
personal information every time it’s used

> It only leaks the info you want it to leak. Want to be pseudo-anonymous?
> Register something that's not your name. Wow, that was tough.

I already mentioned "commonly of the <firstnamelastname> format", and didn't
really say that everyone does it. My point was an observation on how people
seem to handle a custom domain. I see that it was tough to get my points
across!

------
catwell
Regarding Youtube, the article does not mention PeerTube, which is in beta
today and is crowdfunding through a highly trusted French non-profit
(Framasoft): [https://www.kisskissbankbank.com/en/projects/peertube-a-
free...](https://www.kisskissbankbank.com/en/projects/peertube-a-free-and-
federated-video-platform/)

You can try it out at [https://peertube.cpy.re](https://peertube.cpy.re)

Former discussions on HN:

\- About the crowdfunding:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17153023](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17153023)

\- About Peertube:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16714453](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16714453)

------
dbtqgoat
My biggest problem with this article is that it doesn’t do anything to address
built in tracking google has on many pages. Companies embed little snippets of
google JavaScript so they can take advantage of analytics. As a result, google
can track you whether you use their products directly or not.

~~~
beagle3
And that's exactly why stuff like uBlock Origin / uMatrix / Disconnect /
Privacy Badger is not just ethical, it's almost a moral imperative - they stop
that kind of tracking, but not fetching those snippets from Google.

Decentraleyes aids further by moving the CDNs into your own machine, killing
even the little tracking enabled by those CDNs.

------
known
[https://prism-break.org/en/all/](https://prism-break.org/en/all/) and
[https://www.privacytools.io/](https://www.privacytools.io/) has comprehensive
list

------
joelrunyon
Did a little version of this a few years back. Think it still holds up -
[https://impossiblehq.com/complete-guide-leaving-
google/](https://impossiblehq.com/complete-guide-leaving-google/)

~~~
cashel
Nice article as well, you could add Qwant & Searx for search; and Tutanota &
Posteo for email (though Posteo is not free); and Mastodon for social, just my
two cents.

------
duckduckno
I used to be a privacy advocate until I realized the futility of trying to
thwart the data collectors. Our Information is everywhere whether we like it
or not and the only way to avoid its aggregation is by not associating with
the world and abandoning the convenience of modern technology. I feel like at
some point we just have to accept the loss of privacy to gain better harmony
within our communities.

I would recommend The Transparent Society by David Brin to anyone interested
in this matter:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transparent_Society](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Transparent_Society)

~~~
marricks
I could empathize with your viewpoint more if not for the fact the lack of
privacy wouldn’t be symmetrical. The middle and lower class will lose all
semblance of privacy while the elite will be able to buy it. Case in point
Mark Zuckerberg buying up that Hawaiian island.

Not only is it unfair but when the rich are just getting richer them having
privacy while no one else does just allows for so many more ways for the poor
to get screwed.

~~~
duckduckno
I don't think I quite understand your argument, could you please elaborate a
bit? I have always been under the assumption that fame grows linearly with
wealth and the more famous someone is the less privacy they hold. Is that
inaccurate? I could tell you that Warren Buffet is 1.78 m tall and that I know
where he was born but I honestly know nothing about the minimum-wage-working
Bob Smith.

~~~
krtkush
If you were to find the most personal details of this Mr. Smith it would be
far easier to do that. You could sit outside his house whole day long and
observe his every move, dumpster dive into his trash and get documents, even
bribe a certain official and get more info out of him/ her. I don't think any
of that will be possible in the case of Warren Buffet.

~~~
duckduckno
That will be very difficult to do with Warren Buffet because he assumes that
people will already be trying to do that. Mr. Smith, on the other hand, knows
that he is low profile enough to be ignored among the masses. I fail to see
why anyone would spend the time stalking someone who is not wealthy; the
return value of finding information on Mr. Smith is not worth the trouble.

If anything, Ad companies would more aggressively target the wealthy because
they have more money to spend.

------
bitL
After DDG recently switched to imprecise search, ignoring what I really search
for, the same way as Google does for a while, I don't see any use for it
anymore.

Is there another good alternative for precise search? Thanks

~~~
icebraining
Google, enabling the Verbatim option? You can add "&tbs=li:1" to the search
query in your browser or use [http://mycroftproject.com/google-search-
plugins.html](http://mycroftproject.com/google-search-plugins.html) in
Firefox.

------
wawhal
What about Android? Android allegedly collects your data too. If you are
running all your apps on an Android phone, all these replacements don't really
mean anything.

------
amelius
I want universities back in their role of defining and creating the basic
services we need on the internet. Corporations have shown they can't handle
it. A few large open source organizations like Mozilla are now doing the work
of universities, but they don't have the financial backing of governments, so
it's a miracle they even exist.

Corporations can go back to their role of creating hardware. They have no
business looking at our data.

------
prabhaav
Decentralized Google Docs alternative:
[https://www.graphitedocs.com/](https://www.graphitedocs.com/)

~~~
jhunter1016
Thanks for posting. Graphite has an alternative to Google Docs, Google Sheets,
Google Drive, and Google Hangouts. I hope you'll check it out!

------
arendtio
I use Nextcloud since a few years now and I have to say I am quite happy.

Sometimes the devs have some awkward attitude towards not supporting the
latest stable PHP version with their current version, but overall they do a
decent job and every major release brings cool new features. With KDE the
desktop integration is quite nice (don't know about other desktops).

------
nottorp
So, mail services that actually care about your privacy. Nice. I don't even
mind paying BUT...

... are any of them as usable as Google?

Or at least close. GMail's web interface is the only place where I have old
email and i can actually find it by searching.

Any of these services offers both imap and a usable web interface?

------
eklavyaa
Thanks for list but I am always worried about what if the new ,safe,better
privacy provider is bought by Google or <any company which we are trying to
avoid> ? Referring the recent history we have seen many good products just
bought up and they changed their business model e.g WhatsUp

------
BrandoElFollito
I considered many of these alternatives (I am a Google fanboy but wanted to
host a few things myself, notably Seafile) but never found any alternative to
Docs and their multiuser concurrent edition capabilities. I think this is a
know-how particularly difficult to reproduce.

------
fencepost
Perhaps I'm off base, but there's an awful lot of other tracking possible by
Google - how many sites are pulling fonts, compressed JS libraries, etc from
Google but don't have a referer policy defined? Decentraleyes and the like may
help, but are they foolproof?

------
beenBoutIT
The URL restoreprivacy.com is an interesting choice, considering that the
Internet and browsers were never private and weren't designed for privacy. The
Internet was designed to be redundant and persistent, both of which are
effectively non-private qualities.

------
teekert
I use Nextcloud (files, contacts, calendar, notes), Firefox on all the things
and pay for email. My last "things" are the play store and Google maps, I
can't seem to shake them (I love paying for good apps and gmaps is the best
nav app imho).

~~~
tome
Nextcloud looks great! Do they do individual subscriptions? Doesn't seem
obvious to me.

EDIT: Seems you have to go through a "provider"
[https://nextcloud.com/providers/](https://nextcloud.com/providers/)

I will investigate further.

EDIT2: OK, so you can can get a Nextcloud instance through one of these
providers. Do you have a recommendation?

~~~
teekert
I run it on my server in the basement, but you could go for a Digital Ocean
droplet, there used to be "one click" installs, but I'm not finding those
anymore [0]. There are a lot of tutorials thought you could use. This is my
referral link which will get you 10$ and me 25$ [1] (runs a 5$ droplet for 2
months with more than enough specs, if you need more space, that is also
easily achieved at DO). Or use this link from Jupiter broadcasting (Linux
Unplugged podcast) for a two months 100$ credit [2] (probably there are other
codes to getting that 100$ referral discount, this is the one I know).

[0] [https://www.digitalocean.com/products/one-click-
apps/](https://www.digitalocean.com/products/one-click-apps/)

[1][https://m.do.co/c/7461df2b7cb9](https://m.do.co/c/7461df2b7cb9)

[2] [https://do.co/unplugged](https://do.co/unplugged)

------
skate22
As much as i like OpenStreetMaps, i wouldn't really consider it a great
alternative for google maps.

Consider making a small application to find the nearest cofee shop. OSM might
have 10% of the POI coverage that Google has. And that 10% likely has some
stale data.

------
jhunter1016
Throwing Graphite into the mix too. Decentralized Docs, Sheets, Messaging, and
File Storage.
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16490595](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16490595)

------
timwis
Anyone know of an alternative email client that sorts your mail intelligently
into promotions, updates, forums, primary like Gmail does? That's had such a
positive impact on my productivity I can't leave it behind (I've tried).

~~~
citrablue
It's pretty easy (less than 2 hours work per quarter) to build your own
filtering system that works similarly effectively.

Google built a bunch of ML systems that work by default for everyone.
Personally, I just have a bunch of filters setup that do the same thing. Has
taken minimal effort but some discipline to file incoming emails based on my
own patterns.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
This is what I've done as well. Mostly for social updates. Even when I was on
Gmail, I found issues using smart labels because they weren't supported by
other IMAP clients: It's still one big inbox. So I ended up creating my own
filter rules to move them to a different folder. I've done the same for some
of the more prolific marketing emails I still want to receive but don't want
cluttering my inbox.

(Note that FastMail does have filters that classify your inbox like Gmail:
Personal, Notifications, and Mailing Lists. But while I highly recommend
FastMail, I don't use those features because the aforementioned manual sorting
rules are better, I brought them over when I migrated as well.)

------
diskandar27
if you go under 'privacy checkup' you could easily turn off any data tracking
that you don't want to share with google. This website I think is kind of
misleading we are not 'surrendering' our data as the website suggest, we are
still in control of our own data, and we could control of how much data we
want to share or don't want to share with google. And all those sharing also
has benefits to increase the user experience. On top of that there is always a
paid version like youtube where you don't get to see any ads.

------
mailbomb
Besides the Gmails alternatives:

1\. Mailfence – Based in Belgium – 500 MB free; 20 GB Pro

2\. Tutanota – Based in Germany – 1 GB free; 10 GB Pro

3\. Mailbox.org – Based in Germany – 2 GB storage

4\. Protonmail – Based in Switzerland – 500 MB free; 5 GB Pro

5\. * * Runbox.com - Based in Norway * *

They forgot #5, runbox.com

~~~
malloryerik
If you use something like protonmail aren't you sending a signal like, "Look
at me I've got something to hide!"?

If I were role-playing as some mighty and wealthy intelligence bureaucracy,
I'd likely monitor anyone using such services as well as Tor, etc. No?

I do like protonmail btw and am concerned about privacy in general, esp for
the maintenance of democracy. And I'm not at all against the intelligence
bureaucracies, presuming that their true goals are... to protect and serve,
and that they are law abiding and accountable.

~~~
sincerely
The more "normal" (bad word but you get what i mean) people using protonmail,
the weaker that signal becomes :) Same deal with Tor

~~~
malloryerik
Yes, agreed.

------
martin1975
I pay for Google Apps, $5/month and I'm quite certain the anti-privacy factor
is drastically reduced vs when one just freeloads their apps where as the OP
says, "you are the product."

------
bogomipz
I would be interested in hearing any feedback from folks here about the email
providers listed in this article. Or any other alternatives that people have
had good success with.

------
zyren
Any alternatives to Inbox? It's one of the biggest reasons why i am stuck in
the google ecosystem. I can't go back to a normal email interface anymore.

------
jasonsync
Don't forget [https://www.sync.com](https://www.sync.com) for secure cloud
storage and file sharing.

------
amdelamar
A few more things...

Google DNS (8.8.8.8) -> Quad9 (9.9.9.9) or Cloudflare (1.1.1.1).

Google Domains -> Namecheap or Porkbun.

Google Hangouts -> Wire or Signal.

Google Groups -> Groups.io

------
Bakary
At the risk of revealing my ignorance, but how can we trust those alternative
services any more than Google?

------
zyren
Any alternatives for Inbox? it's one of the biggest reasons im stuck in the
google ecosystem.

------
Animats
I've been doing most of those things for years. Just never got into Google
services.

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auslander
Add Safari for browser, iCloud Drive and iCloud for email, to complete the
list.

~~~
bitmapbrother
Unless you live in China. In that case the Chinese government has full
unfettered access to your iCloud Drive data and iCloud email.

~~~
auslander
If you live in China its game over anyway :) Get a VPN, somehow, and create
non-Chinese iCloud accounts. Always on VPN is actually a good thing
everywhere.

~~~
deadcast
Haha yeah I'm going to get express vpn now thanks to this article. I can also
pay with bitcoin! Yes! :)

~~~
mirimir
But ExpressVPN does admit to keeping

> connection logs including the date of the connection (not the time) and the
> server used. The total amount of data transferred per user is also
> monitored. ExpressVPN doesn’t log your IP but the connection logs are tied
> to the user account.[0]

0) [https://www.comparitech.com/vpn/vpn-logging-
policies/](https://www.comparitech.com/vpn/vpn-logging-policies/)

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ssijak
Alternative to Google Photos?

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ohiovr
I would like to add YouPHPTube to this list as an alternative to YouTube.

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stemc43
Check "Prism break" website. Man - humans have short memory.

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reacharavindh
Any recommendations for a self-hosted alternative for Google Photos?

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_cs2017_
Why not just turn DNT on? Sure, not all websites respect it, but all Google
services do.

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twsted
Surely should add Safari among Chrome alternatives.

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benmaq
this is awesome

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swetabhsuman007
14M Users affected by Facebook Privacy Bug that makes Posts Public

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miguelrochefort
What's wrong with data collection and tracking? Privacy seems extremely
overrated here on HN. Am I missing something?

Why would anyone take such efforts to avoid using Google products? That
doesn't seem very rational...

~~~
grzm
There are plenty of discussions on HN (including ones where you've
participated) regarding privacy. Different people value privacy differently
(and privacy means different things to different people). You may not value it
as much as others, and that's fine. Ignoring this as you have here with what
appears to be a naïve question amounts to trolling. Please don't.

~~~
sharcerer
Is it wrong for me to trust Google? I think they have really great secure
systems. Their security is the best, imo. Privacy is a bit of concern. I wish
they came up with a win-win solution fir that. I dont have prob woth data
collection, i provide data for making their systems better,ad targeting, they
give me great services, and my data doesn't get sold. Plus, indirectly even
Apple and other product users do benefit from it coz google is ahead of others
in ML due to the vast data analysis they can do, and when they publish their
results and papers, other researchers look at them and kearn from it. But i
guess, the last part of my reasoning ( just thought if it right now) is
somewhat dipshit coz this is quite obvious. But i think contrary to other's
beliefs Google's impact on internet had been very positive. I mean they open
sourced so many web standards without taking royalty. Had it been MS,apple
they would not have hesitated. I read the book The Google Guys when I was 13,
since then have been a G fan, tho I am rational, acknowledge their
mistakes,which is difficult to do. Also, as a STEM enthusiast Google's
research culture has always attracted me. Larry,sergey were the first 2 people
I sorta idolized. Also, Google services like Youtube, Google have benefited me
a lot as a student. Due to all tgese reasons, i am a bit biased towards
Google. Tho, i try to filter out buas whenever I can.

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Zeklandia
I'm convinced that "privacy tools" have become the homeopathy of computers.

