11 ms·

Degoogling My Life

128 points by benrapscallion 6y ago

xxffgg557 6y ago
Astroturfing HEY
- benrapscallion 6y ago
  OP and blog post author here: I have no relationship to HEY or any of the websites mentioned in my post! Just a happy user.
  - mattowen_uk 6y ago
    Looks like your link to Fastmail is a referral link though?
    - benrapscallion 6y ago
      It is - I made it that way because that also discounts the price for whoever signs up. Maybe a better deal? If that’s problematic for people, I can edit it to Fastmail’s homepage. (Sorry, I am very new to blogging. This post was written for my friends and family, and on a whim I submitted it to HN.)
      - sbuk 6y ago
        No need to remove it, but I would suggest being transparent about affiliate links :)
    - benrapscallion 6y ago
      As suggested below, I have updated the text to clarify that the link is a referral link. Hope that’s more transparent to the readers!
  - hnfriend 6y ago
    How do you use HEY and Fastmail together? Deciding between the two and curious how you make use of both services.
    - benrapscallion 6y ago
      Fastmail is my de facto email now. As for HEY, even though I paid them ($99!) I am primarily only using them for newsletters right now - one could say this is overkill. Basically, I really liked the philosophy of HEY (saw some videos by Jason Fried and DHH) so I wanted to give it a try as well as support them with my wallet.
- ocdtrekkie 6y ago
  If this guy was paid to market HEY, he'd probably be fired for prominently featuring Fastmail as bullet one.
  - benrapscallion 6y ago
    Correct! I work in biomedical research and not marketing. By the way I am not a “guy”!
    - ocdtrekkie 6y ago
      My apologies. Between the username and the expected HN demographics, it seemed like a safe call.
optimalsolver 6y ago
Escaped the clutches of Google and ran into the warm embrace of benevolent big daddy Apple.
- ocdtrekkie 6y ago
  They're not even remotely comparable. For Google Maps to work effectively, you have to let Google record your location every five minutes until eternity, which it can and does use for ad tailoring. Apple Maps doesn't associate any location or direction data with account information and goes out of it's way to scramble the data it does store a bit so that people can't be identified.
  - matmatmatmat 6y ago
    Is that true? I have location services turned off unless I'm using Google Maps to navigate, and it seems to do a fine job getting me from A to B.
    - izacus 6y ago
      No, it's not. Location History is something you can disable (or set to autodelete history) and Maps will work just fine without it.
    - ocdtrekkie 6y ago
      The issue I found when I tried using Google apps without invasive data tracking was that Google has no middle ground: Either you let it know everywhere you are at all times, or it doesn't even retain location search history of any kind or even suggest locations close to you. I feel like a navigation app should be like a weather app in what it knows about me: Roughly, what zip code I'm in. Google Maps without location history doesn't even act that smart, it's too dependent on invasive tracking.
  - Jkvngt 6y ago
    Apple's very keen on telling us the ways they protect our privacy, but let's be crystal clear - there's no way whatsoever to audit these claims, and Apple willingly joined PRISM.
mvanbaak 6y ago
Like a lot of posts about degoogling, this one also does not list a valid alternative to youtube.
- fsflover 6y ago
  https://joinpeertube.org/ https://joinpeertube.org/
  - mvanbaak 6y ago
    My main problem there is content. The way I 'de-youtubed' is by having a youtube-dl setup where I send channels or single video id's to, and it downloads it without using my home or work infra so google things it's just some random visitor. This downloaded video material is added to a plex server specifically for this and that's the way I consume it. Was hoping to see some alternatives in those blogposts, but looks like everyone runs into the same problem: most content is simply @ youtube :(
- fossuser 6y ago
  YouTube is the only Google service that I still use and I think that’s fine. Once you have everything else replaced, paying for YouTube premium and using it like Netflix is a good model. I wouldn’t put personal videos up there, and if you’re a creator you should double post to YouTube and somewhere else in case your account is killed.
- benrapscallion 6y ago
  I believe there is a Firefox plugin that redirects to invidious but I don’t have enough experience with it (yet) to include it in my blog post. Also I have found it to be a bit of a hit or a miss.
- itisit 6y ago
  Of comparable breadth and depth, there isn't one unfortunately.
- m8s 6y ago
  I don't think there is a valid alternative to YouTube, but I've found bookmarking creators instead of subscribing with an account to be a fine way to enjoy some content without having it tied to your Google account. It's not perfect though. Perhaps Patreon can partly fill that niche instead?
scrooched_moose 6y ago
For what it's worth, I've find Here Maps to be a step up from Apple Maps. Used to be owned Nokia, now it seems to be a big partnership between VW, BMW, Daimler, Intel, Mitsubishi and NTT. Here has our complete transit system; Apple only has our 2 light rail routes and is missing our 80-some bus lines. Here has walking instructions and is adding Biking (still poor, but at least it has something). They have pretty good business contact information and hours, reviews aren't great since they're partnered with Trip Advisor, which is about a wash compared to Apple's Yelp partnership though.
- Nextgrid 6y ago
  There's the Facebook SDK malware in their app though, at least on iOS. That's a dealbreaker for me.
  - scrooched_moose 6y ago
    Interesting. Do you have any more information about it? I haven't been able to find anything. Their privacy policy seemed reasonably OK by modern standards, and all I can turn up is Facebook is getting map data from them; but nothing about Facebook being integrated into their products.
    - Nextgrid 6y ago
      Look at the network traffic from the phone while the app is running. You will see traffic to graph.facebook.com on every app launch. I've just tested it and the latest iOS version of Here Maps as of today does indeed still include the Facebook malware and it's very eager to try and reach outside (dozens of failed connection attempts, looks like it doesn't take "no" for an answer).
      - mikestew 6y ago
        Confirmed, on every launch. I think it might be hitting some other undesirables, but FB was enough for me to close the Pi-Hole interface and delete the app. Disappointing, but Apple Maps doesn't suck enough for me to get terribly upset, except for one less acceptable alternative existing.
forgotmypw17 6y ago
I like the title of your website, a changelog for my life.
- benrapscallion 6y ago
  Thanks!
gavreh 6y ago
Thanks for the list! My list is similar: - ProtonMail - Firefox (uBlock Origin, Multi-Account Containers) - DuckDuckGo - Apple Maps
als0 6y ago
Has anyone found a good alternative to Chromecast? I prefer it to having a smart TV. However, it seems like the app ecosystem is converging around that protocol, making it harder to completely degoogle my life...
- Swizec 6y ago
  Apple’s AirPlay works okay. I like good old HDMI cables, they work reliably. I’ve had terrible latency and connectivity issues with both chromecast and apple tv. Audio lagging, randomly deciding not to be discoverable, etc. A cable always works
  - chokeartist 6y ago
    Regarding your AirPlay woes - have you checked the health (strength) and throughput of the wifi signal? I have a lot of noisy stuff around my house so one thing I did was hardwire my AppleTV to be one less wifi device. That resolved all of my issues. Additionally, I later ended up adding more Wifi APs to provide consistent throughput across the house. Previously I had "slow" zones. Not really dead zones, but annoyingly slow enough to force you to switch temporarily to 4G. If you can't hardwire the device specifically, consider repositioning the WiFi AP closer, add/or add another AP if you are able to. Hope this helps.
- moistbar 6y ago
  There's Miracast, but it only does screen mirroring.
- sbuk 6y ago
  Roku is an option. Supports both Chromecast and AirPlay.
- mvanbaak 6y ago
  if apple is not a problem for you, their appletv hardware is pretty awesome. I have one connected to every tv.
- matmatmatmat 6y ago
  I use an old Linux box. Works great for Netflix and Amazon Prime. I'm sure it's not for everyone, though.
fsflover 6y ago
> A common argument against the need for privacy that I have definitely heard in my family is “but I have nothing to hide”. Well, neither do I This is completely missing the point of why one should fight surveillance. Surveillance harms journalism and activism, making the government too powerful and not accountable. If only activists and journalists will try to have the privacy, it will be much easier to target them. Everyone should have privacy to protect them. It’s sort of like freedom of speech is necessary not just for journalists, but for everyone, even if you have nothing to say.
- dmje 6y ago
  When people say that to me, I ask them for their phone so that I can give it to a passing member of the public to have a look through. That usually shuts them up.
  - samstave 6y ago
    I initially downvoted you as I read that wrong. Yeah - we are in agreement - fuck surveillance... Did anyone on HN also notice that as soon as Snowden released his thing, Palantir employees stopped wearing swag? And facebook employees are now directed to stop wearing swag?
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - corty 6y ago
      I think we do need far more shaming of employees in unwanted companies like Facebook, Google or Palantir. Surveillance damages societies, so we need to act against those who would damage us, small wheels as well as the whole drive train...
  - dwild 6y ago
    Have you ever been naked in front of someone? Will you do it to any passing member of the public? The fact that you trust someone with something doesn't make it that you will trust anyone. I don't have anything on my body to hide to my SO, still won't be nude in front of you. The thing that need to change isn't questioning whether you have anything to hide, it's whether you trust the people involved and on the internet it's a concept so hard for people to grasp. Believe me, whatever Google has access about me, I trust them with it, or else I wouldn't have handed them that information. If there's any single piece of information (or aggregate of information) that you wouldn't trust them with, don't put that there, and that include all the service OP put on his blog post. Personally getting rid of my Google accounts is something I'm slowly working toward, not because of any privacy issue, but because of how they proved that they can't be trusted to keep your account up, and that would screw me up quite a bit more than them abusing my privacy I let them have.
mpol 6y ago
Anyone have a good alternative to Google Translate? I hardly use anything directly from Google anymore, just the Search Console to keep track of what people search for on Goole Search for a handful of websites. But I do use Google Translate quite often, from different languages to English, and haven't found an alternative that I like. I do know Yandex has a service like this, but I forgot about it :) I will check it out, just as the service from Microsoft. I would prefer to stay away from these 2 companies though.
- 0x006A 6y ago
  DeepL Translator: https://www.deepl.com/en/translator https://www.deepl.com/en/translator
  - mpol 6y ago
    Thank you (and the others who replied). It is even from Germany which already sounds good.
    - drummer 6y ago
      DeepL is the best there is right now.
      - jlelse 6y ago
        It's probably even better in translation quality than Google Translate.
    - sdoering 6y ago
      The free variant allows to translate up to 5000 letters. It does (if one is so inclined) to install small desktop utilities that allow to translate marked/highlighted text with a keyboard shortcut. It also shows alternative words if you click on a word in the translation. I am for quite some time now totally sold on deepl.
- tcit 6y ago
  Deepl gives nice results.
andrewclunn 6y ago
I created a yandex email a little while ago, as oddly I (as an American citizen) have far less to fear from Russian spying than that of US tech firms. Dissenter, Vivaldi, or Brave for a browser (because Mozilla has gone full on woke, which means aligning themselves with the powers that be). DuckDuckGo, bing, or again Yandex for search. Actual local native apps for office stuff (Libre office) is my go to). Ditched YoutTube for Minds, BitChute, Odyssey, and Rumble, as well as some paid content sites (that aren't Amazon or Netflix). Now that just leaves the phone. Librum 5 and pinephones are things I hear about. Replicant will always just be google light. That's the real last bastion of tech freedom to be conquered.
Rygian 6y ago
I need to point out the obvious map solution that hasn't been mentioned yet: OpenStreetMap.
ricardo81 6y ago
Always good to see people open minded to change, alternatives and privacy conscious. Personally, I find this list the best of the bunch when it comes to De-googling https://degoogle.jmoore.dev/ https://degoogle.jmoore.dev/
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- fsflover 6y ago
  Nice list. I prefer https://prism-break.org https://prism-break.org though.
  - ricardo81 6y ago
    Cheers, that looks like it has had a lot of effort put in. Will definitely look more through it.
lo_fye 6y ago
Buddy - instead of having to update your email from @gmail to @fastmap or @hey everywhere, get your own custom domain name! You keep the domain forever, and get gmail or fast mail or hey (feature coming soon to hey) to send and receive messages on behalf of your domain. Never update all those websites & friends again. Keep your same email address forever.
- k__ 6y ago
  This, but I think it isn't easy to do with gmail.
  - mrweasel 6y ago
    It's actually extremely easy, if you pay.
  - dageshi 6y ago
    You used to be able to get gsuite for free with your own personal domain. A lot of people, especially on HN are probably still grandfathered in on that for the free tier. Nowadays I think you have to pay for using a custom domain.
    - vidanay 6y ago
      I'm grandfathered into a legacy Google Apps for Your Domain account, and it's nice but there are downsides (it's ineligible for many Google services like Play Music - oh well /s)
      - senorsmile 6y ago
        RIP google music
    - Ayesh 6y ago
      I still use it! I have two separate "Google apps" for two domains, and I just add new domains as aliases. It allows you to separately select DKIM keys for even aliased domains. I don't know what's the limit for aliases, but I have at least 5 so far. All still free.
mberning 6y ago
“In my opinion, the two most evil companies on the planet with a blatant disregard for privacy because it is so fundamental to their business model are: Facebook (and by extension, WhatsApp and Instagram) and Google.“ Hear, hear! It is my most sincere hope that these companies can be assailed by some small upstarts because it is clear the government is not going to do jack shit about their highly unethical business practices.
andrewmutz 6y ago
> Does anyone really appreciate searching on Google for a vacuum cleaner and then seeing photos of vacuum cleaners follow them around all over the web for months afterwards? Is this really google selling this information? I assumed that the people selling this information gathered it from the referrer links after you click on the search result. Any of those pages can have JavaScript running that picks out your google search term from the referral link. The reason the distinction matters is they can get the same referral string from your DuckDuckGo searches if they want to bother.
EGreg 6y ago
People need to move to open source communities. Mastodon and Matrix are nice but we need to start having more user friendly user interfaces, people expect Facebook/Telegram type stuff. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LvbFg1aaFE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LvbFg1aaFE
anticristi 6y ago
Is Google still as evil as it used to be? I have the feeling that a few GDPR fines later they take privacy more seriously, or at least a lot more seriously than the other evil AdTech (Facebook). I don't want to defend Google, but I noticed: - Google Drive is now paid (soon even for "low-quality" storage) a clear move away from ad-only revenue. - Google has auto-delete and a clear privacy dashboard, which clearly shows what Google know about you. - They have the option of disabling "creapy ads". A few more GDPR fines, and I think Google will become as privacy-friendly as a SaaS can be. :)
- Nextgrid 6y ago
  > that a few GDPR fines later they take privacy more seriously Their current GDPR consent flow is still not compliant (because you can't decline) so I guess the fines weren't enough.
mssundaram 6y ago
What about phone networks? I use Google Fi and I am finally able to switch - should I just go back to Verizon, or are there any other good backload carriers?
- fsflover 6y ago
  https://puri.sm/products/librem-awesim/ https://puri.sm/products/librem-awesim/
  - mssundaram 6y ago
    Looks really good, I've been wanting to try the Purism phone. However not being able to switch over my phone number is going to be a blocker.
- PascLeRasc 6y ago
  I use Ting and I've been very happy with them. I switched because they have really good policies working against SIM swap attacks: https://help.ting.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360030105653-How-do-I-guard-against-a-SIM-port-hack-What-safeguards-does-Ting-provide- https://help.ting.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360030105653-...
  - mssundaram 6y ago
    Thanks!
lordnacho 6y ago
The email entry needs a bit more explanation. I've been wanting to get off gmail as well, but how do I actually do it? - I have a bunch of accounts that use my gmail as the login, and inevitably some that aren't in my password manager. - People will email my gmail Is there some explanation about what to do to make a clean break?
- benrapscallion 6y ago
  So I imported all my old Gmail emails into Fastmail (they offer an easy UI to do this) and set up forwarding from Gmail to Fastmail for new email. I will add more text to my blog post to clarify this. Sorry the post was a bit rushed and I certainly didn’t think it would make it to the front page of HN!
- stephc_int13 6y ago
  Same here, leaving Gmail is clearly the most painful and difficult part of this process. I don't think it can be done quickly, but you have to start somewhere, and use the forwarding features of gmail.
- johnbrodie 6y ago
  My wife and I just did this. I've been using a custom domain for years, so it was just a matter of changing MX records to Fastmail. My wife only used her @gmail address, so it was a bit more involved. Essentially: - Set up new email at your service of choice - Import whatever old email from gmail that you want to keep - Go through whatever list you have (password manager, your brain, etc) and update email addresses (as a bonus rotate passwords while you're at it) - For a few weeks, regularly look at both your new and old email. As something comes into gmail, either unsubscribe or update your email for that sender, and delete it. - A few weeks later, nothing remains to switch over (at least nothing of importance).
- netizen-9748 6y ago
  IMO the best way to do it is change the contact info in all the accounts you still use from your old gmail to your new address. Tell the people who do email you to use your new email instead
stephc_int13 6y ago
I am also in the process of removing any usage of Facebook or Google from my habits. I think the focus should be on diversity. The problem is not simply the lack of privacy but also the lack of competition between those big actors. Google would be a fine service if it was only search.
speeder 6y ago
What I really wanted, was switch from Google to someone else as the main search ads provider for my business, but nobody come even close to Google's performance :(
- anticristi 6y ago
  Sad and funny at the same time. Indeed, that is where Google's real leverage comes from.
vishnumohandas 6y ago
In case anyone is looking for an e2e-encrypted alternative to Google Photos, I’m building one[1]. [1]: https://ente.io https://ente.io
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
dhuk_2018 6y ago
Seems like very few months these pop up. Sure, it seems like a good idea. Then I try it. It sucks when you've been embedded with Google for a long time. Glad I'm not on Facebook...
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
alangibson 6y ago
I wouldn't consider Fastmail being based in Australia a selling point. They're a Five Eyes nation with a burgeoning surveillance state of their own.
drummer 6y ago
The writer should consider de-Apple-ing next. Time is of the essence.
- izacus 6y ago
  Yeah, running from arms of one corporation into the loving embrace into another is a bit misguided.
  - Bakary 6y ago
    Apple's evil is based around getting the middle, upper-middle and aspirational class to cough up more, whereas Google is far greater threat to freedom and happiness for all. I'd say cynicism is warranted but it is still a step in the right direction.
- benrapscallion 6y ago
  Touché! The best justification I can offer is that Apple is, by far, the better of the many FAANG evils?
syntaxing 6y ago
A bit off topic, but what’s the best gmail alternative? Been thinking about switching to a paid service for a while and the WhatsApp policy change (I know they’re own by FB and not Google) really reminded me that I should do so sooner than later.
- kaba0 6y ago
  I use and like protonmail.
- newscracker 6y ago
  Best depends on your needs, your technical abilities (using custom domains, for example) and budget. Take a look at these: posteo.de mailbox.org runbox.com protonmail.com tutanota.com mxroute.com mailfence.com fastmail.com
crashbunny 6y ago
fastmail? seems like a curious choice if the goal is privacy. It's not google i guess. I don't know if they use any google services like ads, analytics, or whatever. As the article says they are based out of Australia which has mandatory meta data collection laws. Whereas America does it in a sneaky way, Australia has a law that mandates it. I believe but might be wrong they also store mail unencrypted and, rightly so, complies to lawful government requests for mail. duckduckgo could be the best of the rest in terms of search results, but regardless of how determined they are to be privacy focused, they are an American company with problematic government surveillance.
- brongondwana 6y ago
  (Fastmail CEO here) We don't use Google ads or analytics. We do have a relationship with Google in order to allow our customers to use the OAuth flows for syncing in/out of Google accounts (gmail sync, calendar sync, contacts import). Which has been quite a lot of fun to maintain as they keep adding new conditions - we are about to have to pay a security auditor again for our yearly "make sure we comply with Google's conditions around how we handle data". We are not required to retain metadata under the mandatory metadata collection law, because we don't have servers in Australia - and that's one of the conditions under which we would be captured by that law. Yes, we do comply with lawful government requests - they're pretty rare and they are individual identified accounts, not blanket collection. That said, if you're planning to do something which is a crime in Australia and also a crime in your jurisdiction (assuming it has a mutual assistance treaty with Australia, which is most countries) then we might not be the ideal choice for you! I have a draft for a blog post on the difference between privacy and absolute secrecy (extreme encrypted everything). Am looking forward to having that finished.
  - privacyking 6y ago
    So you're not required to, but do you? Does Fastmail share any information with any world government (other than by court order)?
    - brongondwana 6y ago
reeealloc 6y ago
It feels pointless to be on the Mac/iOS bandwagon and degoogle, you're just replacing invasive software with more invasive software.
- Nextgrid 6y ago
  The incentives are different. Apple is after your wallet. Google is after someone else's wallet.
- Engineering-MD 6y ago
  As the other comment has mention their is a very different motive between the business practices of Apple and google. I mean, Apple has branded itself as a company dedicated to privacy. By failing to deliver on that, it is bad for the brand image, and the more extreme the privacy violation, the worse for its images. Overall it seems better. And Apple is at least domain restricted to a larger degree: no web analytics, no search engine, limited email and ads. Giving a company a small amount of information is much better than a single company controlling a large amount. It allows for much more accurate predictions to be made.
mceachen 6y ago
If you're looking for something to clean up the mess that Google Photos Takeout leaves you and give you a fast, self-hosted UI, you're all welcome to try PhotoStructure: it'll de-dupe the mess into nice (customizable) timestamped subdirectories. https://photostructure.com/faq/why-photostructure/ https://photostructure.com/faq/why-photostructure/
- falcolas 6y ago
  Wait, wait. "Run it yourself" but it's going to use a subscription plan? Um, no. Not a chance. Charge a price up front, maybe even charge for major upgrades... subscriptions are for services, not software.
  - mceachen 6y ago
    ICYMI, I wrote down my thoughts about this topic (both as a fellow consumer and as an author of commercial software): https://photostructure.com/about/v-0-9/#-this-_really-will_-be-our-last-beta-version https://photostructure.com/about/v-0-9/#-this-_really-will_-...
    - falcolas 6y ago
      Subscriptions are rife with dark patterns. Confusing language, hidden unsubscribe buttons, requiring extraordinary actions (such as phone calls), unexpected price increases - you'll see these popping up every day across social media (including HN). And, in my opinion, a subscription is inherently a dark pattern no matter how good the intentions may be, since their very nature encourages people to forget about them and keep paying long past the point of usefulness. Throw in CC auto-update for subscriptions, and there's no natural event that would ever cause the subscription to end (short of death, and even that's questionable). Desktop software is not the place for subscriptions. Such recurring revenue may be great for your business, but that literally comes at the expense of your customers. As an addendum, pinky promises of continued access to your own media aren't worth the bytes they're stored in these days. Feel free to blame your corporate predecessors.
lrvick 6y ago
Distrusting Google and Facebook while fully trusting Apple is a strange worldview. What makes one so confident Apple won't behave the same way now or in the future?
- mceachen 6y ago
  I'm not defending any megacorp, but looking at where each corp gets their revenue is probably a reasonable way to determine who the corp is trying to make happy. If most of your revenue is from advertisers, you're going to try to make advertisers happy. Advertisers are happier when they have more user data for ad targeting. Apple seems to be getting most revenue from hardware sales, so they're going to prioritize keeping people within their ecosystem, and making sure hardware needs to be re-purchased at regular intervals, either through innovation or through designed obsolescence.
  - nbzso 6y ago
    "Apple seems to be getting most revenue from hardware sales, so they're going to prioritize keeping people within their ecosystem, and making sure hardware needs to be re-purchased at regular intervals, either through innovation or through designed obsolescence." The recent events are against this statement. Locking Mac Os further and excluding Apple Telemetry from VPN is not reason for trust.
    - Engineering-MD 6y ago
      Can you expand on the excluding the apple telemetry from VPN? Not something I was aware of
      - newscracker 6y ago
        In macOS Big Sur, firewalls like Little Snitch or Lulu were unable to block Apple's own services from phoning home. That has now been fixed in the latest beta release and will work as it did before soon. You can see this article for details. [1] [1]: https://www.macrumors.com/2021/01/14/macos-big-sur-11-2-beta-2-exclusion-list-gone/ https://www.macrumors.com/2021/01/14/macos-big-sur-11-2-beta...
NuSkooler 6y ago
A while back I went through the motions of moving away from Google. FWIW, a very nice email service (that I believe I found from a article posted on HN actually) is Purely Mail (https://purelymail.com/ https://purelymail.com/). Certainly worth putting in the consideration pile. As pointed out in the comments here: Get yourself a domain and "own your email". If Purely Mail dies, I can move my provider and keep my email.
spidersouris 6y ago
It may seem weird to some, but as a translator, it's really hard for me not to work with Google Search. Obviously, as zillions of people are using it, it has the best search algorithm of them all. On the first page, I get exactly what I've searched for even though my query is sometimes inaccurate or extremely vague, something I can't seem to reproduce with other search engines such as DuckDuckGo. To be honest, I don't know if there exists one search engine as powerful but I would love to have your suggestions. It's the only thing that prevents me from completing my step to DeGooglization.
- Jkvngt 6y ago
  Google's largely SEO'd results these days, same as it's been for a decade or more. Most any query will lead you to quite literally hundreds of millions of "hits" but for some reason Google only lets you get 3-4 pages into results any more, it seems. Search hasn't been an important Google product for a long time, I wager, or they'd clean it up. It's just another extension of Google Shopping.
kcartlidge 6y ago
For a time I had a slightly different perspective. I did my utmost to actually use Google services for everything I could, on the assumption that as there will almost certainly be tracking going on at least that way only one company had my data. By de-Googling I would be spreading my information across a wider catchment and hence increasing my exposure, whereas by being all-in on Google I kept tighter control. As Google has become more and more untenable (as well as falling behind on their offerings) I've been de-Googling for a while. All my email is now custom-domain Fastmail, for Drive I use PCloud, for search it's DuckDuckGo, for browser it's Brave or Safari, and I've stopped all 3rd party analytics on principle. The hold-out, and I think it is probably acceptable, is Go :) - next stop is to de-Amazon.

Degoogling My Life

xxffgg557 6y ago

Astroturfing HEY

benrapscallion 6y ago
OP and blog post author here: I have no relationship to HEY or any of the websites mentioned in my post! Just a happy user.
- mattowen_uk 6y ago
  Looks like your link to Fastmail is a referral link though?
  - benrapscallion 6y ago
    It is - I made it that way because that also discounts the price for whoever signs up. Maybe a better deal? If that’s problematic for people, I can edit it to Fastmail’s homepage. (Sorry, I am very new to blogging. This post was written for my friends and family, and on a whim I submitted it to HN.)
    - sbuk 6y ago
      No need to remove it, but I would suggest being transparent about affiliate links :)
  - benrapscallion 6y ago
    As suggested below, I have updated the text to clarify that the link is a referral link. Hope that’s more transparent to the readers!
- hnfriend 6y ago
  How do you use HEY and Fastmail together? Deciding between the two and curious how you make use of both services.
  - benrapscallion 6y ago
    Fastmail is my de facto email now. As for HEY, even though I paid them ($99!) I am primarily only using them for newsletters right now - one could say this is overkill. Basically, I really liked the philosophy of HEY (saw some videos by Jason Fried and DHH) so I wanted to give it a try as well as support them with my wallet.
ocdtrekkie 6y ago
If this guy was paid to market HEY, he'd probably be fired for prominently featuring Fastmail as bullet one.
- benrapscallion 6y ago
  Correct! I work in biomedical research and not marketing. By the way I am not a “guy”!
  - ocdtrekkie 6y ago
    My apologies. Between the username and the expected HN demographics, it seemed like a safe call.

optimalsolver 6y ago

Escaped the clutches of Google and ran into the warm embrace of benevolent big daddy Apple.

ocdtrekkie 6y ago
They're not even remotely comparable. For Google Maps to work effectively, you have to let Google record your location every five minutes until eternity, which it can and does use for ad tailoring. Apple Maps doesn't associate any location or direction data with account information and goes out of it's way to scramble the data it does store a bit so that people can't be identified.
- matmatmatmat 6y ago
  Is that true? I have location services turned off unless I'm using Google Maps to navigate, and it seems to do a fine job getting me from A to B.
  - izacus 6y ago
    No, it's not. Location History is something you can disable (or set to autodelete history) and Maps will work just fine without it.
  - ocdtrekkie 6y ago
    The issue I found when I tried using Google apps without invasive data tracking was that Google has no middle ground: Either you let it know everywhere you are at all times, or it doesn't even retain location search history of any kind or even suggest locations close to you. I feel like a navigation app should be like a weather app in what it knows about me: Roughly, what zip code I'm in. Google Maps without location history doesn't even act that smart, it's too dependent on invasive tracking.
- Jkvngt 6y ago
  Apple's very keen on telling us the ways they protect our privacy, but let's be crystal clear - there's no way whatsoever to audit these claims, and Apple willingly joined PRISM.

mvanbaak 6y ago

Like a lot of posts about degoogling, this one also does not list a valid alternative to youtube.

fsflover 6y ago
https://joinpeertube.org/ https://joinpeertube.org/
- mvanbaak 6y ago
  My main problem there is content. The way I 'de-youtubed' is by having a youtube-dl setup where I send channels or single video id's to, and it downloads it without using my home or work infra so google things it's just some random visitor. This downloaded video material is added to a plex server specifically for this and that's the way I consume it. Was hoping to see some alternatives in those blogposts, but looks like everyone runs into the same problem: most content is simply @ youtube :(
fossuser 6y ago
YouTube is the only Google service that I still use and I think that’s fine. Once you have everything else replaced, paying for YouTube premium and using it like Netflix is a good model. I wouldn’t put personal videos up there, and if you’re a creator you should double post to YouTube and somewhere else in case your account is killed.
benrapscallion 6y ago
I believe there is a Firefox plugin that redirects to invidious but I don’t have enough experience with it (yet) to include it in my blog post. Also I have found it to be a bit of a hit or a miss.
itisit 6y ago
Of comparable breadth and depth, there isn't one unfortunately.
m8s 6y ago
I don't think there is a valid alternative to YouTube, but I've found bookmarking creators instead of subscribing with an account to be a fine way to enjoy some content without having it tied to your Google account. It's not perfect though. Perhaps Patreon can partly fill that niche instead?

scrooched_moose 6y ago

For what it's worth, I've find Here Maps to be a step up from Apple Maps. Used to be owned Nokia, now it seems to be a big partnership between VW, BMW, Daimler, Intel, Mitsubishi and NTT. Here has our complete transit system; Apple only has our 2 light rail routes and is missing our 80-some bus lines. Here has walking instructions and is adding Biking (still poor, but at least it has something). They have pretty good business contact information and hours, reviews aren't great since they're partnered with Trip Advisor, which is about a wash compared to Apple's Yelp partnership though.

Nextgrid 6y ago
There's the Facebook SDK malware in their app though, at least on iOS. That's a dealbreaker for me.
- scrooched_moose 6y ago
  Interesting. Do you have any more information about it? I haven't been able to find anything. Their privacy policy seemed reasonably OK by modern standards, and all I can turn up is Facebook is getting map data from them; but nothing about Facebook being integrated into their products.
  - Nextgrid 6y ago
    Look at the network traffic from the phone while the app is running. You will see traffic to graph.facebook.com on every app launch. I've just tested it and the latest iOS version of Here Maps as of today does indeed still include the Facebook malware and it's very eager to try and reach outside (dozens of failed connection attempts, looks like it doesn't take "no" for an answer).
    - mikestew 6y ago
      Confirmed, on every launch. I think it might be hitting some other undesirables, but FB was enough for me to close the Pi-Hole interface and delete the app. Disappointing, but Apple Maps doesn't suck enough for me to get terribly upset, except for one less acceptable alternative existing.

forgotmypw17 6y ago

I like the title of your website, a changelog for my life.

benrapscallion 6y ago
Thanks!

gavreh 6y ago

Thanks for the list! My list is similar: - ProtonMail - Firefox (uBlock Origin, Multi-Account Containers) - DuckDuckGo - Apple Maps

als0 6y ago

Has anyone found a good alternative to Chromecast? I prefer it to having a smart TV. However, it seems like the app ecosystem is converging around that protocol, making it harder to completely degoogle my life...

Swizec 6y ago
Apple’s AirPlay works okay. I like good old HDMI cables, they work reliably. I’ve had terrible latency and connectivity issues with both chromecast and apple tv. Audio lagging, randomly deciding not to be discoverable, etc. A cable always works
- chokeartist 6y ago
  Regarding your AirPlay woes - have you checked the health (strength) and throughput of the wifi signal? I have a lot of noisy stuff around my house so one thing I did was hardwire my AppleTV to be one less wifi device. That resolved all of my issues. Additionally, I later ended up adding more Wifi APs to provide consistent throughput across the house. Previously I had "slow" zones. Not really dead zones, but annoyingly slow enough to force you to switch temporarily to 4G. If you can't hardwire the device specifically, consider repositioning the WiFi AP closer, add/or add another AP if you are able to. Hope this helps.
moistbar 6y ago
There's Miracast, but it only does screen mirroring.
sbuk 6y ago
Roku is an option. Supports both Chromecast and AirPlay.
mvanbaak 6y ago
if apple is not a problem for you, their appletv hardware is pretty awesome. I have one connected to every tv.
matmatmatmat 6y ago
I use an old Linux box. Works great for Netflix and Amazon Prime. I'm sure it's not for everyone, though.

fsflover 6y ago

> A common argument against the need for privacy that I have definitely heard in my family is “but I have nothing to hide”. Well, neither do I This is completely missing the point of why one should fight surveillance. Surveillance harms journalism and activism, making the government too powerful and not accountable. If only activists and journalists will try to have the privacy, it will be much easier to target them. Everyone should have privacy to protect them. It’s sort of like freedom of speech is necessary not just for journalists, but for everyone, even if you have nothing to say.

dmje 6y ago
When people say that to me, I ask them for their phone so that I can give it to a passing member of the public to have a look through. That usually shuts them up.
- samstave 6y ago
  I initially downvoted you as I read that wrong. Yeah - we are in agreement - fuck surveillance... Did anyone on HN also notice that as soon as Snowden released his thing, Palantir employees stopped wearing swag? And facebook employees are now directed to stop wearing swag?
  - deleted 6y ago
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  - deleted 6y ago
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  - corty 6y ago
    I think we do need far more shaming of employees in unwanted companies like Facebook, Google or Palantir. Surveillance damages societies, so we need to act against those who would damage us, small wheels as well as the whole drive train...
- dwild 6y ago
  Have you ever been naked in front of someone? Will you do it to any passing member of the public? The fact that you trust someone with something doesn't make it that you will trust anyone. I don't have anything on my body to hide to my SO, still won't be nude in front of you. The thing that need to change isn't questioning whether you have anything to hide, it's whether you trust the people involved and on the internet it's a concept so hard for people to grasp. Believe me, whatever Google has access about me, I trust them with it, or else I wouldn't have handed them that information. If there's any single piece of information (or aggregate of information) that you wouldn't trust them with, don't put that there, and that include all the service OP put on his blog post. Personally getting rid of my Google accounts is something I'm slowly working toward, not because of any privacy issue, but because of how they proved that they can't be trusted to keep your account up, and that would screw me up quite a bit more than them abusing my privacy I let them have.

mpol 6y ago

Anyone have a good alternative to Google Translate? I hardly use anything directly from Google anymore, just the Search Console to keep track of what people search for on Goole Search for a handful of websites. But I do use Google Translate quite often, from different languages to English, and haven't found an alternative that I like. I do know Yandex has a service like this, but I forgot about it :) I will check it out, just as the service from Microsoft. I would prefer to stay away from these 2 companies though.

0x006A 6y ago
DeepL Translator: https://www.deepl.com/en/translator https://www.deepl.com/en/translator
- mpol 6y ago
  Thank you (and the others who replied). It is even from Germany which already sounds good.
  - drummer 6y ago
    DeepL is the best there is right now.
    - jlelse 6y ago
      It's probably even better in translation quality than Google Translate.
  - sdoering 6y ago
    The free variant allows to translate up to 5000 letters. It does (if one is so inclined) to install small desktop utilities that allow to translate marked/highlighted text with a keyboard shortcut. It also shows alternative words if you click on a word in the translation. I am for quite some time now totally sold on deepl.
tcit 6y ago
Deepl gives nice results.

andrewclunn 6y ago

I created a yandex email a little while ago, as oddly I (as an American citizen) have far less to fear from Russian spying than that of US tech firms. Dissenter, Vivaldi, or Brave for a browser (because Mozilla has gone full on woke, which means aligning themselves with the powers that be). DuckDuckGo, bing, or again Yandex for search. Actual local native apps for office stuff (Libre office) is my go to). Ditched YoutTube for Minds, BitChute, Odyssey, and Rumble, as well as some paid content sites (that aren't Amazon or Netflix). Now that just leaves the phone. Librum 5 and pinephones are things I hear about. Replicant will always just be google light. That's the real last bastion of tech freedom to be conquered.

Rygian 6y ago

I need to point out the obvious map solution that hasn't been mentioned yet: OpenStreetMap.

ricardo81 6y ago

Always good to see people open minded to change, alternatives and privacy conscious. Personally, I find this list the best of the bunch when it comes to De-googling https://degoogle.jmoore.dev/ https://degoogle.jmoore.dev/

deleted 6y ago
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fsflover 6y ago
Nice list. I prefer https://prism-break.org https://prism-break.org though.
- ricardo81 6y ago
  Cheers, that looks like it has had a lot of effort put in. Will definitely look more through it.

lo_fye 6y ago

Buddy - instead of having to update your email from @gmail to @fastmap or @hey everywhere, get your own custom domain name! You keep the domain forever, and get gmail or fast mail or hey (feature coming soon to hey) to send and receive messages on behalf of your domain. Never update all those websites & friends again. Keep your same email address forever.

k__ 6y ago
This, but I think it isn't easy to do with gmail.
- mrweasel 6y ago
  It's actually extremely easy, if you pay.
- dageshi 6y ago
  You used to be able to get gsuite for free with your own personal domain. A lot of people, especially on HN are probably still grandfathered in on that for the free tier. Nowadays I think you have to pay for using a custom domain.
  - vidanay 6y ago
    I'm grandfathered into a legacy Google Apps for Your Domain account, and it's nice but there are downsides (it's ineligible for many Google services like Play Music - oh well /s)
    - senorsmile 6y ago
      RIP google music
  - Ayesh 6y ago
    I still use it! I have two separate "Google apps" for two domains, and I just add new domains as aliases. It allows you to separately select DKIM keys for even aliased domains. I don't know what's the limit for aliases, but I have at least 5 so far. All still free.

mberning 6y ago

“In my opinion, the two most evil companies on the planet with a blatant disregard for privacy because it is so fundamental to their business model are: Facebook (and by extension, WhatsApp and Instagram) and Google.“ Hear, hear! It is my most sincere hope that these companies can be assailed by some small upstarts because it is clear the government is not going to do jack shit about their highly unethical business practices.

andrewmutz 6y ago

> Does anyone really appreciate searching on Google for a vacuum cleaner and then seeing photos of vacuum cleaners follow them around all over the web for months afterwards? Is this really google selling this information? I assumed that the people selling this information gathered it from the referrer links after you click on the search result. Any of those pages can have JavaScript running that picks out your google search term from the referral link. The reason the distinction matters is they can get the same referral string from your DuckDuckGo searches if they want to bother.

EGreg 6y ago

People need to move to open source communities. Mastodon and Matrix are nice but we need to start having more user friendly user interfaces, people expect Facebook/Telegram type stuff. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LvbFg1aaFE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2LvbFg1aaFE

anticristi 6y ago

Is Google still as evil as it used to be? I have the feeling that a few GDPR fines later they take privacy more seriously, or at least a lot more seriously than the other evil AdTech (Facebook). I don't want to defend Google, but I noticed: - Google Drive is now paid (soon even for "low-quality" storage) a clear move away from ad-only revenue. - Google has auto-delete and a clear privacy dashboard, which clearly shows what Google know about you. - They have the option of disabling "creapy ads". A few more GDPR fines, and I think Google will become as privacy-friendly as a SaaS can be. :)

Nextgrid 6y ago
> that a few GDPR fines later they take privacy more seriously Their current GDPR consent flow is still not compliant (because you can't decline) so I guess the fines weren't enough.

mssundaram 6y ago

What about phone networks? I use Google Fi and I am finally able to switch - should I just go back to Verizon, or are there any other good backload carriers?

fsflover 6y ago
https://puri.sm/products/librem-awesim/ https://puri.sm/products/librem-awesim/
- mssundaram 6y ago
  Looks really good, I've been wanting to try the Purism phone. However not being able to switch over my phone number is going to be a blocker.
PascLeRasc 6y ago
I use Ting and I've been very happy with them. I switched because they have really good policies working against SIM swap attacks: https://help.ting.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360030105653-How-do-I-guard-against-a-SIM-port-hack-What-safeguards-does-Ting-provide- https://help.ting.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/360030105653-...
- mssundaram 6y ago
  Thanks!

lordnacho 6y ago

The email entry needs a bit more explanation. I've been wanting to get off gmail as well, but how do I actually do it? - I have a bunch of accounts that use my gmail as the login, and inevitably some that aren't in my password manager. - People will email my gmail Is there some explanation about what to do to make a clean break?

benrapscallion 6y ago
So I imported all my old Gmail emails into Fastmail (they offer an easy UI to do this) and set up forwarding from Gmail to Fastmail for new email. I will add more text to my blog post to clarify this. Sorry the post was a bit rushed and I certainly didn’t think it would make it to the front page of HN!
stephc_int13 6y ago
Same here, leaving Gmail is clearly the most painful and difficult part of this process. I don't think it can be done quickly, but you have to start somewhere, and use the forwarding features of gmail.
johnbrodie 6y ago
My wife and I just did this. I've been using a custom domain for years, so it was just a matter of changing MX records to Fastmail. My wife only used her @gmail address, so it was a bit more involved. Essentially: - Set up new email at your service of choice - Import whatever old email from gmail that you want to keep - Go through whatever list you have (password manager, your brain, etc) and update email addresses (as a bonus rotate passwords while you're at it) - For a few weeks, regularly look at both your new and old email. As something comes into gmail, either unsubscribe or update your email for that sender, and delete it. - A few weeks later, nothing remains to switch over (at least nothing of importance).
netizen-9748 6y ago
IMO the best way to do it is change the contact info in all the accounts you still use from your old gmail to your new address. Tell the people who do email you to use your new email instead

stephc_int13 6y ago

I am also in the process of removing any usage of Facebook or Google from my habits. I think the focus should be on diversity. The problem is not simply the lack of privacy but also the lack of competition between those big actors. Google would be a fine service if it was only search.

speeder 6y ago

What I really wanted, was switch from Google to someone else as the main search ads provider for my business, but nobody come even close to Google's performance :(

anticristi 6y ago
Sad and funny at the same time. Indeed, that is where Google's real leverage comes from.

vishnumohandas 6y ago

In case anyone is looking for an e2e-encrypted alternative to Google Photos, I’m building one[1]. [1]: https://ente.io https://ente.io

deleted 6y ago
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dhuk_2018 6y ago

Seems like very few months these pop up. Sure, it seems like a good idea. Then I try it. It sucks when you've been embedded with Google for a long time. Glad I'm not on Facebook...

deleted 6y ago
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alangibson 6y ago

I wouldn't consider Fastmail being based in Australia a selling point. They're a Five Eyes nation with a burgeoning surveillance state of their own.

drummer 6y ago

The writer should consider de-Apple-ing next. Time is of the essence.

izacus 6y ago
Yeah, running from arms of one corporation into the loving embrace into another is a bit misguided.
- Bakary 6y ago
  Apple's evil is based around getting the middle, upper-middle and aspirational class to cough up more, whereas Google is far greater threat to freedom and happiness for all. I'd say cynicism is warranted but it is still a step in the right direction.
benrapscallion 6y ago
Touché! The best justification I can offer is that Apple is, by far, the better of the many FAANG evils?

syntaxing 6y ago

A bit off topic, but what’s the best gmail alternative? Been thinking about switching to a paid service for a while and the WhatsApp policy change (I know they’re own by FB and not Google) really reminded me that I should do so sooner than later.

kaba0 6y ago
I use and like protonmail.
newscracker 6y ago
Best depends on your needs, your technical abilities (using custom domains, for example) and budget. Take a look at these: posteo.de mailbox.org runbox.com protonmail.com tutanota.com mxroute.com mailfence.com fastmail.com

crashbunny 6y ago

fastmail? seems like a curious choice if the goal is privacy. It's not google i guess. I don't know if they use any google services like ads, analytics, or whatever. As the article says they are based out of Australia which has mandatory meta data collection laws. Whereas America does it in a sneaky way, Australia has a law that mandates it. I believe but might be wrong they also store mail unencrypted and, rightly so, complies to lawful government requests for mail. duckduckgo could be the best of the rest in terms of search results, but regardless of how determined they are to be privacy focused, they are an American company with problematic government surveillance.

brongondwana 6y ago
(Fastmail CEO here) We don't use Google ads or analytics. We do have a relationship with Google in order to allow our customers to use the OAuth flows for syncing in/out of Google accounts (gmail sync, calendar sync, contacts import). Which has been quite a lot of fun to maintain as they keep adding new conditions - we are about to have to pay a security auditor again for our yearly "make sure we comply with Google's conditions around how we handle data". We are not required to retain metadata under the mandatory metadata collection law, because we don't have servers in Australia - and that's one of the conditions under which we would be captured by that law. Yes, we do comply with lawful government requests - they're pretty rare and they are individual identified accounts, not blanket collection. That said, if you're planning to do something which is a crime in Australia and also a crime in your jurisdiction (assuming it has a mutual assistance treaty with Australia, which is most countries) then we might not be the ideal choice for you! I have a draft for a blog post on the difference between privacy and absolute secrecy (extreme encrypted everything). Am looking forward to having that finished.
- privacyking 6y ago
  So you're not required to, but do you? Does Fastmail share any information with any world government (other than by court order)?
  - brongondwana 6y ago

reeealloc 6y ago

It feels pointless to be on the Mac/iOS bandwagon and degoogle, you're just replacing invasive software with more invasive software.

Nextgrid 6y ago
The incentives are different. Apple is after your wallet. Google is after someone else's wallet.
Engineering-MD 6y ago
As the other comment has mention their is a very different motive between the business practices of Apple and google. I mean, Apple has branded itself as a company dedicated to privacy. By failing to deliver on that, it is bad for the brand image, and the more extreme the privacy violation, the worse for its images. Overall it seems better. And Apple is at least domain restricted to a larger degree: no web analytics, no search engine, limited email and ads. Giving a company a small amount of information is much better than a single company controlling a large amount. It allows for much more accurate predictions to be made.

mceachen 6y ago

If you're looking for something to clean up the mess that Google Photos Takeout leaves you and give you a fast, self-hosted UI, you're all welcome to try PhotoStructure: it'll de-dupe the mess into nice (customizable) timestamped subdirectories. https://photostructure.com/faq/why-photostructure/ https://photostructure.com/faq/why-photostructure/

falcolas 6y ago
Wait, wait. "Run it yourself" but it's going to use a subscription plan? Um, no. Not a chance. Charge a price up front, maybe even charge for major upgrades... subscriptions are for services, not software.
- mceachen 6y ago
  ICYMI, I wrote down my thoughts about this topic (both as a fellow consumer and as an author of commercial software): https://photostructure.com/about/v-0-9/#-this-_really-will_-be-our-last-beta-version https://photostructure.com/about/v-0-9/#-this-_really-will_-...
  - falcolas 6y ago
    Subscriptions are rife with dark patterns. Confusing language, hidden unsubscribe buttons, requiring extraordinary actions (such as phone calls), unexpected price increases - you'll see these popping up every day across social media (including HN). And, in my opinion, a subscription is inherently a dark pattern no matter how good the intentions may be, since their very nature encourages people to forget about them and keep paying long past the point of usefulness. Throw in CC auto-update for subscriptions, and there's no natural event that would ever cause the subscription to end (short of death, and even that's questionable). Desktop software is not the place for subscriptions. Such recurring revenue may be great for your business, but that literally comes at the expense of your customers. As an addendum, pinky promises of continued access to your own media aren't worth the bytes they're stored in these days. Feel free to blame your corporate predecessors.

lrvick 6y ago

Distrusting Google and Facebook while fully trusting Apple is a strange worldview. What makes one so confident Apple won't behave the same way now or in the future?

mceachen 6y ago
I'm not defending any megacorp, but looking at where each corp gets their revenue is probably a reasonable way to determine who the corp is trying to make happy. If most of your revenue is from advertisers, you're going to try to make advertisers happy. Advertisers are happier when they have more user data for ad targeting. Apple seems to be getting most revenue from hardware sales, so they're going to prioritize keeping people within their ecosystem, and making sure hardware needs to be re-purchased at regular intervals, either through innovation or through designed obsolescence.
- nbzso 6y ago
  "Apple seems to be getting most revenue from hardware sales, so they're going to prioritize keeping people within their ecosystem, and making sure hardware needs to be re-purchased at regular intervals, either through innovation or through designed obsolescence." The recent events are against this statement. Locking Mac Os further and excluding Apple Telemetry from VPN is not reason for trust.
  - Engineering-MD 6y ago
    Can you expand on the excluding the apple telemetry from VPN? Not something I was aware of
    - newscracker 6y ago
      In macOS Big Sur, firewalls like Little Snitch or Lulu were unable to block Apple's own services from phoning home. That has now been fixed in the latest beta release and will work as it did before soon. You can see this article for details. [1] [1]: https://www.macrumors.com/2021/01/14/macos-big-sur-11-2-beta-2-exclusion-list-gone/ https://www.macrumors.com/2021/01/14/macos-big-sur-11-2-beta...

NuSkooler 6y ago

A while back I went through the motions of moving away from Google. FWIW, a very nice email service (that I believe I found from a article posted on HN actually) is Purely Mail (https://purelymail.com/ https://purelymail.com/). Certainly worth putting in the consideration pile. As pointed out in the comments here: Get yourself a domain and "own your email". If Purely Mail dies, I can move my provider and keep my email.

spidersouris 6y ago

It may seem weird to some, but as a translator, it's really hard for me not to work with Google Search. Obviously, as zillions of people are using it, it has the best search algorithm of them all. On the first page, I get exactly what I've searched for even though my query is sometimes inaccurate or extremely vague, something I can't seem to reproduce with other search engines such as DuckDuckGo. To be honest, I don't know if there exists one search engine as powerful but I would love to have your suggestions. It's the only thing that prevents me from completing my step to DeGooglization.

Jkvngt 6y ago
Google's largely SEO'd results these days, same as it's been for a decade or more. Most any query will lead you to quite literally hundreds of millions of "hits" but for some reason Google only lets you get 3-4 pages into results any more, it seems. Search hasn't been an important Google product for a long time, I wager, or they'd clean it up. It's just another extension of Google Shopping.

kcartlidge 6y ago

For a time I had a slightly different perspective. I did my utmost to actually use Google services for everything I could, on the assumption that as there will almost certainly be tracking going on at least that way only one company had my data. By de-Googling I would be spreading my information across a wider catchment and hence increasing my exposure, whereas by being all-in on Google I kept tighter control. As Google has become more and more untenable (as well as falling behind on their offerings) I've been de-Googling for a while. All my email is now custom-domain Fastmail, for Drive I use PCloud, for search it's DuckDuckGo, for browser it's Brave or Safari, and I've stopped all 3rd party analytics on principle. The hold-out, and I think it is probably acceptable, is Go :) - next stop is to de-Amazon.