
A megathread on breaking away from Google - rinze
https://www.reddit.com/r/privacy/comments/8l3vjy/can_we_get_a_megathread_on_breaking_away_from/
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ejrv
I've recently moved from Gmail to Fastmail (which also has a calendar), and to
MicroG + Yalp instead of Google Apps on my phone. Both have worked very well
for me as privacy-conscious alternatives, with minimal hassle after the
initial setup. I'm still using Google search, YouTube, and Chrome on the
desktop, for lack of alternatives I've gotten along with, but that's about it.
I'm very happy how much less of my data that exposes to Google, but at the
same time, it does still feel like a bit of a pyrrhic victory.

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mattnewport
I've been mostly Google free for a while now, other than for some work stuff
where I have to access some Google Apps docs. I also still use YouTube because
that's where lot of the content still is sadly. What I'm using instead:

\- Search: DuckDuckGo, occasionally Bing

\- Phone: Windows Phone, pre ordered a Purism Librem 5

\- Browser: mostly Firefox and Brave, Edge on mobile and occasionally on
desktop

\- Maps: Bing Maps (occasionally resort to Google Maps tho)

\- Email: ProtonMail

\- Calendar: Outlook.com, but I still use Google Calendar for some things

\- Cloud storage and backup: Dropbox and OneDrive

~~~
craftyguy
Same here, but instead of getting in bed with microsoft I've moved to using
FLOSS components.

~~~
FrozenTuna
That's what I was thinking. Are people just leaving google to use all the
microsoft products? That makes 0 sense to me.

~~~
d0lph
Some of it is for support reasons.

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taylodl
YouTube is the most difficult service to break away from, simply because it
has all the content - and more and more of my entertainment time is spent
watching YouTube. I'm thinking YouTube was Google's most ingenious purchase.

~~~
rinze
YouTube subscriptions work fine with RSS, just to add to this. I have them
added to my ttrss, don't even have to log in to watch videos (which is not
exactly 'breaking away from YouTube', but I think it's a healthier approach.)

~~~
craftyguy
Or use hooktube.com, which strips out all Google-related tracking stuff from
video links on YouTube. There are even greasemonkey scripts to rewrite
YouTube.com URLs to hooktube.com automatically.

~~~
sgtmas2006
I just use youtube-dl, it's simple and can be automated easily. Toss a URL at
it and get a nice quality version. I really wish people would start publishing
videos elsewhere for download, with high bitrate versions. I can (and do, as
we all) live with the artifacts, but I don't mind some bandwidth. Even if it
were patreon exclusive (to offset the costs for hosting) I would become a
patron for that alone.

~~~
Something1234
How would you deal with video hosting? It's a high bandwidth application, and
would be very expensive to self host.

Just an hour of streaming takes about 1 GB or $.25 if you're using AWS.
Multiply that out across a couple hundred users and many hours of streaming
that's very expensive.

~~~
toomuchtodo
Dedicated servers:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17113244](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17113244)

~~~
Something1234
Even with dedicated servers, the new hosting site would have to find a source
of revenue. The creators typically don't want to shell out. The sites with
premium hosting are still kind of terrible too. They offer very little in the
way of discovery of new content or moderation.

[https://vimeo.com/upgrade](https://vimeo.com/upgrade)

------
go_prodev
What's with all the tinfoil hats? Google != Facebook.

Unpopular opinion perhaps, but I believe they use the information I share to
enrich my user experience. It seems less about monetization and more about
providing customized services.

What am I missing?

~~~
fwdpropaganda
> I believe they use the information I share to enrich my user experience.

Manifestly false. They use your information to target ads. The pages that
you've browsed will affect the ads you see on youtube and the paid search
results you get. That's right, the paid search results you get are modified
not to enrich your experience, but because some advertisers pay more for
people with your browsing profile. Does that improve your experience, or does
that improve google's advertiser's experience?

~~~
relics443
YMMV but it improves my experience because I get to use all these great
products and features Google has, without lifting a finger, and in most cases
without paying a penny. All I have to do is ignore the ads on my screen (which
my brain seems to already do).

~~~
fwdpropaganda
> all these great products and features Google has

My post wasn't meant to dissuade anyone who's happy with being tracked from
using google.

I was merely pointing out that the post I was responding to tone of "google is
tracking me for my sake" is in most instances based on nothing but faith, and
in other cases known counter-examples exist.

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andyonthewings
There are pretty complete alternatives to all Google services in mainland
China, well, because the Great Firewall blocks Google. I doubt if anyone
really want to move from Google to those Chinese alternatives though because
privacy is even worse.

------
jrnichols
Does it sound odd that I've always been Google-free anyway? By virtue of being
a Mac user. Search? Switched to DDG or Bing. I gave up Google Maps ages ago,
using Bing/MS's map offering, and when Apple Maps came out I went to that.
Email, has always been IMAP on servers I host myself.

I never even went down the Google rabbit hole like many of my friends did.
It's curious how they claim Apple is so proprietary when they're using
Android, Google Photos, Gmail, Google Maps, Google Drive, Google Docs, Google
Chat (or whatever it's called this week,) Google Music, Google Play, and maybe
youTube, I mean Google TV.

The Apple ecosystem has been pretty good for me.

~~~
jacksmith21006
Apple is just using Google.

[https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/26/apple-confirms-it-uses-
googl...](https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/26/apple-confirms-it-uses-google-cloud-
for-icloud.html) Apple confirms it uses Google cloud for iCloud - CNBC.com

~~~
jrnichols
And to the end users, that's absolutely meaningless.

