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I have been considering this recently as well, and exploring the alternatives... * Search - DDG is good enough most of the time * Google+ - I can live without

by tsycho 15y ago

I have been considering this recently as well, and exploring the alternatives... * Search - DDG is good enough most of the time * Google+ - I can live without this, no biggie * Reader - I love it, but it's not critical. Any suggestions for alternatives? * Gmail - This is a big one. I don't want to use Hotmail/Yahoo either because that is just jumping from one frying pan to another. So anyone.....are you willing to build a DDG for Gmail? I am willing to pay for it as well. But I need a large inbox (5GB+), speed, reliability, great spam protection, priority inbox, don't sell my data, no personalized ads....and my money is yours :) I might even be willing to work with you on this, just don't have the time/inclination to do this alone. * Google apps for business - at the moment, I just use the email feature of this extensively, so once again, the Gmail alternative can work here. * Google analytics - there are pretty good competitors out there, though not necessarily free (but that's okay) So in my opinion, apart from email, I think it's possible to move off Google's services without disrupting your life.

Kototama 15y ago
You could try Netvibes, they have a news reader which was good enough for me to make the switch. You can have two different views. Check the second and third screenshots of this page: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/netvibes-wasabi-a-blow-your-socks-off-feed-reader/ http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/netvibes-wasabi-a-blow-your-soc...
ajross 15y ago
Just host your own mail. You're never going to get those requirements met by a service. The incentives don't match. Spamassassin can't match gmail, but even for my address (in use for 15 years!) it's reasonable: maybe 6-10 false negatives per day. Whether moving off google specifically is really that useful, I'm mixed. No other cloud providers have a better record certainly. I guess I don't see the logic, except as a knee-jerk "enemy of the week" thing (mild troll: you're an iPhone user, right?). Getting your data out of the cloud in general makes more sense to me, but is a lot more difficult.
- Symmetry 15y ago
  Spam filtering is just one from a long list of features that Gmail has that I don't know of any other email service providing, though.
  - ajross 15y ago
    Sure. But playing the "checklist feature" game can lock you into any platform you want to argue about. I have stuff in my private hosting that I can't get from gmail too (procmail triggers and filtering, I can deliver mail from my business address through the corporate SMTP servers over a VPN, ...). The question is whether productive use of email can be done without gmail (or more broadly cloud providers). It can, and it's not difficult. And if one really cares about privacy and archival concerns (and not just sticking it to Google) it's something one should investigate.

by tsycho 15y ago

Kototama 15y ago

You could try Netvibes, they have a news reader which was good enough for me to make the switch. You can have two different views. Check the second and third screenshots of this page: http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/netvibes-wasabi-a-blow-your-socks-off-feed-reader/ http://www.makeuseof.com/tag/netvibes-wasabi-a-blow-your-soc...

ajross 15y ago

Just host your own mail. You're never going to get those requirements met by a service. The incentives don't match. Spamassassin can't match gmail, but even for my address (in use for 15 years!) it's reasonable: maybe 6-10 false negatives per day. Whether moving off google specifically is really that useful, I'm mixed. No other cloud providers have a better record certainly. I guess I don't see the logic, except as a knee-jerk "enemy of the week" thing (mild troll: you're an iPhone user, right?). Getting your data out of the cloud in general makes more sense to me, but is a lot more difficult.

Symmetry 15y ago
Spam filtering is just one from a long list of features that Gmail has that I don't know of any other email service providing, though.
- ajross 15y ago
  Sure. But playing the "checklist feature" game can lock you into any platform you want to argue about. I have stuff in my private hosting that I can't get from gmail too (procmail triggers and filtering, I can deliver mail from my business address through the corporate SMTP servers over a VPN, ...). The question is whether productive use of email can be done without gmail (or more broadly cloud providers). It can, and it's not difficult. And if one really cares about privacy and archival concerns (and not just sticking it to Google) it's something one should investigate.