
De-Googling My Life - nbrempel
https://nrempel.com/de-googling-my-life/
======
Aromasin
> For the most part, I'm now Google free. I don't despise Google as a company
> but I believe that their core business model is incompatible with privacy.

I like that closing line. It's something I can relate with. I appreciate
Google's products, use a Pixel 3 which is a sin I probably shouldn't admit on
HN, and I'd love to use their whole ecosystem - Google suite, the Chromebook,
Google Home etc - for all my tech needs. The issue is, Google in my eyes is a
data analytics company first and foremost. No matter how much I like the
design and functionality of their products, if I want to maintain even a small
semblance of privacy I can't in good faith support them.

Only problem I have now is that their phone is too damn good to ditch...

~~~
harry8
phone is basically a choice between google (any android phone unless you
jailbreak and de-goog it, which is a PITA) and apple. Who is less offensive
surveilling you? Can you really predict that will still be true in 5 years?

~~~
jacquesm
Dumb phone is a valid choice. And it works just fine, there is absolutely
nothing that a smart phone offers that I can not do without, and not having a
continuous distraction makes me a lot more productive than I would be
otherwise. It's bad enough with the web and 'always on' internet, to have that
in my pocket would completely kill my productivity.

~~~
jjulius
Do you have a dumb phone recommendation, or would any do just fine? I've been
seriously considering making the switch to a dumb phone that could just cover
calls/texts/work emails.

~~~
jacquesm
So far second hand Nokia's have done me well.

------
t0astbread
Is FastMail really a good choice for privacy? I mean yeah, their feature set
is awesome, they support (and develop! [1]) open standards and they sound
pretty genuine. But they're based in Australia and given recent events ([2],
[3]) I'm not sure if I would like to place my data in that country.

[1]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19839104](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19839104)
[2]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20113646](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20113646)
[3]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18616303](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18616303)

~~~
ocdtrekkie
I just responded to another comment about the FUD about Australian privacy
concerns:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20166077](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20166077)

tl;dr: The law passed doesn't affect FastMail at all, and your data is at
least as private with FastMail as it is with Gmail, which also responds to
lawful government requests for your data.

~~~
timbit42
All you did was argue it is no worse than Gmail for privacy, which is not good
for privacy. I wouldn't use either.

~~~
ocdtrekkie
It's significantly better for privacy _from private companies_ , because
FastMail does not monetize your data and Google does.

My point is that the impact of storing your email with an Australian company
is not in itself a problem or increased compromise in your privacy.

~~~
xfer
I use Gsuite and no google doesn't monetize my data according to their privacy
policy. Of course you are probably going to move the goal post how they could
do it anyway and so can fastmail. In my eyes if i want privacy for sensitive
emails i will use gpg.

------
neverminder
I have this hypothesis that technically minded people (like us) are completely
unprofitable to Google when it comes to ads. I've never clicked on any ad or
anything even remotely close to an ad ever unless it was accidental, I've ran
adblockers on all my devices since I can remember. So I guess it's a bit
ironic that people who are least profitable for Google are the most concerned
about being tracked by it. I should mention however that I do buy their
hardware products (phones, laptops) and pay for Gmail accounts for my own
domain names, but that's just because they make good quality stuff which to me
personally has nothing to do with ads.

~~~
Mc_Big_G
You don't have to click on an ad to be tracked. Also, you don't find it even a
little concerning that Google reads all your email?

~~~
beat
They don't read your email, they scan it. These things are semantically and
practically different. Reading, to me, means human comprehension. It's not
like some Google employee is going through my messages. Scanning is just
robots putting keywords in a database to target ads. Which is annoying, but
it's not really the same, privacy-wise.

~~~
neverminder
Also to my understanding they don't touch the GSuite email accounts. There was
actually someone here from the relevant Google team few months ago confirming
that they go to great lengths to ensure that didn't happen. I can't dig up
that particular comment though.

------
harry8
If you use email, google basically have it. A big enough proportion of your
mail counter-parties use google that running your own mail-server doesn't buy
you much. The gesture is a good one and everyone should do it until google are
just another tech company, I guess. But doing it now doesn't really de-google
your email, sadly.

~~~
wlesieutre
Though there are some other benefits to changing your own email provider even
if Google still has copies of all your email. The big one is that Google has
no support, and if you ever have a problem your only recourse is knowing
someone who works there and can get your issue in front of an actual person.

Other email providers (especially ones where you pay them money for the
service) have actual support employees.

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15989146](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15989146)

------
nerdjon
I have mostly removed Google from my life. I still have a few stragglers (like
Single Sign on stuff that for many sites are a pain in the ass to change) but
it has been nice.

However my biggest annoyance is still the amount of data that Google can find
out about me where I have no control over it.

\- Emails to anyone using a Google service (I use iCloud)

\- Texting anyone using Android (I have a similar frustration with Facebook
and anyone that shares their contacts with them) (This is one of the key
reasons I love iMessage and I always have caution when I see a green bubble.)

And similar data sharing I have absolutely no way to give consent for yet they
still have, because someone else gave consent for me.

My hope is that Google cannot manage to link that data back to me somehow, but
I am sure they can. But it doesn't change that they have that data.

~~~
gloflo
You are similarly sharing data on your contacts with Apple.

~~~
ballenf
Comments like yours imply that no one cannot exist on the internet without
sharing stuff with _some_ company, so it doesn’t really matter which one you
choose.

Of course it matters. And of course one should remain vigilant to monitor the
company of choice for changes in strategy or the like that might affect
privacy claims.

I don’t inherently trust Apple more than Google, but I do trust (begrudgingly)
that Apple’s current business model aligns their interests on privacy better
with mine.

~~~
beat
There's where the rubber hits the road, for me. Want total privacy? Stay off
the internet.

Way back in the dark ages of 1996 or so, I went to a very early web security
conference. At that point, it wasn't really a profession. It was junior devs
like me, schoolteachers, all sorts of people who had the job of "web security"
cast upon them. And we all commiserated about getting the same marching
orders... our bosses wanted absolute and total security, with absolute and
totally unfettered access to the internet, and without spending any money at
all.

The consumer privacy discussion today reminds me so much of that era. Everyone
wants unfettered access to the internet, without paying for it, and without
anyone selling your data.

------
NikkiA
There have actually been times recently where I've had what I consider 'iffy'
results from DDG for very domain-specific queries, but when I've double
checked with !g, the DDG results were far more on-topic, and google was giving
much much worse results.

That said, google's image results are still significantly better than DDG or
Bing, but that's such a small part of my queries that it's pretty much a non-
issue.

------
Slippery_John
I've almost entirely de-Googled, with the one straggler being YouTube. There
just aren't viable competitors. I pay for YouTube premium to get rid of the
ads while still paying for usage (combined with all the tracker blocking I can
reasonably do), but man that $12/month is crazy. I don't care about youtube
music, youtube gaming, or any of their other "value"-add junk so it's an
increasingly hard pill to swallow. I just want an ad-free plan. $8/month was
much more tolerable in that respect. Hell, why doesn't Google offer a Google-
wide tracking / ads opt-out plan? With their reach they could probably set up
a plan wherein sites with google ads get a kickback of a subscription in
exchange for not displaying ads. I'd be willing to bet Google would make more
money off of me if they did that.

The other product I gave up recently was Fi. It was a hard thing to give up
because if you can use it then it's really the best service out there for
most. What ended up kicking me there was the paltry phone support (only token
support for iOS, which I switched to, and only a handful of android devices).
When I found out I could get a T-mobile plan through work that offers all of
the functionality I want (though some things are gimped in comparison) for a
price that, while high, was at least tolerable.

~~~
WorldMaker
I don't care about seeing disclosed, paid ads so much as seeing YouTube's
garbage recommendations algorithm. If they offered a paid program to entirely
disable the recommendations section and get back a proper chronologic playlist
of my subscriptions I'd be sorely tempted to pay for that. (I hate YouTube's
Autoplay and disable it on every device.)

As it stands it is probably a lot healthier for me _not_ to pay for YouTube
Premium: the more obnoxious they try to make the ad breaks (and they have),
the more it becomes a continual reminder I should not use YouTube and should
encourage the people I follow to explore other less-user-hostile platforms for
sharing their video content.

------
bbatha
I've been doing the same but I haven't quiet been able to find good
replacements for gmail and hangouts. Anyone have any recommendations?

For gmail I'd like real imap and custom domain support. FastMail is the
obvious choice, but I can't in good conscious trust an Australian company with
my secrets.[0]

Hangouts: I'd like cross platform with a web client if possible. I would like
optional chat history sync. And I'd like on by default encryption. Signal is
great, but its treatment of chat history is too paranoid to be useful for
everyday conversations. Whatsapp is also a strong contender, but I'd also
prefer to stay off facebook services.

edit: for a hangouts replacement, I'm not looking for video/audio chats I'm
looking for a direct messaging focused service that can serve as an SMS
replacement along the lines of iMesseges, whatsapp or signal. And yes I know
about XMPP I was a heavy user a decade ago, but I'd prefer not to replace a
dying service with a dying protocol.

0: [https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/12/australia-
passes...](https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2018/12/australia-passes-new-
law-to-thwart-strong-encryption/)

~~~
BlueTemplar
I feel that those are the easiest. ProtonMail. IM :
XMPP(Conversations/Pidgin/Jitsi) or Matrix

Meanwhile, it's getting rid of YouTube, Google Play Services and Captcha that
is proving problematic...

~~~
bbatha
> ProtonMail

How's the imap support or using 3rd party email clients?

XMPP encryption is super janky, and the ecosystem is dying a slow death.
Matrix is looking pretty appealing, but it doesn't work that great as a direct
messaging platform. I've found that notifications are often delayed and and
the UX is focused on the chat room case.

> Google Play Services

that's the easiest, don't use android :)

------
wwweston
Anyone know of a good replacement for Voice? It's funny, because it seems that
Google doesn't care about it much, but it's the stickiest of all their
products for me. It's been incredibly convenient to have a combination of a
phone # alias (under which I've changed phone service at least a dozen times)
and cloud-stored web-accessible messaging history and send/receive interface.
Easy setup, mobile-device independent.

------
vonnik
With email, the deeper problem is that you can't force everyone you correspond
with to leave Gmail. So your private correspondence will continue to be
scanned to feed the ad-surveillance machine regardless. This is a problem
common to leaving any standard protocol, especially a messaging protocol.

~~~
timbit42
With Tutanota, encrypted emails sent outside of Tutanota are sent as links
which the user clicks to read and reply to your email, keeping your messages
off Gmail or any other insecure email server.

------
diehunde
Replacing the maps app and YouTube are the hardest for me. I haven't found
anything that compares to those services. And I think Waze is also owned by
Google?

~~~
zuron7
OpenStreetMaps is getting there. Heavily depends on the quality of maps in
your area. For Youtube, you could use something like invidio.us or newpipe,
which shows you only the channels that you have subscribed to.

~~~
spurgu
OpenStreetMap actually seems quite excellent from a quick check. I've only
glanced at it every now and then during the last few years (I used to
contribute a bit back in around 2012) but now it actually seems awfully
attractive compared to Google's/Apple's offerings - with all the
annotations/coloring it actually looks like a real map!

~~~
spurgu
With Google Maps I find myself switching between map/satellite _annoyingly_
often. With OSM I don't feel the need at all, from a quick test at least.

------
Youden
I've substantially de-Googled but there's still the huge issue of mobile
operating systems.

If I choose iOS, I get a device that respects my privacy and gives me some
degree of control over what apps on my device can do (e.g. GPS permissions are
much more useful) but I can't install what I like on my device and I can't
globally block ads and trackers.

If I choose Android with Google's apps preinstalled, I give up OS-level
privacy and control but I can install what I like, including a device-wide,
whitelist-based firewall, with which I can restrict ads and trackers.

If I choose Android without Google's apps, I get a much greater amount of
privacy and control over my device but I can't use common applications like my
local public transit app.

------
3xblah
"Side note: recently duck.com was acquired by DuckDuckGo. I hope there is a
plan for them to rebrand as simply "Duck" because if I recommend the search
engine to someone who is not as embedded in the internet as I am (nerd), they
often won't use the service based on the name alone."

Who previously controlled duck.com? It wasn't Google, was it?

~~~
jahewson
It’s true, I had never heard of the children’s game of Duck, Duck, Goose until
I moved to the US and had kids, so a lot of people probably see that name and
think “WTF?”.

------
MentallyRetired
I wrote a very similar article back in 2007. Nice to see how the process has
aged. This was the number 1 article on CenterNetworks until it's founder
passed away a few years ago. (RIP Allen Stern)

[https://web.archive.org/web/20070508104636/http://www.center...](https://web.archive.org/web/20070508104636/http://www.centernetworks.com/my-
life-without-google)

------
qqn
I'm surprised this post is so popular. I wish s/he'd mentioned other
alternatives like Tutanota/ProtonMail, Startpage, or Matomo (formerly Piwik)
analytics.

I also wish there was mention about how no one is truly Google-free until
their contact is no longer in a friend's Gmail address book (and even then)...

------
boh
Does paying for Google (G Suite) count as de-Googling to some extent?
Supposedly I own any data within the Suite core services (which ironically
doesn't include search, so DDG for that).

------
raphinou
I am curious to know what is the monetary total cost of the switch. Anyone
having done the switch able to share numbers?

~~~
nerdjon
I have been using iOS for about 9 years now so I won't take that into it. At
certain points I had some expenses that I had to pay for (like MobileMe
instead of Gmail). But now I don't pay for anything that I could not stop
paying and would loose much.

I pay for 2TB of iCloud storage for $9.99 a month (USD), but I could drop that
and continue to use iCloud for Calendar, email and etc. (However you would pay
google for this space anyways, but for only a TB)

I pay $10 a month for Apple News, but it is also a decent free service instead
of google news.

I don't pay for Apple maps.

I don't see there being much, if any, monetary cost of transitioning unless
you include the cost of moving from Android to iOS (which assuming you were
going to upgrade your phone anyways may not need to be counted).

It isn't like Apple devices are that much more expensive than similar premium
tier smartphones.

------
ibdf
Why are people so paranoid about privacy? We want better services, well those
services need to know what you like. It's just a bunch of computers trying to
figure out what's trending and what you need. There's no human driven
analytics team out there reading and sifting through your e-mails trying to
figure out who you are.

I much rather be concerned about security than privacy.

~~~
frenchman99
Not everyone considers a "better service" to be a service that is more
efficient. For a lot of people, privacy is more valuable than being handed a
personalized ad for a product I didn't know I wanted.

It's not "just a bunch of computers". It's potentially putting a lot of
leverage in the same hands. Here are 3 examples.

As a woman, it's nearly impossible to get a job when you're pregnant, so it's
better not to let anyone know during the job search. If you have HIV and
people find out, they freak out thinking you'll infect them right away. If
you're chronically sick, do you want insurance companies to know that ? No you
don't, because the price of the insurance policy will "magically" be higher
for you. Privacy has it good sides.

