> I switched from google search to duckduckgo. I still hit an occasional search on google but that's a percentile of the searches they got from me before that decision.
You can use !s in duckduckgo to use startpage instead of duckduckgo, so you end up with google's results but avoid the privacy leak (so long as you trust ddg and sp).
> I don't host files on Dropbox or the Google drive. I have my own owncloud server on the same box as the mail server.
I prefer syncthing, and it's easier to stay on the local network. ownCloud has lots of features, but it's overkill if you only need a dropbox clone.
> I do have an Android phone but I essentially stopped carrying it with me everywhere. I hate being a slave of the phone, no longer have a mobile data plan and I take the phone with me only when I really need to be reached.
No longer have a mobile data plan either, that just means I read my emails and hn a bit less. Cyanogenmod seems to be a big improvement over plain Android privacy-wise.
> I already noticed a large quality drop in the accuracy of google searches/youtube recommendations for my account.
What do you need a google account for?
Also I don't know if companies are legally entitled to gather personal information based on ip addresses, but I use Tor Browser as my default browser so I don't feel threatened by that. On the whole the situation could easily improve if gmail actually had a proper competitor.
> You can use !s in duckduckgo to use startpage instead of duckduckgo, so you end up with google's results but avoid the privacy leak (so long as you trust ddg and sp).
Actually, the reason Google search results are better is because they profile you and can relate the term to your usual searches. I doubt using sp would yield better results but no I didn't try.
> I prefer syncthing, and it's easier to stay on the local network. ownCloud has lots of features, but it's overkill if you only need a dropbox clone.
Thanks for mentioning syncthing. I don't remember why I crossed it off back then. Will give it a second look. Might be hard since ownnote got my wife off evernote so that's one big plus in favour of ownCloud.
> No longer have a mobile data plan either, that just means I read my emails and hn a bit less. Cyanogenmod seems to be a big improvement over plain Android privacy-wise.
The amount of work required to root the phone seems absurd to me. People say it's frictionless but all the materials I found on it so far didn't convince me yet to try. I might just be getting a dumb phone tbh as my next phone.
> What do you need a google account for?
Like I mentioned. Locked in by some people who refuse to use anything else. Partially work hangout chats included. Consider it a leftover that I log in from time to time to use a one off feature.
> Also I don't know if companies are legally entitled to gather personal information based on ip addresses, but I use Tor Browser as my default browser so I don't feel threatened by that. On the whole the situation could easily improve if gmail actually had a proper competitor.
There's a bigger problem. There are a few corporate players (apple, microsoft, google, facebook) which amount to almost all routed email. If they decide to drop email to your host you are essentially blocked from contacting them. They also don't play nice with spamd type daemons since they use an MX pool to deliver it. They could essentially kill all of us running home email servers in one go, that's why it's important for people to run their own. I hope someone won't look at a spreadsheet one day and say 'ok, it's now not a loss for us to ignore traffic from those guys/gals'. Think that won't happen? There was a time when you could use jabber to talk with people on google talk. Now there's no federation.
You can use !s in duckduckgo to use startpage instead of duckduckgo, so you end up with google's results but avoid the privacy leak (so long as you trust ddg and sp).
> I don't host files on Dropbox or the Google drive. I have my own owncloud server on the same box as the mail server.
I prefer syncthing, and it's easier to stay on the local network. ownCloud has lots of features, but it's overkill if you only need a dropbox clone.
> I do have an Android phone but I essentially stopped carrying it with me everywhere. I hate being a slave of the phone, no longer have a mobile data plan and I take the phone with me only when I really need to be reached.
No longer have a mobile data plan either, that just means I read my emails and hn a bit less. Cyanogenmod seems to be a big improvement over plain Android privacy-wise.
> I already noticed a large quality drop in the accuracy of google searches/youtube recommendations for my account.
What do you need a google account for?
Also I don't know if companies are legally entitled to gather personal information based on ip addresses, but I use Tor Browser as my default browser so I don't feel threatened by that. On the whole the situation could easily improve if gmail actually had a proper competitor.