
The simplicity of dropping Google in 2018 - ivanech
https://macwright.org/2018/04/26/leaving-google.html
======
Hasknewbie
As much as I would like to see more competition in that space, on the topic of
search Google is still head and shoulders above the rest as soon as you leave
mainstream queries. I regularly try out DDG or Bing to see if they are closer
to fitting the bill, but after a few days or weeks it's back to House Google.
Maybe it will be simple to drop them at some point in the future. But in 2018?
Not so much.

And there's also that one thing, that's kinda hard to avoid because there is
no direct equivalent, what's it called, ho yes: _Android_.

~~~
MrMember
I've mostly switched to DDG and it works great for most queries but I do still
end up resorting to Google if I'm not able to find what I'm looking for. I've
gotten my Google search use down to maybe five times a week.

I've started migrating from Gmail to ProtonMail but it's been a slow process.
Turns out it's not trivial to drop an email address that I've been using
extensively for more than a decade.

You're right that Android is a big one. De-Googled Android is possible but it
isn't a great experience. I've been desperate for a "true" Linux phone for
years.

~~~
SkyMarshal
_> You're right that Android is a big one. De-Googled Android is possible but
it isn't a great experience. I've been desperate for a "true" Linux phone for
years._

I switched to iPhone about six months ago, after having used Android since it
was invented. In both cases you're trusting a large corporation, but Apple's
business model is more direct - sell products and services directly to
customers while protecting their privacy, vs Google's "the user is the
product" approach. Apple seems the lesser of two evils in this regard.

~~~
mdekkers
I'm thinking of doing the same, and was wondering about Apple's position on
ads, selling metrics, selling tracking data, and all the other craptastic
stuff.

~~~
graeme
People have done GDPR requests for apple and get back basically nothing,
because almost nothing is stored.

You can read about the limited analytics data apple provides to app devs as
well.

------
CrlNvl
As already pointed out, there's no real alternative to YouTube, and more
importantly, Maps. Sure, OSM is a wonderful database, but the UX/UI is years
behind GMaps. And other providers are not as fast/intuitive as GMaps. I really
hope Qwant Maps is going to shake up things...

~~~
ashelmire
What about Vimeo, Twitch, and other video sharing and streaming sites?

I'm not really happy with youtube. In my opinion, it's hard to find quality
content if you don't already know what you're looking for. They do have lots
of content. The platform itself is the definition of "meh". They have their
userbase and massive infrastructure... that's their edge.

There was a recent post to HN about alternatives to Maps. Maps might be the
best, but it isn't like other maps services aren't just as good for most
users.

The real elephant in the room is Search. I haven't really used another search
engine in years.

~~~
freeflight
> it's hard to find quality content if you don't already know what you're
> looking for

But if you already know what you are looking for, then YouTube will usually
have the most relevant, and sometimes even high-quality, content.

That's the direct result of massive userbase+infrastructure and an edge very
hard to beat and gets even harder as time passes and more content gets
uploaded to YouTube.

~~~
ashelmire
Oh, absolutely. But here's the thing - a lot of content wanes quickly in
relevance over time. You may never catch up to youtube in terms of total
content (at least... not soon). But you can beat them in features, in look and
feel, in the way you treat your content creators and users. And that can add
up over time.

As Paul Graham said, "There is always room. In a hundred years the only social
networking sites will be the Facebook, MySpace, Flickr, and Del.icio.us? Not
likely.”

You don't start out by beating the giant. You pick users away here and there.
You find a niche. You find other niches. You keep what you have, take what you
can. You don't even have to beat the giant ever. Become the number 2 video
sharing site. Hell, become the number 10 video sharing site and I bet you'll
have more money than you know what to do with, even if most people have never
heard of you.

------
2trill2spill
> FastMail has other, excellent security standards. They probably don’t take
> part in intelligence-gathering for nation-states, like Google did with
> PRISM.

Google also had the NSA wiretapping their fiber optic cable connections
between data centers[1], inserted NSA insiders as Google employees, wiretapped
upstream internet providers(LEVEL 3), etc, etc. I don't think fastmail could
ever defend against the NSA even if they are not voluntarily giving up user
data.

[1]:
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscular_(surveillance_program...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muscular_\(surveillance_program\))

------
zajd
He doesn't really address the most difficult Google service to give up,
YouTube. There's literally no replacement, especially from a content
perspective. There are alternative search/email/map providers, there just
isn't one for YouTube.

~~~
jasonkostempski
As a consumer, you don't need an account to use it. I have a Google account
for Android and Gmail but my YouTube account is deleted. I "subscribe" to
channels with RSS. If producers make their content feed available elsewhere
(and they should, even if it happens to only link to YouTube for now) I use
that feed instead. If producers only publish to YouTube, that's really their
dependency problem. You can download an store anything you find worthy of
archiving. Use an ad blocker to avoid supporting the platform. Producers
should be selling their own native ads if they need to make a living off the
videos, like pod casters do.

~~~
white-flame
I do notice a lot more youtubers having their own advertiser segments (usually
for the same 3 or 4 services, though that's probably due to similarity of
channels I watch), and of course Patreon is very popular.

I "subscribe" to youtube channels with browser bookmarks. </old man yells at
cloud>

~~~
jasonkostempski
I highly suggest RSS my fellow elder. We haven't much time left. Rechecking
bookmarks for new content and trying to remember if we've already watch
something is a time-leech we cannot afford to feed.

------
DINKDINK
The author gives many product reasons to switch (X is superior to Y)

There are ethical reasons (obligations depending on your moral framework):
Google enabling the US government's war machine with drone image AI (Project
Maven, 'reportedly' shuttered), PRISM complicity, and enabling China's
government to aggress against the freedom of information by censoring search.

~~~
lostmsu
Shoving ads down into your eyes should be reason enough.

~~~
jerf
I'd love to look into the alternate universe in which for $REASON the web
never developed the ability to have cross-domain requests. I'm sure
advertising would still develop, but it would at least be more difficult. Or
one where for $EVEN_WEIRDER_REASON advertising-supported websites were banned;
either be free or take money. Not because I think it would be a paradise per
se, but just, I'd like to study how it developed differently.

------
drivingmenuts
That's not really a glowing recommendation for Fastmail. While there are
problems with Google, I'd hope that any recommendations would be for something
actually better than Gmail.

As far as search goes, there's nothing even comparable to Google.

Note: I may be biased, as I use both Gmail and Outlook web mail (I use Outlook
as the recovery email).

~~~
ashelmire
I decided to try out Bing just now. What's interesting is Bing results look
almost exactly like google's. The layout and cards (wiki) seem to be
identical. It also seems to load much more quickly. Hmm.

------
bpye
I keep coming close to trying to divorce myself from Google but it always
seems to be too hard to complete. I have tried Fastmail and I like it, but my
recipient likely uses Google. I never used Google Docs so that doesn't really
matter. I use Google Photos, I could drop that but I don't know of a
comparable alternative, I do keep a copy of everything on my NAS too with
Lightroom but that falls behind. I am trying to use NewPipe on my phone for
YouTube. I try and remember to use OsmAnd but a lack of transit instructions
means I can't completely convert. I should be using DDG and Firefox but I have
issues with U2F on Firefox and DDG normally ends in frustration.

I would like there to be an iPhone I'd be happy owning instead of my Pixel 2
XL however being stuck with Safari and needing a macOS device to do any
development doesn't sit well with me, I suspect Mail.app would be an
improvement though, even if it doesn't do GPG as K9 does, K9 just has an
ancient UI. I have tried LineageOS on my old Nexus 4 with microg and it's
completely usable however my Pixel 2 XL isn't actually supported, besides
LineageOS disables security features such as verified boot. I am curious to
see if RattlesnakeOS (CopperheadOS "successor") continues to be supported, if
so maybe that's an option in the future.

If anyone has any suggestions I'd be very happy to hear.

~~~
uncleartraveler
I'm with you.

In my view, Google's services are just straight up better. This makes it
exceedingly difficult to switch, because I'm not perceiving the choice as
switching to a better product. I feel like I would be switching for non-
concrete, emotional reasons. Not to mention, Google's record on security is
top-tier.

To your point about iPhone, I feel the same. I would like to use an iPhone,
but when I sit down and think about it, I'm certain I would be frustrated with
the completely locked down nature of the product. I wish Apple would open up a
little more and make it a palatable choice for usability. There are lots of
aspects of Android I like just because Google _allows_ it. "OK Google, play
xxx from Spotify" launches the app and plays music from Spotify. I use this
all the time. Meanwhile, Apple explicitly forbids you from doing this and
purposely cripples Siri. You can't even use Spotify on a HomePod. I can use
all of Google's services on every machine I have with every OS.

When I go down the list, I feel like I come to the conclusion that nearly
every service is just better. This makes it hard to leave, despite how icky
one might feel about privacy. I'm not keen on emotional choices.

~~~
jeanregisser
Siri is getting more powerful with Siri Shortcuts on upcoming iOS 12.

[https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2018/211/](https://developer.apple.com/videos/play/wwdc2018/211/)

------
jimejim
So, what IS a good alternative to Gmail? Are any of the self-hosted
alternatives actually better?

~~~
RussianCow
I use Zoho and like it quite a bit. It's free for up to a certain number of
emails per domain (5 I think?). Surprisingly, its spam filter hasn't been
noticeably worse than Gmail's for me.

------
chx
1\. A Gsuite subscription gives me unlimited storage and a private mailing
list which is absolutely vital to me. For 10 CAD this is quite a something.
And, well, they are Google. And you need to consider your backup provider
going out of business, I will be happy to bet Google will stay alive longer
than any other perhaps the exception being S3. But Drive has a pretty UI to
spot check them in backup or download a single one (I use rclone to back up).

2\. I can't drop Google Docs / Sheets when every client of mine uses it to
share documents.

------
BeefySwain
Have been looking for an alternative to Google Voice for years. I have been
completely unable to find something that does all of the following:

1) allows me to recieve texts to my computer and my phone at the same time for
a reasonable price (twilio is much too expensive to use for personal use)

2) MMS, group texting

3) "transparent" call forwarding, essentially by spoofing CID's

4) speech to text voicemail

from a single phone number.

A full blown VoIP system like FreePBX comes closer than anything else, but
still falls quite short.

If anyone has any insight into this that would be amazing.

~~~
davidmr
I’m in the same boat. I’ll be moving from the US to the UK shortly, and my
options for what to do to keep my US number (and keep it functional while I’m
in the UK) are pretty limited outside of google voice. Especially since, as
you noted, Twilio isn’t really priced for personal use.

GV isn’t bad, it’s just my absolute last resort given how capricious Google
seems to be with these non-core services.

~~~
bpye
I had a US number with Fi and I think you might be surprised when you move. I
still have my Fi number as a Google Voice number however without any other US
number Google won't let me receive calls. I can still make them at least, and
SMS through the Google Voice app works.

------
dep_b
The only thing I really rely on nowadays is Search. Gmail would be a major
hassle as a ton of stuff is linked to that, but I could use a new name
somewhere else and give everybody that matters the new address instead.

But search: too ingrained into everything I do.

------
yuhong
As a side note, I posted this thread:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17447280](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=17447280)
There seems to be little interest.

------
xkjkls
Anyone acting like DuckDuckGo provides even close to as relevant results as
Google is lying to themselves.

This also doesn't mention Maps, YouTube, YouTube, or AdWords/AdSense which
make up 95% of Google's non-Cloud revenue.

~~~
Pimpus
Yeah, I gave up on DDG recently. The results were often useless and I was
typing "!g <query>" 90% of the time. I decided to just save myself the trouble
and set Google back as my default search.

~~~
xkjkls
And I feel like a lot of the desktop/work-type queries DuckDuckGo compares the
best at.

Try any query requiring some kind of serious recency bias or locality on
DuckDuckGo. Completely useless.

------
sneak
There is no dropping Google. Use Fastmail or anything else, Google still gets
a copy of all of your emails; all of your correspondents are hosted on gmail
or g suite.

------
algorithm314
By far the best email is ..... yandex.

------
desireco42
What would be calendar alternative?

~~~
mykeliu
Every time I see some article claiming that dropping Google is easy, I wonder
about this!

This article's author says he uses FastMail's calendar funcitonality, but I
use ProtonMail; plus I'd like for my calendar provider to be separate from my
email provider.

*edited because I wrote DuckDuckGo instead of ProtonMail whoops

~~~
394549
Isn't Google calendar easily replaced by any CalDAV implementation?

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CalDAV](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CalDAV)

~~~
dddw
indeed

