12 ms·

How to leave Google and why

232 points by yaszko 6y ago

znpy 6y ago
One of the biggest problems is probably that there's almost no way of using an android phone and purchase apps without a google account (which will be then linked to purchases and activities).
- Semaphor 6y ago
  Using is possible with microG [1], but it’s not stable yet and purchasing is indeed very rarely possible (the only Android App I have bought outside the playstore is Titanium Backup) [1]: https://microg.org/ https://microg.org/
- mrjin 6y ago
  Maybe try FDroid?
- zahrc 6y ago
  > just use iPhone, FDroid or a dumb phone, duh Honestly, we need a optimised non-custom rom alternative to smartphone operating systems, which is not iOS or google/android. While the custom-rom development has come a long way, it's to fiddly, often lacks long-term support, shortcomings in terms of stability (network/singal disruptions, battery usage, crashes, bricks)and even privacy.
  - doublerabbit 6y ago
    The 2005's rang, they want their phones back. My Sony Ericsson 500i was my edgy love of my teenage college years. Every provider had their own phone with their own firmware. Android appeared and nearly-all of them got in to bed with Google. And so here we are, living in a world of a million different sized rectangles; all running Android. > Honestly, we need a optimised non-custom rom alternative to smartphone operating systems, which is not iOS or google/android. Symbian was way ahead for its time. But I'm just glad we have some developments such as PinePhone and Librem
    - oblio 6y ago
      Symbian was not it. Meego was it. Nokia messed up by not actually sharing it properly like the Android Alliance or whatever it was called did. Nokia went under and Android is everywhere :-(
      - solnyshok 6y ago
        I still have a running specimen of N9 in my drawer. They killed own future when they stopped Meego development.
- lucideer 6y ago
  This isn't true. There's two caveats: (a) it's a little unstable with no Google account but using a throwaway Google account fixes this, and (b) it doesn't get you away from Google because they still have a lot of ways to track you in Android without an account, but... You can disable Play services and install Aurora Store from F-Droid and have a very reasonable Android experience with no Google account. Aurora Store is a Play Store client that doesn't require a Google account, so you can get access to all the "normal" commercial apps and games that are absent on F-Droid. The developers use a central account for API access which can get rate limited and get blocked sometimes (they recommend you sign in with your own throwaway Google account to avoid this), but otherwise it's better than Play Store in many ways. Some apps will not work without Play services but I've found that in most cases it's either a matter of: - some annoying notification function of the app doesn't work but the rest of the app works fine - in some rare cases, apps with a strong reliance on Play services have alternative independent builds available as apk from their own website You can also just leave Play services enabled and simply never log into your Google account (the Aurora account login is separate, it doesn't link into the rest of the device) BUT if you do this Google will plague you with prompts to login for all eternity.
- ForHackernews 6y ago
  https://e.foundation/ https://e.foundation/ is an Android/Lineage fork that removes Google services. It comes with its own app store (mix of F-Droid and Play store APKs, from what I can tell) It's not perfect, but works well enough for daily use in my experience.
- coldtea 6y ago
  >One of the biggest problems is probably that there's almost no way of using an android phone and purchase apps without a google account Get an iPhone then? Or a feature-phone?
- izacus 6y ago
  There are many Huawei devices being sold in my region which are completely Google free - and they have apps. So it seems it's possible? (Not to mention many deGoogled Android builds like Lineage which, ironically, usually run best on Google phones due to their published sources).
superbcarrot 6y ago
1. The title mentions only Google. 2. The article then talks about both Facebook and Google and links to some of Facebook's most egregious incidents like data sharing, Cambridge Analytica, WhatsApp. 3. The article then proceeds to tell you how to leave Google. It just comes across in a bad way. Don't mix up the two companies - they aren't equivalent. And if you want to give advice on leaving Google, do that instead of this switcharoo that uses Facebook's scandals as a reason to leave Google.
- mastazi 6y ago
  I agree, Google is bad enough on its own, no need to compare. It gets less negative press compared to Facebook, probably because they managed their public relations better, but if you really look, you will find plenty of reasons not to share all your data with them. (Having said that, Facebook is of course just as bad as Google if not worse)
  - superbcarrot 6y ago
    > probably because they managed their public relations better It's not only PR. Google haven't violated their users' privacy to the extent Facebook have, it's not even close.
    - m_a_g 6y ago
      Can you elaborate on how you made that conclusion?
      - judge2020 6y ago
        At least on a standpoint of what ‘partners’ or ‘developers’ can access, Google hasn’t had a Cambridge Analytica scenario play out (that we know of) so all of the data they have gained via web tracking for the purpose of ads is securely stored in a Google silo.
        berlam 6y ago
inopinatus 6y ago
Author missed a spot, still using fonts by Google, and their MX.
- ElectricMind 6y ago
  oops :))
- yaszko 6y ago
  haha, good spot !
mastazi 6y ago
I recently closed my Google account after a few months of an automated message informing anyone that the address would be closed soon (using the "Vacation responder" functionality from Gmail settings). In the meantime, I started using my new email address for all my online accounts and I passed it on to all my contacts. Another thing I did, was to download all my Google data (I saved the archives on my NAS at home and on my Nextcloud instance on Digitalocean). Since then, the only time I needed a Google account was when someone wanted to collaborate on a Google Docs file. I created a "burner" temporary account for that, which I subsequently closed. Every now and then I might watch something on Youtube, but I never really need to be logged in. It's funny because before closing my Google account, I imagined it would have been so hard, when if fact it was quite uneventful. During the last 12 months I also closed Reddit, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. It feels really good. I don't waste time during the day, I'm more focused during working hours and after work I have more time to do whatever I really like doing (as opposed to wasting time watching someone else doing those things on Youtube or Instagram).
- jrib 6y ago
  What did you end up using for email?
  - theshrike79 6y ago
    Not the parent, but I switched to Fastmail. It was the only one that provided large enough storage quotas for my Gmail inbox at a reasonable price. 5€/month for 30GB of storage + domain aliases + native iOS application. Protonmail is SuperSecure and all that, but they only have 5GB of storage and for the 4€/month account, getting it close to 30GB would be 6x that. (The quota was much lower when I evaluated the services around 4-5 years ago)
    - roblabla 6y ago
      Big +1 on fastmail. However, the big upside is that I have my own domain now, so if I need to migrate to something else (be it self-hosted or another provider) I can easily do so without losing all my contacts.
rom1v 6y ago
From the title, I initially thought that the author was a Google employee, and explained how to leave Google (is it that difficult?) :D
- kristopolous 6y ago
  I know a more than one that have been struggling with it so apparently yes.
  - inopinatus 6y ago
    I once got lost in the wetlands behind the Mountain View campus whilst trying to find an off-road bike route to Stanford and just ended up back where I started, but muddier. This is a probably a metaphor for something.
- azangru 6y ago
  > is it that difficult? That sweet paycheck tho.
  - s_dev 6y ago
    Industry term is "golden handcuffs".
dna_polymerase 6y ago
I've read many stupid posts about de-googling for various reasons. Mostly by people who also want me to follow them on social media platforms, whose data collection obviously doesn't matter, because... But this one really amazes me: > Recently Google changed their policy for storing photos. Starting from July 2021 you won't have unlimited High Quality storage as before rather than 15GB limit. This is still okay in terms of space but the politics behind it is just disgusting. Google was effectively feeding it's photo AI algorithms for face detection and tagging for years now using user data obtained by giving up the service for free. Now when these algorithms got so good and it's almost impossible to make them better and Google don't need users anymore they switched to make some money from the service. This guy is salty that Google doesn't provide their platform for free. Aside from that, of course, some ramblings about privacy and stuff. But seriously, complaining for not getting something for free. The entitlement is strong here. I'd go as far and use the author's words here and say it's disgusting. And the privacy arguments are BS, just look at those pretty Google Fonts he uses to tell you how bad Google is.
- ElectricMind 6y ago
  Please don't shoot the messenger. Many stupid posts earlier doesn't mean this one is also. You know he is salty? Any evidence? "some rambling ?" who decides? "Entitlement is strong" or your need to judge is stronger? "privacy arguments are BS" again where is reasoning?
  - dna_polymerase 6y ago
    > "some rambling ?" Yes the part "Why?", which should explain this motivation uses two paragraphs about unrelated stuff, like Cambridge Analytica, which was Facebook's problem not Google's. > "Entitlement is strong" Yes, complaining about someone not giving you something for free is entitlement. In its purest form. > "privacy arguments are BS" They obviously aren't. But in this context they are. Either you care about privacy or you continue to use Google products, like Google fonts. This just shows, what the author is "salty" about, which is Google charging for their products. Because he continues to use their free offerings.
- 6y ago
logicchains 6y ago
How to leave Google as a developer, the easy way: 1. Any time Google deprecates a service/library you're using or breaks it with backwards-incompatible changes, move to a non-Google equivalent. 2. Don't adopt any new Google services/libraries. And viola, before you know it you'll be Google free.
- xyproto 6y ago
  3. Goto 1 Or you'll be stuck with broken services.
  - logicchains 6y ago
    Fortunately the cost of migrating to a competitor is often not much greater than the cost of migrating to Google's newer offering, e.g. Tensorflow->Tensorflow2 vs Tensorflow->Pytorch, or Angular->Angular2 vs Angular->React.
    - dnautics 6y ago
      Angular -> React, presumably.
      - logicchains 6y ago
        Good catch thanks, fixed that now.
        marcus_holmes 6y ago
        except React == Facebook so you want Vue instead :)
- Tenoke 6y ago
  That sounds nice but this approach is unlikely to ever get me off Search, Gmail, Android, Maps, and Chrome and those are also the ones that likely give them the most info about me.
creato 6y ago
It hasn't been even 1 day since a nearly identical thread was on the front page: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25823645 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25823645 And I'm pretty sure we're averaging at least a few of these per week.
- bryan_w 6y ago
  It's like a template for getting clicks to their site
alkonaut 6y ago
How many times do you google something? 100 times per day? 200? I'm certainly in that neighborhood on most days. If the search results are even just slightly worse, say costing a second more to scan, or - worse - you spend time visiting irrelevant results before finding what you are after, that's an enormous time sink. Throwing out any other google service but search is easy. Yet there is basically nothing that google can do in terms of business practices, that would make me go "that's it, I'll just have to settle for these worse search results". So while I usually tend to argue the importance of integrity, it turns out I'm not ready to give up even a few minutes every day for this cause.
- randomguy404 6y ago
  Try startpage, it uses google results, but with no tracking whatsoever
- imiric 6y ago
  I suggest giving Searx[1] a try. It returns search results from most search engines, it's highly configurable and trivial to self host. There are some hiccups here and there, but it's well maintained and issues are quickly resolved. Besides the combined search results, a big positive for me is having a simple and consistent UI, free of A/B tests, ads or the concern that it may change some day because some overpaid design team discovered a change that maximizes engagement. [1]: https://searx.me/ https://searx.me/
- mastazi 6y ago
  I use Duckduckgo for most searches, and when it doesn't cut it, I add !sp at the end of the search - this will instruct Duckduckgo to redirect me to that same search on Startpage. Startpage uses Google results without passing your own personal data on to Google (or at least that's what they claim). It's like a proxied version of Google search.
  - amelius 6y ago
    I would use DDG if they added a "!g" button at the bottom of their first results page.
fsflover 6y ago
Related previous discussion with many good points: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25823645 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25823645
Tamazy 6y ago
What is the alternative...? They both provide important services...
ankit_it09 6y ago
Google is so much involved in our life, it is very difficult to just leave google but you can still minimize their activity tracking. This is what I am following from a long time: 1. Already deleted FB and Instagram account. When I came to know different sites also sends your activity data to FB. Deleting Whatsapp is in process and thanks to FB for opening about the privacy policy now many are moving to different channel. 2. Not using Chrome browser. Using Brave/Edge which are using the same chromium engines and are very Fast. Also I use Firefox for its container tabs feature. Personal stuff in Firefox tabs and rest on Brave. 3. I am using VPN, browser extension are also available, I keep my gmail account in a separate browser container tabs. 4. Tried DuckDuckGo for sometime but results are not good as Google, so I am using google search in separate tab where my account is not logged in. 5. Same with youtube, opening in different tab and without logging in. 6. Turned off timeline history in google maps. 7. Stopped using Google Home. 8. Planning to move from Android to _____ whichever is much safer. This is where I think doing all above won't make any sense as long as I am using Android. Believe I am using my phone in a restricted mode. :d After doing all this, I still think they can track my activity. Haha... But I am trying to make it little difficult to connect the dots. P.S: I do like Google as a developers company.
- shrimp_emoji 6y ago
  >4. Tried DuckDuckGo for sometime but results are not good as Google DDG's results have gotten comically bad, unfortunately. xD It used to be unusable for code stuff, but the unusability's getting more generalized. Still, you're just a "g!" away in the search query from Google results. >8. Planning to move from Android to _____ Usable Linux phones when ;3; (There's Librem 5 and PinePhone, but...)
yunruse 6y ago
If it helps any, Feedly accepts YouTube channels as valid URLs for feeds. Getting YouTube in an RSS reader is great; now I can keep videos for later simply by keeping them unread, rather than whatever Google's latest UI is.
arvindamirtaa 6y ago
I'd love to leave! As soon as someone comes up with a half decent hosted calendar service that's half as good as Google Calendar. People like to give GCal a lot of shit while comparing it with local apps; there's very few hosted services that are so versatile.
- numlock86 6y ago
  Well, there is Microsoft and the whole online Outlook stuff that comes with every Microsoft/OneDrive account ...
  - arvindamirtaa 6y ago
    If the reason people are leaving privacy, Microsoft doesn't fare much better.
- jblwps 6y ago
  What do you need in a calendar service that you can't find elsewhere? I use the Calendar app with NextCloud[0] for a CalDAV server + calendar web interface. It's fully-featured as far as I can tell. I use its CalDAV functionality to sync to my Android phone using DAVx^5[1], which integrates the calendars natively so that you can use whatever calendar app you want on your phone (I use Etar[2]). [0] https://apps.nextcloud.com/apps/calendar https://apps.nextcloud.com/apps/calendar [1] https://www.davx5.com/ https://www.davx5.com/ [2] https://github.com/Etar-Group/Etar-Calendar https://github.com/Etar-Group/Etar-Calendar
  - arvindamirtaa 6y ago
    Okay! What if I can't run my own nextcloud server? I need a consumer solution - a non technical way of making things work.
    - jblwps 6y ago
      Ah, gotcha. There are hosted Nextcloud solutions out there if you can't run your own instance. I've never used them and can't speak to how non-technical the overall process is (I'd guess it varies by provider). Nextcloud's website does have a page on getting ("free"?) accounts from providers. It took me a hot second to find the "change provider" link, but that allows you to see a bunch of options. https://nextcloud.com/signup/ https://nextcloud.com/signup/
robertlagrant 6y ago
> Some people say "I have nothing to hide, I don't care" which is essentialy [sic] ignoring basic human right and making this right worthless to you and very precious to others. As ever, this isn't to do with rights. The government isn't forcing you to do this. Neither is Google.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- cyphar 6y ago
  Human rights as a concept exist outside of the US Constitution. Just because something isn't illegal (in the US) doesn't mean it's not morally wrong or something you should not encourage.
  - robertlagrant 6y ago
    Morals and things worth encouraging are not the same as rights in any country (you mentioned the US for some reason, but could be any).
    - cyphar 6y ago
      Human rights exist regardless of the laws of any country. I said US because "the Bill of Rights only constrain government actions" (which is what GP was saying with slightly different phrasing) is a very common talking point from American libertarians. I said "morals and things worth encouraging" to avoid using obvious examples of human rights (to avoid side-tracking the conversation) but okay here are some examples: Slavery is an obvious and unquestionable violation of a person's human rights -- and that is a true statement regardless of the fact it was not illegal in many countries until the late-1800s (it was a violation of their human rights at the time as well). Same goes for the right to vote -- or if you prefer the right to self-governance -- which was not given to women and minorities until the mid-to-late 1900s. The fact that laws did not grant these people their rights doesn't mean their rights did not exist. In addition it should be obvious that rights can be taken away by someone who is not an agent of a government. If you enslave someone it is a violation of their human rights regardless of whether it was sanctioned by a government. So (hopefully this was already self-evident) human rights also exist outside of government action. That was the point I was making.
a_imho 6y ago
Don't delete your account, that means giving up control over it. Never log in.
AdrianB1 6y ago
The article does not really help me, for example, and this is why: I never had a Twitter, Reddit, Instagram account. I had a FB one for work opened ~ 2010 for recruiting presence, closed it a few years ago. I have an Android phone that works, like 99.99% of these phones, with a Google account and the article does not help with this. I also have a Google mail account (same) that I use for nothing important, I have a different, non-Google one for personal stuff separate from the work account. So I am fine with Google reading all my useless emails, no problem here. So, how and what to de-Google? The email ... no need. The phone ... no solution. Photos? Why would I ever put my photos on Internet, am I some kind of moron? Google Drive ... I used it as a dropbox to share a file with someone and delete it (and the file is encrypted if it matters). Waze? Wow, I have no replacement for that and I use it a lot, the traffic in my area is so bad (top 3 in Europe in the bad way) that Waze is essential to know where there are 10 minute standstills and try to go around or leave 15 minutes earlier. What is the replacement for it?
ashish1521 6y ago
There are tons of reasons, specific to separate Google products. Leave Google drive for a better solution like FileCloud or may be even Dropbox for the personal use. Leave Google Chrome for browsers like Opera/ FF or Brave, use may be Bing/ Duck duck go instead of Google search. It's a matter of perspective and personal choice, but there are alternates to Google products which are better ofcourse.
olah_1 6y ago
Ironically, leaving google is easier on Android because you can download and use apps without the App Store. For example, how is using YouTube via the iOS app any different _at all_? If you had android you could use the app newpipe.
- swiley 6y ago
  IMO: continuing to use youtube in any way isn't really leaving google.
  - olah_1 6y ago
    True, but proxying an app you use heavily to transition to a new platform can be useful. In any case, YouTube alternatives like LBRY have way better apps for android. Element (matrix chat) is also 100x better on android. I can only imagine that android is easier to develop on and get approved, even for more experimental apps like Manyverse (secure-scuttlebutt twitter).
thejellypen 6y ago
i cant be the only one who thinks this post is low/zero effort?
- Ayesh 6y ago
  No you are not the only one.
- ChrisArchitect 6y ago
  right. Another day, another google hate post on HN getting all the upvotes and traffic. Tired.
- shock 6y ago
  Much like your comment?
numlock86 6y ago
I was expecting this to be an article about leaving Google as an employee. The daily "You are at Google!"-elitist chatting makes you feel kind cool at first, but after two years you just get sick of hearing it and it becomes unbearable. (YMMV, I suppose it's not the same at all locations or within all departments ...) Regarding the article: The "Why?" paragraph talks about a lot of things, but not why you should quit using Google. If anything it tells you why you should quit using Facebook/Whatsapp. If the argument is "Facebook is bad, so Google must be bad" you might as well stop using the internet all together right now, as this can be applied to basically any other service provider of any kind.
swiftcoder 6y ago
The problem with moving away from Google and Facebook always seems to come down to cost and convenience. The recent removal of infinite photo storage, and the always-imminent demise of hangouts might have finally moved the for me on Google, but it's unfortunate that Google Docs is still the premiere collaboration platform for many folks. And Messenger/WhatsApp are the messaging platforms of choice in at least half the world. One can't just up and leave while staying in touch with friends/family.
IshKebab 6y ago
Rather pointless article. It doesn't give any new or even compelling arguments to leave. Just "woooo personal data". And it doesn't even tell you how to leave, like nobody is just going to delete all their data. People want alternatives.
imafish 6y ago
There are a lot of great services coming out of both Facebook and Google. Why on Earth is the seemingly most popular solution to "cancel" them? That is such a waste. I firmly believe the best remedies are regulation (to protect privacy) and breaking up monopolies.
- neltnerb 6y ago
  It is because their size and monopoly position makes then threatening of course. I imagine they will be less threatening after getting broken up but so far there's little evidence that will actually happen. I'd say it's realistic at this point to just assume they will stay unregulated monopolies and protect yourself as much as you can. It's not like it's even possible to actually "cancel" companies like this, that's just silly.
drakonka 6y ago
I would like to do this, but some services will need to hang around longer than others as I have not yet found replacements I fully like for them. For example, I am happy to be rid of Gmail and Photos, but still need to use the online editor features of Docs for the time being. And some I just really like and want to keep using, like Google Music. I wonder if there is any point deleting any of the services if I don't get rid of _all_ of them right away? Will just keeping Docs and Music and removing everything else make any meaningful impact on what data Google tracks and stores about me?
_0o6v 6y ago
> Some people say "I have nothing to hide, I don't care" which is essentialy ignoring basic human right and making this right worthless to you and very precious to others. This doesn't make much sense, but I think I get the idea. What most people mean when they say this is "the value I get out is worth more than the data I put in". And that's a perfectly valid view.
- heyoo 6y ago
  > "the value I get out is worth more than the data I put in". And that's a perfectly valid view. Sure. But that is only a valid view if the seller of services is transparent about the price. Currently, I have absolutely no idea what I am paying to use Google.
jes 6y ago
Quick question: If you wanted to put your phone in a field of some kind where it received faked GPS data, could you do it, and if so, how?
addicted 6y ago
I really disagree with the Why of this article. I think there are good reasons to move away, or at least consider reducing dependence on Google, and the last point about the change in Google Photos policy hints at that (but even there it creates a kind of conspiracy theory where none is needed). For me, the Whys would be: 1) Far too much dependence on Google. It's probably not a good thing to have so much dependence on any single entity if its avoidable. 2) Google is extremely unreliable in maintaining their services. We have all seen them randomly discontinue services, even successful ones, because their standards for success are also Google scale. This means that anything you're using is at risk of being discontinued and forcing you to find an alternative in a rush, as opposed to doing it ahead of time when you can pick the time and choosing of finding the alternative. 3) Constantly changing UX. Based on HN comments, it appears Google has an internal culture that rewards constant churn. PErsonally, for example, Google Maps has always been untouchable for me. Until their UI changes have started hiding so much data, that just this weekend, it was almost impossible for me to find the address to a destination so I could enter it in my rental car's Nav system. After a few minutes of fumbling around I switched to Apple Maps, for the first time ever, where it was trivial.
- ricardo81 6y ago
  Think your points broadly cover the consensus. I usually refer to [0] for people looking to alternatives though [1] was pointed out to me on here which also looks good and breaks the choices down by operating system. [0] https://degoogle.jmoore.dev/ https://degoogle.jmoore.dev/ [1] https://prism-break.org https://prism-break.org
- trident5000 6y ago
  I switched my main email account to protonmail a few months ago. Feels like a weight is off my shoulders. Aside from how invasive the company is, the layout is just illogical for me especially when replying and forwarding. Its also been getting progressively slower.
parisianka 6y ago
Disgusting - Google was effectively feeding it's photo AI algorithms for face detection and tagging for years
tantalor 6y ago
Block certain ads > Turn off personalized ads https://support.google.com/ads/answer/2662922?hl=en https://support.google.com/ads/answer/2662922?hl=en Once you've turned off personalization, Google will no longer use your info to personalize your ads. Ads can still be targeted with info like your general location or the content of the website you’re visiting.
- local_dev 6y ago
  While those are nice words to read, I simply don't believe them. I've had personalized ads turned off on my google account since the feature was available and I still get personalized ads everywhere that they show up. That isn't damning evidence because Google isn't the only ad network, but for me it is enough to not believe those words. I also completely realize this is an irrational opinion. I'm extremely jaded by advertising and want the major ad companies to have as little of my data as possible.
fitblipper 6y ago
One of Google's largest PR mistakes has been not distancing itself more aggressively from Facebook. Everywhere I look I see criticisms of these 2 companies together being poor stewards of user data but almost all the articles focus on Facebook's track record. I'm not saying Google is completely clean in this regard but it has never had breaches of data or trust that even compares to Facebook's. In this article for example, they can point to Cambridge Analytica for Facebook (which was bad IMO) and can point to Google Photos charging for high quality photos (uh... what?) Even when it comes to government surveillance, Google was the first to release the transparency reports and from my understanding, even when requested to keep requests from data for law enforcement they'll often push back and notify the owners of the accounts when their data was requested and delivered to their government (according to a few lawyers I've spoken to which have had experience with Google provided data).
randompirate 6y ago
can we delete google play account (like youtube, google one,) while keeping the mail account
wooptoo 6y ago
1. Have your email address on a domain that's under your own control. Whoever controls your email box has control over your entire online persona. 2. Backup data from Google using automated tools like rclone. Rclone can download Google Drive data and Google Photos (albeit with duplicates). 3. Encrypt and backup your data to services like Backblaze, AWS S3, Wasabi, etc.
- mceachen 6y ago
  At least for your photos, you probably want to use Google Takeout. Rclone is wonderful, but Google's photo api strips off GPS tags from all your files. PhotoStructure will dedupe your Google Takeout, FWIW.
system16 6y ago
The recent 180 with Google Photos was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. I've seen them abandon products in the past, and have always been wary about their use of my data, albeit never enough to make the effort to use another service or pay for one. This was such a bold reversal of their promise to offer free photo storage "forever" that I felt like it's only a matter of time before I get seriously impacted in other ways. So I switched up everything: - Google Photos -> Apple Photos (and local backups) - Google Maps -> Apple Maps (luckily recent improvements have made it usable for my region) - Gmail -> Fastmail - Google Search -> Duck Duck Go (still relying on !g for most programming related searches) - Google Chomre -> Safari (switched a year ago) On the plus side, it feels good moving away from Google and not giving them my data. On the downside I'm now paying for services that I had for free, and in some ways getting more tied to Apple.
Hnsuz 6y ago
People against technocrat communism??
aluminum96 6y ago
I think Google has been trying much, much harder than Facebook to prevent breaches, so it's annoying to see them use Cambridge Analytica (a FB scandal!) as a reason to ditch Google.
jaimex2 6y ago
Individuals leaving is pointless, it needs to be a mass exodus. I'd love to see write ups on ways to make competing products and have a shot at taking customers from big tech.

232 points by yaszko 6y ago

znpy 6y ago

One of the biggest problems is probably that there's almost no way of using an android phone and purchase apps without a google account (which will be then linked to purchases and activities).

Semaphor 6y ago
Using is possible with microG [1], but it’s not stable yet and purchasing is indeed very rarely possible (the only Android App I have bought outside the playstore is Titanium Backup) [1]: https://microg.org/ https://microg.org/
mrjin 6y ago
Maybe try FDroid?
zahrc 6y ago
> just use iPhone, FDroid or a dumb phone, duh Honestly, we need a optimised non-custom rom alternative to smartphone operating systems, which is not iOS or google/android. While the custom-rom development has come a long way, it's to fiddly, often lacks long-term support, shortcomings in terms of stability (network/singal disruptions, battery usage, crashes, bricks)and even privacy.
- doublerabbit 6y ago
  The 2005's rang, they want their phones back. My Sony Ericsson 500i was my edgy love of my teenage college years. Every provider had their own phone with their own firmware. Android appeared and nearly-all of them got in to bed with Google. And so here we are, living in a world of a million different sized rectangles; all running Android. > Honestly, we need a optimised non-custom rom alternative to smartphone operating systems, which is not iOS or google/android. Symbian was way ahead for its time. But I'm just glad we have some developments such as PinePhone and Librem
  - oblio 6y ago
    Symbian was not it. Meego was it. Nokia messed up by not actually sharing it properly like the Android Alliance or whatever it was called did. Nokia went under and Android is everywhere :-(
    - solnyshok 6y ago
      I still have a running specimen of N9 in my drawer. They killed own future when they stopped Meego development.
lucideer 6y ago
This isn't true. There's two caveats: (a) it's a little unstable with no Google account but using a throwaway Google account fixes this, and (b) it doesn't get you away from Google because they still have a lot of ways to track you in Android without an account, but... You can disable Play services and install Aurora Store from F-Droid and have a very reasonable Android experience with no Google account. Aurora Store is a Play Store client that doesn't require a Google account, so you can get access to all the "normal" commercial apps and games that are absent on F-Droid. The developers use a central account for API access which can get rate limited and get blocked sometimes (they recommend you sign in with your own throwaway Google account to avoid this), but otherwise it's better than Play Store in many ways. Some apps will not work without Play services but I've found that in most cases it's either a matter of: - some annoying notification function of the app doesn't work but the rest of the app works fine - in some rare cases, apps with a strong reliance on Play services have alternative independent builds available as apk from their own website You can also just leave Play services enabled and simply never log into your Google account (the Aurora account login is separate, it doesn't link into the rest of the device) BUT if you do this Google will plague you with prompts to login for all eternity.
ForHackernews 6y ago
https://e.foundation/ https://e.foundation/ is an Android/Lineage fork that removes Google services. It comes with its own app store (mix of F-Droid and Play store APKs, from what I can tell) It's not perfect, but works well enough for daily use in my experience.
coldtea 6y ago
>One of the biggest problems is probably that there's almost no way of using an android phone and purchase apps without a google account Get an iPhone then? Or a feature-phone?
izacus 6y ago
There are many Huawei devices being sold in my region which are completely Google free - and they have apps. So it seems it's possible? (Not to mention many deGoogled Android builds like Lineage which, ironically, usually run best on Google phones due to their published sources).

superbcarrot 6y ago

1. The title mentions only Google. 2. The article then talks about both Facebook and Google and links to some of Facebook's most egregious incidents like data sharing, Cambridge Analytica, WhatsApp. 3. The article then proceeds to tell you how to leave Google. It just comes across in a bad way. Don't mix up the two companies - they aren't equivalent. And if you want to give advice on leaving Google, do that instead of this switcharoo that uses Facebook's scandals as a reason to leave Google.

mastazi 6y ago
I agree, Google is bad enough on its own, no need to compare. It gets less negative press compared to Facebook, probably because they managed their public relations better, but if you really look, you will find plenty of reasons not to share all your data with them. (Having said that, Facebook is of course just as bad as Google if not worse)
- superbcarrot 6y ago
  > probably because they managed their public relations better It's not only PR. Google haven't violated their users' privacy to the extent Facebook have, it's not even close.
  - m_a_g 6y ago
    Can you elaborate on how you made that conclusion?
    - judge2020 6y ago
      At least on a standpoint of what ‘partners’ or ‘developers’ can access, Google hasn’t had a Cambridge Analytica scenario play out (that we know of) so all of the data they have gained via web tracking for the purpose of ads is securely stored in a Google silo.
      - berlam 6y ago

inopinatus 6y ago

Author missed a spot, still using fonts by Google, and their MX.

ElectricMind 6y ago
oops :))
yaszko 6y ago
haha, good spot !

mastazi 6y ago

I recently closed my Google account after a few months of an automated message informing anyone that the address would be closed soon (using the "Vacation responder" functionality from Gmail settings). In the meantime, I started using my new email address for all my online accounts and I passed it on to all my contacts. Another thing I did, was to download all my Google data (I saved the archives on my NAS at home and on my Nextcloud instance on Digitalocean). Since then, the only time I needed a Google account was when someone wanted to collaborate on a Google Docs file. I created a "burner" temporary account for that, which I subsequently closed. Every now and then I might watch something on Youtube, but I never really need to be logged in. It's funny because before closing my Google account, I imagined it would have been so hard, when if fact it was quite uneventful. During the last 12 months I also closed Reddit, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. It feels really good. I don't waste time during the day, I'm more focused during working hours and after work I have more time to do whatever I really like doing (as opposed to wasting time watching someone else doing those things on Youtube or Instagram).

jrib 6y ago
What did you end up using for email?
- theshrike79 6y ago
  Not the parent, but I switched to Fastmail. It was the only one that provided large enough storage quotas for my Gmail inbox at a reasonable price. 5€/month for 30GB of storage + domain aliases + native iOS application. Protonmail is SuperSecure and all that, but they only have 5GB of storage and for the 4€/month account, getting it close to 30GB would be 6x that. (The quota was much lower when I evaluated the services around 4-5 years ago)
  - roblabla 6y ago
    Big +1 on fastmail. However, the big upside is that I have my own domain now, so if I need to migrate to something else (be it self-hosted or another provider) I can easily do so without losing all my contacts.

rom1v 6y ago

From the title, I initially thought that the author was a Google employee, and explained how to leave Google (is it that difficult?) :D

kristopolous 6y ago
I know a more than one that have been struggling with it so apparently yes.
- inopinatus 6y ago
  I once got lost in the wetlands behind the Mountain View campus whilst trying to find an off-road bike route to Stanford and just ended up back where I started, but muddier. This is a probably a metaphor for something.
azangru 6y ago
> is it that difficult? That sweet paycheck tho.
- s_dev 6y ago
  Industry term is "golden handcuffs".

dna_polymerase 6y ago

I've read many stupid posts about de-googling for various reasons. Mostly by people who also want me to follow them on social media platforms, whose data collection obviously doesn't matter, because... But this one really amazes me: > Recently Google changed their policy for storing photos. Starting from July 2021 you won't have unlimited High Quality storage as before rather than 15GB limit. This is still okay in terms of space but the politics behind it is just disgusting. Google was effectively feeding it's photo AI algorithms for face detection and tagging for years now using user data obtained by giving up the service for free. Now when these algorithms got so good and it's almost impossible to make them better and Google don't need users anymore they switched to make some money from the service. This guy is salty that Google doesn't provide their platform for free. Aside from that, of course, some ramblings about privacy and stuff. But seriously, complaining for not getting something for free. The entitlement is strong here. I'd go as far and use the author's words here and say it's disgusting. And the privacy arguments are BS, just look at those pretty Google Fonts he uses to tell you how bad Google is.

ElectricMind 6y ago
Please don't shoot the messenger. Many stupid posts earlier doesn't mean this one is also. You know he is salty? Any evidence? "some rambling ?" who decides? "Entitlement is strong" or your need to judge is stronger? "privacy arguments are BS" again where is reasoning?
- dna_polymerase 6y ago
  > "some rambling ?" Yes the part "Why?", which should explain this motivation uses two paragraphs about unrelated stuff, like Cambridge Analytica, which was Facebook's problem not Google's. > "Entitlement is strong" Yes, complaining about someone not giving you something for free is entitlement. In its purest form. > "privacy arguments are BS" They obviously aren't. But in this context they are. Either you care about privacy or you continue to use Google products, like Google fonts. This just shows, what the author is "salty" about, which is Google charging for their products. Because he continues to use their free offerings.
6y ago

logicchains 6y ago

How to leave Google as a developer, the easy way: 1. Any time Google deprecates a service/library you're using or breaks it with backwards-incompatible changes, move to a non-Google equivalent. 2. Don't adopt any new Google services/libraries. And viola, before you know it you'll be Google free.

xyproto 6y ago
3. Goto 1 Or you'll be stuck with broken services.
- logicchains 6y ago
  Fortunately the cost of migrating to a competitor is often not much greater than the cost of migrating to Google's newer offering, e.g. Tensorflow->Tensorflow2 vs Tensorflow->Pytorch, or Angular->Angular2 vs Angular->React.
  - dnautics 6y ago
    Angular -> React, presumably.
    - logicchains 6y ago
      Good catch thanks, fixed that now.
      - marcus_holmes 6y ago
        except React == Facebook so you want Vue instead :)
Tenoke 6y ago
That sounds nice but this approach is unlikely to ever get me off Search, Gmail, Android, Maps, and Chrome and those are also the ones that likely give them the most info about me.

creato 6y ago

It hasn't been even 1 day since a nearly identical thread was on the front page: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25823645 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25823645 And I'm pretty sure we're averaging at least a few of these per week.

bryan_w 6y ago
It's like a template for getting clicks to their site

alkonaut 6y ago

How many times do you google something? 100 times per day? 200? I'm certainly in that neighborhood on most days. If the search results are even just slightly worse, say costing a second more to scan, or - worse - you spend time visiting irrelevant results before finding what you are after, that's an enormous time sink. Throwing out any other google service but search is easy. Yet there is basically nothing that google can do in terms of business practices, that would make me go "that's it, I'll just have to settle for these worse search results". So while I usually tend to argue the importance of integrity, it turns out I'm not ready to give up even a few minutes every day for this cause.

randomguy404 6y ago
Try startpage, it uses google results, but with no tracking whatsoever
imiric 6y ago
I suggest giving Searx[1] a try. It returns search results from most search engines, it's highly configurable and trivial to self host. There are some hiccups here and there, but it's well maintained and issues are quickly resolved. Besides the combined search results, a big positive for me is having a simple and consistent UI, free of A/B tests, ads or the concern that it may change some day because some overpaid design team discovered a change that maximizes engagement. [1]: https://searx.me/ https://searx.me/
mastazi 6y ago
I use Duckduckgo for most searches, and when it doesn't cut it, I add !sp at the end of the search - this will instruct Duckduckgo to redirect me to that same search on Startpage. Startpage uses Google results without passing your own personal data on to Google (or at least that's what they claim). It's like a proxied version of Google search.
- amelius 6y ago
  I would use DDG if they added a "!g" button at the bottom of their first results page.

fsflover 6y ago

Related previous discussion with many good points: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25823645 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25823645

Tamazy 6y ago

What is the alternative...? They both provide important services...

ankit_it09 6y ago

Google is so much involved in our life, it is very difficult to just leave google but you can still minimize their activity tracking. This is what I am following from a long time: 1. Already deleted FB and Instagram account. When I came to know different sites also sends your activity data to FB. Deleting Whatsapp is in process and thanks to FB for opening about the privacy policy now many are moving to different channel. 2. Not using Chrome browser. Using Brave/Edge which are using the same chromium engines and are very Fast. Also I use Firefox for its container tabs feature. Personal stuff in Firefox tabs and rest on Brave. 3. I am using VPN, browser extension are also available, I keep my gmail account in a separate browser container tabs. 4. Tried DuckDuckGo for sometime but results are not good as Google, so I am using google search in separate tab where my account is not logged in. 5. Same with youtube, opening in different tab and without logging in. 6. Turned off timeline history in google maps. 7. Stopped using Google Home. 8. Planning to move from Android to _____ whichever is much safer. This is where I think doing all above won't make any sense as long as I am using Android. Believe I am using my phone in a restricted mode. :d After doing all this, I still think they can track my activity. Haha... But I am trying to make it little difficult to connect the dots. P.S: I do like Google as a developers company.

shrimp_emoji 6y ago
>4. Tried DuckDuckGo for sometime but results are not good as Google DDG's results have gotten comically bad, unfortunately. xD It used to be unusable for code stuff, but the unusability's getting more generalized. Still, you're just a "g!" away in the search query from Google results. >8. Planning to move from Android to _____ Usable Linux phones when ;3; (There's Librem 5 and PinePhone, but...)

yunruse 6y ago

If it helps any, Feedly accepts YouTube channels as valid URLs for feeds. Getting YouTube in an RSS reader is great; now I can keep videos for later simply by keeping them unread, rather than whatever Google's latest UI is.

arvindamirtaa 6y ago

I'd love to leave! As soon as someone comes up with a half decent hosted calendar service that's half as good as Google Calendar. People like to give GCal a lot of shit while comparing it with local apps; there's very few hosted services that are so versatile.

numlock86 6y ago
Well, there is Microsoft and the whole online Outlook stuff that comes with every Microsoft/OneDrive account ...
- arvindamirtaa 6y ago
  If the reason people are leaving privacy, Microsoft doesn't fare much better.
jblwps 6y ago
What do you need in a calendar service that you can't find elsewhere? I use the Calendar app with NextCloud[0] for a CalDAV server + calendar web interface. It's fully-featured as far as I can tell. I use its CalDAV functionality to sync to my Android phone using DAVx^5[1], which integrates the calendars natively so that you can use whatever calendar app you want on your phone (I use Etar[2]). [0] https://apps.nextcloud.com/apps/calendar https://apps.nextcloud.com/apps/calendar [1] https://www.davx5.com/ https://www.davx5.com/ [2] https://github.com/Etar-Group/Etar-Calendar https://github.com/Etar-Group/Etar-Calendar
- arvindamirtaa 6y ago
  Okay! What if I can't run my own nextcloud server? I need a consumer solution - a non technical way of making things work.
  - jblwps 6y ago
    Ah, gotcha. There are hosted Nextcloud solutions out there if you can't run your own instance. I've never used them and can't speak to how non-technical the overall process is (I'd guess it varies by provider). Nextcloud's website does have a page on getting ("free"?) accounts from providers. It took me a hot second to find the "change provider" link, but that allows you to see a bunch of options. https://nextcloud.com/signup/ https://nextcloud.com/signup/

robertlagrant 6y ago

> Some people say "I have nothing to hide, I don't care" which is essentialy [sic] ignoring basic human right and making this right worthless to you and very precious to others. As ever, this isn't to do with rights. The government isn't forcing you to do this. Neither is Google.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
cyphar 6y ago
Human rights as a concept exist outside of the US Constitution. Just because something isn't illegal (in the US) doesn't mean it's not morally wrong or something you should not encourage.
- robertlagrant 6y ago
  Morals and things worth encouraging are not the same as rights in any country (you mentioned the US for some reason, but could be any).
  - cyphar 6y ago
    Human rights exist regardless of the laws of any country. I said US because "the Bill of Rights only constrain government actions" (which is what GP was saying with slightly different phrasing) is a very common talking point from American libertarians. I said "morals and things worth encouraging" to avoid using obvious examples of human rights (to avoid side-tracking the conversation) but okay here are some examples: Slavery is an obvious and unquestionable violation of a person's human rights -- and that is a true statement regardless of the fact it was not illegal in many countries until the late-1800s (it was a violation of their human rights at the time as well). Same goes for the right to vote -- or if you prefer the right to self-governance -- which was not given to women and minorities until the mid-to-late 1900s. The fact that laws did not grant these people their rights doesn't mean their rights did not exist. In addition it should be obvious that rights can be taken away by someone who is not an agent of a government. If you enslave someone it is a violation of their human rights regardless of whether it was sanctioned by a government. So (hopefully this was already self-evident) human rights also exist outside of government action. That was the point I was making.

a_imho 6y ago

Don't delete your account, that means giving up control over it. Never log in.

AdrianB1 6y ago

The article does not really help me, for example, and this is why: I never had a Twitter, Reddit, Instagram account. I had a FB one for work opened ~ 2010 for recruiting presence, closed it a few years ago. I have an Android phone that works, like 99.99% of these phones, with a Google account and the article does not help with this. I also have a Google mail account (same) that I use for nothing important, I have a different, non-Google one for personal stuff separate from the work account. So I am fine with Google reading all my useless emails, no problem here. So, how and what to de-Google? The email ... no need. The phone ... no solution. Photos? Why would I ever put my photos on Internet, am I some kind of moron? Google Drive ... I used it as a dropbox to share a file with someone and delete it (and the file is encrypted if it matters). Waze? Wow, I have no replacement for that and I use it a lot, the traffic in my area is so bad (top 3 in Europe in the bad way) that Waze is essential to know where there are 10 minute standstills and try to go around or leave 15 minutes earlier. What is the replacement for it?

ashish1521 6y ago

There are tons of reasons, specific to separate Google products. Leave Google drive for a better solution like FileCloud or may be even Dropbox for the personal use. Leave Google Chrome for browsers like Opera/ FF or Brave, use may be Bing/ Duck duck go instead of Google search. It's a matter of perspective and personal choice, but there are alternates to Google products which are better ofcourse.

olah_1 6y ago

Ironically, leaving google is easier on Android because you can download and use apps without the App Store. For example, how is using YouTube via the iOS app any different _at all_? If you had android you could use the app newpipe.

swiley 6y ago
IMO: continuing to use youtube in any way isn't really leaving google.
- olah_1 6y ago
  True, but proxying an app you use heavily to transition to a new platform can be useful. In any case, YouTube alternatives like LBRY have way better apps for android. Element (matrix chat) is also 100x better on android. I can only imagine that android is easier to develop on and get approved, even for more experimental apps like Manyverse (secure-scuttlebutt twitter).

thejellypen 6y ago

i cant be the only one who thinks this post is low/zero effort?

Ayesh 6y ago
No you are not the only one.
ChrisArchitect 6y ago
right. Another day, another google hate post on HN getting all the upvotes and traffic. Tired.
shock 6y ago
Much like your comment?

numlock86 6y ago

I was expecting this to be an article about leaving Google as an employee. The daily "You are at Google!"-elitist chatting makes you feel kind cool at first, but after two years you just get sick of hearing it and it becomes unbearable. (YMMV, I suppose it's not the same at all locations or within all departments ...) Regarding the article: The "Why?" paragraph talks about a lot of things, but not why you should quit using Google. If anything it tells you why you should quit using Facebook/Whatsapp. If the argument is "Facebook is bad, so Google must be bad" you might as well stop using the internet all together right now, as this can be applied to basically any other service provider of any kind.

swiftcoder 6y ago

The problem with moving away from Google and Facebook always seems to come down to cost and convenience. The recent removal of infinite photo storage, and the always-imminent demise of hangouts might have finally moved the for me on Google, but it's unfortunate that Google Docs is still the premiere collaboration platform for many folks. And Messenger/WhatsApp are the messaging platforms of choice in at least half the world. One can't just up and leave while staying in touch with friends/family.

IshKebab 6y ago

Rather pointless article. It doesn't give any new or even compelling arguments to leave. Just "woooo personal data". And it doesn't even tell you how to leave, like nobody is just going to delete all their data. People want alternatives.

imafish 6y ago

There are a lot of great services coming out of both Facebook and Google. Why on Earth is the seemingly most popular solution to "cancel" them? That is such a waste. I firmly believe the best remedies are regulation (to protect privacy) and breaking up monopolies.

neltnerb 6y ago
It is because their size and monopoly position makes then threatening of course. I imagine they will be less threatening after getting broken up but so far there's little evidence that will actually happen. I'd say it's realistic at this point to just assume they will stay unregulated monopolies and protect yourself as much as you can. It's not like it's even possible to actually "cancel" companies like this, that's just silly.

drakonka 6y ago

I would like to do this, but some services will need to hang around longer than others as I have not yet found replacements I fully like for them. For example, I am happy to be rid of Gmail and Photos, but still need to use the online editor features of Docs for the time being. And some I just really like and want to keep using, like Google Music. I wonder if there is any point deleting any of the services if I don't get rid of _all_ of them right away? Will just keeping Docs and Music and removing everything else make any meaningful impact on what data Google tracks and stores about me?

_0o6v 6y ago

> Some people say "I have nothing to hide, I don't care" which is essentialy ignoring basic human right and making this right worthless to you and very precious to others. This doesn't make much sense, but I think I get the idea. What most people mean when they say this is "the value I get out is worth more than the data I put in". And that's a perfectly valid view.

heyoo 6y ago
> "the value I get out is worth more than the data I put in". And that's a perfectly valid view. Sure. But that is only a valid view if the seller of services is transparent about the price. Currently, I have absolutely no idea what I am paying to use Google.

jes 6y ago

Quick question: If you wanted to put your phone in a field of some kind where it received faked GPS data, could you do it, and if so, how?

addicted 6y ago

I really disagree with the Why of this article. I think there are good reasons to move away, or at least consider reducing dependence on Google, and the last point about the change in Google Photos policy hints at that (but even there it creates a kind of conspiracy theory where none is needed). For me, the Whys would be: 1) Far too much dependence on Google. It's probably not a good thing to have so much dependence on any single entity if its avoidable. 2) Google is extremely unreliable in maintaining their services. We have all seen them randomly discontinue services, even successful ones, because their standards for success are also Google scale. This means that anything you're using is at risk of being discontinued and forcing you to find an alternative in a rush, as opposed to doing it ahead of time when you can pick the time and choosing of finding the alternative. 3) Constantly changing UX. Based on HN comments, it appears Google has an internal culture that rewards constant churn. PErsonally, for example, Google Maps has always been untouchable for me. Until their UI changes have started hiding so much data, that just this weekend, it was almost impossible for me to find the address to a destination so I could enter it in my rental car's Nav system. After a few minutes of fumbling around I switched to Apple Maps, for the first time ever, where it was trivial.

ricardo81 6y ago
Think your points broadly cover the consensus. I usually refer to [0] for people looking to alternatives though [1] was pointed out to me on here which also looks good and breaks the choices down by operating system. [0] https://degoogle.jmoore.dev/ https://degoogle.jmoore.dev/ [1] https://prism-break.org https://prism-break.org
trident5000 6y ago
I switched my main email account to protonmail a few months ago. Feels like a weight is off my shoulders. Aside from how invasive the company is, the layout is just illogical for me especially when replying and forwarding. Its also been getting progressively slower.

parisianka 6y ago

Disgusting - Google was effectively feeding it's photo AI algorithms for face detection and tagging for years

tantalor 6y ago

Block certain ads > Turn off personalized ads https://support.google.com/ads/answer/2662922?hl=en https://support.google.com/ads/answer/2662922?hl=en Once you've turned off personalization, Google will no longer use your info to personalize your ads. Ads can still be targeted with info like your general location or the content of the website you’re visiting.

local_dev 6y ago
While those are nice words to read, I simply don't believe them. I've had personalized ads turned off on my google account since the feature was available and I still get personalized ads everywhere that they show up. That isn't damning evidence because Google isn't the only ad network, but for me it is enough to not believe those words. I also completely realize this is an irrational opinion. I'm extremely jaded by advertising and want the major ad companies to have as little of my data as possible.

fitblipper 6y ago

One of Google's largest PR mistakes has been not distancing itself more aggressively from Facebook. Everywhere I look I see criticisms of these 2 companies together being poor stewards of user data but almost all the articles focus on Facebook's track record. I'm not saying Google is completely clean in this regard but it has never had breaches of data or trust that even compares to Facebook's. In this article for example, they can point to Cambridge Analytica for Facebook (which was bad IMO) and can point to Google Photos charging for high quality photos (uh... what?) Even when it comes to government surveillance, Google was the first to release the transparency reports and from my understanding, even when requested to keep requests from data for law enforcement they'll often push back and notify the owners of the accounts when their data was requested and delivered to their government (according to a few lawyers I've spoken to which have had experience with Google provided data).

randompirate 6y ago

can we delete google play account (like youtube, google one,) while keeping the mail account

wooptoo 6y ago

1. Have your email address on a domain that's under your own control. Whoever controls your email box has control over your entire online persona. 2. Backup data from Google using automated tools like rclone. Rclone can download Google Drive data and Google Photos (albeit with duplicates). 3. Encrypt and backup your data to services like Backblaze, AWS S3, Wasabi, etc.

mceachen 6y ago
At least for your photos, you probably want to use Google Takeout. Rclone is wonderful, but Google's photo api strips off GPS tags from all your files. PhotoStructure will dedupe your Google Takeout, FWIW.

system16 6y ago

The recent 180 with Google Photos was the straw that broke the camel's back for me. I've seen them abandon products in the past, and have always been wary about their use of my data, albeit never enough to make the effort to use another service or pay for one. This was such a bold reversal of their promise to offer free photo storage "forever" that I felt like it's only a matter of time before I get seriously impacted in other ways. So I switched up everything: - Google Photos -> Apple Photos (and local backups) - Google Maps -> Apple Maps (luckily recent improvements have made it usable for my region) - Gmail -> Fastmail - Google Search -> Duck Duck Go (still relying on !g for most programming related searches) - Google Chomre -> Safari (switched a year ago) On the plus side, it feels good moving away from Google and not giving them my data. On the downside I'm now paying for services that I had for free, and in some ways getting more tied to Apple.

Hnsuz 6y ago

People against technocrat communism??

aluminum96 6y ago

I think Google has been trying much, much harder than Facebook to prevent breaches, so it's annoying to see them use Cambridge Analytica (a FB scandal!) as a reason to ditch Google.

jaimex2 6y ago

Individuals leaving is pointless, it needs to be a mass exodus. I'd love to see write ups on ways to make competing products and have a shot at taking customers from big tech.