In response to how many people are influenced by these sorts of posts, I'm a best of breed person so these articles only inform me further but rarely have much

In response to how many people are influenced by these sorts of posts, I'm a best of breed person so these articles only inform me further but rarely have much impact. I don't use Google, but that's because Google just isn't the best search engine, DDG is. If I want Google results I use Startpage through DDG since they're anonymous, and will once in a blue moon still tunnel through to Google. I've been meaning to move off of Gmail to Outlook.com for some years. I definitely don't think Gmail is the best, just gave me a lot of space in 2004 during the beta when no one else would. Youtube is Google's only must-have product in my view. The rest is easily replaceable with equivalent or better choices.