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Personal anecdote, software engineer/techie for 25+yrs: I never react immediately. Unless directly affected by an event, I accumulate information over time and

Personal anecdote, software engineer/techie for 25+yrs: I never react immediately. Unless directly affected by an event, I accumulate information over time and it will influence my decision making. Reacting is too disruptive to my own life, and those of the people I support (e.g. family.) Would an article like this make my family change? No. Many don't care; most don't understand the impact on themselves. My De-Googling has started with my browser. Moved all my open tabs and bookmarks to Firefox, took some time to settle in, now I avoid Chrome except to debug frontend code. Email? I have a Gmail account that I use for all my personal things, so I need to find something else and migrate my usage (and maybe archive my Gmail account so I can search it.) I haven't been creative enough to find a domain name for personal (and family) use. I've been paying for G Suite (for email only) on a business domain, so I need to find something else (and maybe archive the inboxes ...) There's friction. I'm busy. I'm lazy. I know there's a chance I could suddenly lose access for no reason on the free account.

ardit33 6y ago
Yup... I still keep my old hotmail and yahoo accounts around, just in case google ends up disabling mine for some reason
_iyig 6y ago
I've been happy with Fastmail as a GMail alternative. Been slowly moving my logins and usernames from one to the other. Only (rather significant) complaint is that since 2018, they're affected by Australia's encryption backdoor bill.
- layoric 6y ago
  Would you please be able to share a source for the encryption back door? I assume they can access email using the usual court order process in AU but worried this will turn into a free for all like ISP data retention.. I made the move to FastMail about 4 years ago, would hate to change again, is such a pain. Luckily I did opt for my own domain name at least which should make those changes easier if I do it again.
  - _iyig 6y ago
    Source: https://www.itnews.com.au/news/fastmail-loses-customers-faces-calls-to-move-over-anti-encryption-laws-519783 https://www.itnews.com.au/news/fastmail-loses-customers-face...
- denismi 6y ago
  The legislation specifically prohibits authorities from requiring the creation or retention of any systemic weaknesses or vulnerabilities, or "any act or thing that will, or is likely to, jeopardise the security of any information held by any other person", other than the individual(s) targeted by the warrant. I think the law is over-reaching and lacking in sufficient transparency, but I don't really think it would allow anything like the common understanding of "encryption backdoor"?
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
stevenhubertron 6y ago
I moved to DuckDuckGo years ago, Firefox a year ago, from GA to Goat Counter for my personal sites and recently from GMail to Fastmail. It has been slow, but certainly deliberate.
- tasuki 6y ago
  Did you have your own email domain? I have an @gmail.com email and can't even begin to imagine how I could migrate. It's my login everywhere...
  - zikzak 6y ago
    You can have you gmail forward to your fastmail account. This way you leave it up but migrate over as you can (you won't miss updates, password reset emails, etc).
  - guillem_lefait 6y ago
    I both have a custom domain email (mostly for my own work) and a hey.com account. I did not try not move everything from gmail to one or another email as it would be painful. However, I'm moving things time to time and most of my new subscriptions are using either my own domain or the hey domain. In a year or two, I expect to start to redirect all remaining gmail emails to my new main email.
  - reificator 6y ago
    I have fastmail set up so that it continually imports new mail from my google accounts, and if I reply from the fastmail interface it replies using the email I received the message on. It's a very easy first step. Then you can migrate things over one by one as they come in without worrying about missing things or switching between interfaces.
  - NetOpWibby 6y ago
    Before I used a password manager I just looked through my Gmail and logged into every site I had an account with and changed the email address to my personal domain one. This took about a week of focused effort.
bntyhntr 6y ago
I've also moved to firefox across all my devices. I don't use electron apps. I use google search and gmail both personally and at work. I'm not really _trying_ to degooglify, I'm just degooglifying when the chance comes up. I'm also not hardcore enough to switch over the email on all my accounts, the people who contact me, etc. And I like free things. So one step at a random time it is.
- nexuist 6y ago
  Why not use Electron? That's managed by Microsoft, not Google.
  - bntyhntr 6y ago
    Electron is based on chromium and I want to give non-chromium based things a fighting chance. It also feels like a memory hog and I like running slack in my browser more than as a separate app. tl;dr nonsensical reasons that don't really stack up but I'm electron free so may as well keep it up
    - Cyberspy 6y ago
      One of the reasons I don't switch to Firefox full time is that it (still, after many years) leaks memory. Use Task Manager to see how much RAM Firefox is using once it's been open a while.
      - MagnumOpus 6y ago
        It is unlikely you are seeing a memory leak, it is far more likely you are seeing caching. Using spare memory is far better than not using it - and if another app needs it, FF will free it up.
    - NetOpWibby 6y ago
      Hear hear!
- Wowfunhappy 6y ago
jsinai 6y ago
One of the best things I did was to use Firefox Focus for all my mobile Google Search queries. This let's me use Google to (most of the time) find what I'm looking for, but without worrying as much about tracking or having a profile on my browser (Focus resets every time you leave the app). I've found that there are few occasions where I actually want to keep a search history. Honestly a browser which kept no history but could let me save bookmarks and manage logins (either via a third party app or natively) through a walled garden would be great. Not sure if managing passwords without accumulating tracking cookies is even possible.
- jimsug 6y ago
  On android, Firefox beta (and maybe stable; haven't used stable in a while) allows you to have bookmarks as well as open all links in a private tab by default. On desktop I use multi account containers and wipe history on exit, and have a handful of bookmarks for convenience. For both, I use the bitwarden add-on/app to manage passwords.
- sm4rk0 6y ago
  I'm also using Focus (Klar, for DE/AT/CH countries - with telemetry disabled by default) as a default browser and combining it with Firefox Lockwise makes it easy to login somewhere temporarily. But don't feel too safe with it re: tracking, because there's browser fingerprinting that works without cookies: https://panopticlick.eff.org/ https://panopticlick.eff.org/
ballenf 6y ago
As my kids get old enough to get an email account, they won't be gmail.com accounts. But I will probably never cancel my gmail account which presumably at some point will have the same stigma as a hotmail or yahoo address does now. That's the real threat to companies who get to Google's size: their customers dying more so than going to the trouble of switching. edit to add: Which, I'd guess, is why Google has invested so much in Classrooms.
bellweather49 6y ago
I've been considering getting my own domain for email for some time -- the benefits are obvious. But I have one concern. If I use the address `mail@my-real-name.com`, does this pose a privacy threat? If someone wants to try and track my activities online, they can take that address, which is clearly tied to me (especially if, say, I use that domain for a blog too), and then go to ashleymadison.com (does that still exist?) and try a password reset for that address; many sites poduce differing responses to password reset requests depending on whether or not you have an account there. If the response is "We've sent a password reset link to that address", rather than "There is no account with that address", then people now know I'm a philanderer. I've even heard of people writing a bot to do this across hundreds of sites; it's very interesting to see which C-level executives have been using their work accounts to access sites they shouldn't have. The obvious advantage of having a GMail or Outlook address is that only Google or Outlook have to know who you really are; the address could be anything you want and doesn't have to be related to your real name. In addition, you can do as I do and have multiple addresses -- not the "throwaways" which people often speak of, but simply different addresses for different online activities -- so that if an account ever got compromised, there would be no way to link it to any other account. Email security and privacy is a hard problem to solve.
- uzakov 6y ago
  There are a number of things you can do that can help you with your privacy and security: 1) Have a different online identity for things that can compromise you/you feel uneasy about. We are talking about a "full identity": number, email, maybe even things like Linkedin 2) Perform Threat modelling 3) Getting own domain is always good, as it gives you the control of your life If you are just starting out, check out "The Smart Girl's Guide to Privacy"
  - bellweather49 6y ago
    These are all good points. I guess what I'm getting at is that if you have to have multiple identities to ensure privacy, then you somewhat defeat the point of having your own domain, unless that is, you have multiple domains that you own. I don't particularly have anything to feel uneasy about. It's more the idea that I don't want one central domain that I use for everything which is tied to my real identity, either through the domain name itself or through the whois record (although I think you can pay to have an anonymous whois). It seems like a central point of failure. There are documented cases of people having their identity stolen and numerous online accounts hacked because they used the same email address to sign into various services. If you know someone's email address and one or two other things about them, social-engineering your way into other services they use seems to be relatively easy for a skilled attacker. This is all somewhat paranoid thinking, but I don't want to go the hassle and expense of getting my own domain, only to that it is a less secure or private option.

ardit33 6y ago

Yup... I still keep my old hotmail and yahoo accounts around, just in case google ends up disabling mine for some reason

_iyig 6y ago

I've been happy with Fastmail as a GMail alternative. Been slowly moving my logins and usernames from one to the other. Only (rather significant) complaint is that since 2018, they're affected by Australia's encryption backdoor bill.

layoric 6y ago
Would you please be able to share a source for the encryption back door? I assume they can access email using the usual court order process in AU but worried this will turn into a free for all like ISP data retention.. I made the move to FastMail about 4 years ago, would hate to change again, is such a pain. Luckily I did opt for my own domain name at least which should make those changes easier if I do it again.
- _iyig 6y ago
  Source: https://www.itnews.com.au/news/fastmail-loses-customers-faces-calls-to-move-over-anti-encryption-laws-519783 https://www.itnews.com.au/news/fastmail-loses-customers-face...
denismi 6y ago
The legislation specifically prohibits authorities from requiring the creation or retention of any systemic weaknesses or vulnerabilities, or "any act or thing that will, or is likely to, jeopardise the security of any information held by any other person", other than the individual(s) targeted by the warrant. I think the law is over-reaching and lacking in sufficient transparency, but I don't really think it would allow anything like the common understanding of "encryption backdoor"?

deleted 6y ago

[deleted]

stevenhubertron 6y ago

I moved to DuckDuckGo years ago, Firefox a year ago, from GA to Goat Counter for my personal sites and recently from GMail to Fastmail. It has been slow, but certainly deliberate.

tasuki 6y ago
Did you have your own email domain? I have an @gmail.com email and can't even begin to imagine how I could migrate. It's my login everywhere...
- zikzak 6y ago
  You can have you gmail forward to your fastmail account. This way you leave it up but migrate over as you can (you won't miss updates, password reset emails, etc).
- guillem_lefait 6y ago
  I both have a custom domain email (mostly for my own work) and a hey.com account. I did not try not move everything from gmail to one or another email as it would be painful. However, I'm moving things time to time and most of my new subscriptions are using either my own domain or the hey domain. In a year or two, I expect to start to redirect all remaining gmail emails to my new main email.
- reificator 6y ago
  I have fastmail set up so that it continually imports new mail from my google accounts, and if I reply from the fastmail interface it replies using the email I received the message on. It's a very easy first step. Then you can migrate things over one by one as they come in without worrying about missing things or switching between interfaces.
- NetOpWibby 6y ago
  Before I used a password manager I just looked through my Gmail and logged into every site I had an account with and changed the email address to my personal domain one. This took about a week of focused effort.

bntyhntr 6y ago

I've also moved to firefox across all my devices. I don't use electron apps. I use google search and gmail both personally and at work. I'm not really _trying_ to degooglify, I'm just degooglifying when the chance comes up. I'm also not hardcore enough to switch over the email on all my accounts, the people who contact me, etc. And I like free things. So one step at a random time it is.

nexuist 6y ago
Why not use Electron? That's managed by Microsoft, not Google.
- bntyhntr 6y ago
  Electron is based on chromium and I want to give non-chromium based things a fighting chance. It also feels like a memory hog and I like running slack in my browser more than as a separate app. tl;dr nonsensical reasons that don't really stack up but I'm electron free so may as well keep it up
  - Cyberspy 6y ago
    One of the reasons I don't switch to Firefox full time is that it (still, after many years) leaks memory. Use Task Manager to see how much RAM Firefox is using once it's been open a while.
    - MagnumOpus 6y ago
      It is unlikely you are seeing a memory leak, it is far more likely you are seeing caching. Using spare memory is far better than not using it - and if another app needs it, FF will free it up.
  - NetOpWibby 6y ago
    Hear hear!
Wowfunhappy 6y ago

jsinai 6y ago

One of the best things I did was to use Firefox Focus for all my mobile Google Search queries. This let's me use Google to (most of the time) find what I'm looking for, but without worrying as much about tracking or having a profile on my browser (Focus resets every time you leave the app). I've found that there are few occasions where I actually want to keep a search history. Honestly a browser which kept no history but could let me save bookmarks and manage logins (either via a third party app or natively) through a walled garden would be great. Not sure if managing passwords without accumulating tracking cookies is even possible.

jimsug 6y ago
On android, Firefox beta (and maybe stable; haven't used stable in a while) allows you to have bookmarks as well as open all links in a private tab by default. On desktop I use multi account containers and wipe history on exit, and have a handful of bookmarks for convenience. For both, I use the bitwarden add-on/app to manage passwords.
sm4rk0 6y ago
I'm also using Focus (Klar, for DE/AT/CH countries - with telemetry disabled by default) as a default browser and combining it with Firefox Lockwise makes it easy to login somewhere temporarily. But don't feel too safe with it re: tracking, because there's browser fingerprinting that works without cookies: https://panopticlick.eff.org/ https://panopticlick.eff.org/

ballenf 6y ago

As my kids get old enough to get an email account, they won't be gmail.com accounts. But I will probably never cancel my gmail account which presumably at some point will have the same stigma as a hotmail or yahoo address does now. That's the real threat to companies who get to Google's size: their customers dying more so than going to the trouble of switching. edit to add: Which, I'd guess, is why Google has invested so much in Classrooms.

bellweather49 6y ago

I've been considering getting my own domain for email for some time -- the benefits are obvious. But I have one concern. If I use the address `mail@my-real-name.com`, does this pose a privacy threat? If someone wants to try and track my activities online, they can take that address, which is clearly tied to me (especially if, say, I use that domain for a blog too), and then go to ashleymadison.com (does that still exist?) and try a password reset for that address; many sites poduce differing responses to password reset requests depending on whether or not you have an account there. If the response is "We've sent a password reset link to that address", rather than "There is no account with that address", then people now know I'm a philanderer. I've even heard of people writing a bot to do this across hundreds of sites; it's very interesting to see which C-level executives have been using their work accounts to access sites they shouldn't have. The obvious advantage of having a GMail or Outlook address is that only Google or Outlook have to know who you really are; the address could be anything you want and doesn't have to be related to your real name. In addition, you can do as I do and have multiple addresses -- not the "throwaways" which people often speak of, but simply different addresses for different online activities -- so that if an account ever got compromised, there would be no way to link it to any other account. Email security and privacy is a hard problem to solve.

uzakov 6y ago
There are a number of things you can do that can help you with your privacy and security: 1) Have a different online identity for things that can compromise you/you feel uneasy about. We are talking about a "full identity": number, email, maybe even things like Linkedin 2) Perform Threat modelling 3) Getting own domain is always good, as it gives you the control of your life If you are just starting out, check out "The Smart Girl's Guide to Privacy"
- bellweather49 6y ago
  These are all good points. I guess what I'm getting at is that if you have to have multiple identities to ensure privacy, then you somewhat defeat the point of having your own domain, unless that is, you have multiple domains that you own. I don't particularly have anything to feel uneasy about. It's more the idea that I don't want one central domain that I use for everything which is tied to my real identity, either through the domain name itself or through the whois record (although I think you can pay to have an anonymous whois). It seems like a central point of failure. There are documented cases of people having their identity stolen and numerous online accounts hacked because they used the same email address to sign into various services. If you know someone's email address and one or two other things about them, social-engineering your way into other services they use seems to be relatively easy for a skilled attacker. This is all somewhat paranoid thinking, but I don't want to go the hassle and expense of getting my own domain, only to that it is a less secure or private option.