4 ms·

Google doing Google things I'm gonna start the degoogling of my life asap.

by okokwhatever 2y ago

valevk 2y ago
Switched to proton, never looked back
- girvo 2y ago
  Fastmail for me, but yeah same. I did that a long time ago -- the only thing I use still is search and youtube. The latter of which has no real replacement sadly
  - yashasolutions 2y ago
    Kagi is a great replacement for search. Agree about Youtube having no replacement for now.
    - teekert 2y ago
      99% of my searches are on DDG and it's my default browser (on iOS), I'm pretty happy with it.
    - Zambyte 2y ago
      I also use Kagi and I really enjoy it (enough to pay for the ultimate subscription), but it's hard for me to recommend to someone wanting to "degoogle" their life. Kagi search results depend (probably a lot) on the Google search API. If Google rug pulled that, Kagi search results would definitely be effected.
  - solardev 2y ago
    What do you do for calendar? Docs? Files? Maps? Photos?
    - prmoustache 2y ago
      I would say Photos is the only difficult ones. Docs can be handled locally or via any other online office suite. Files can be stored anywhere, from local NAS to other remote storage services, Calendar is easily exported and imported somwhere else or locally. And maps can be used without account so you don't really need to export anything.
    - girvo 2y ago
      Apples apps for all of those; work is Google Docs because I don't get a choice
    - fhd2 2y ago
      Not the parent, but also degoogled as much as pragmatic lately. For files and photos, I use an NAS in my home (Synology). Works pretty smooth with automated photo backup etc. For office stuff I just use Libre Office, I don't need collaboration features. Not interested in cloud options personally, so sorry if that's not helpful. I'd probably go for Dropbox for most of this if I was. Google Maps is, for me, unfortunately one of the services I wasn't able to replace yet. I tried to use OSM (also for navigating), which actually worked great for me. But I use satellite view so often (mostly for entertainment) that I couldn't quite break the Maps habit.
    - NoboruWataya 2y ago
      I don't use Proton but don't they offer a calendar and file storage? I know a lot of email providers do (I use mailbox.org and they do). Personally I host Nextcloud on a VPS and use that for file storage, calendar and photos. Maps is a tough one. It's probably the main Google service I still use (YouTube being another one). There is OSM of course but it can't compete with Google on features.
      - datadrivenangel 2y ago
        Fastmail's hosted calendar is good, and the file storage allows for file storage. Happy customer here.
      - protonmail 2y ago
- teekert 2y ago
  I'm also a happy proton user for my one-person business. I want to switch with the personal stuff as well but I just find the family plan so expensive [0] compared to alternatives. I also don't like that you get 6 users, you almost always have too many or you have too little (what family is exactly 6 anyway?). Why so rigid? My kids are young, they just need an inbox, nothing more. Ah well, I guess sooner of later I will switch, it's just such a nice product + I share the 3 TB with less than 6 so I do benefit, it would be more than enough for all our pics/videos to date... But then how to rsync from our Linux server ;) (I bet it's coming and I am slowly getting fed up with playing NextCloud sys-admin for the family, it was a hobby but starting to feel as a chore as of late...) Also, I guess switching from mail plus to family will allow me to have my business email within the family (as custom mailbox with it's own domain). I would have switched years ago if it was like 10/month for the family (or like 2 per actual family member + some base fee). But I guess the storage and VPN are nice. (But hey that tailscale + Mullvad is so elegant...) Choices choices... [0] https://proton.me/family https://proton.me/family
acdha 2y ago
I have my own domain so this took a couple of hours. One of the interesting things I noticed was how much e-mail Gmail had been filtering poorly – I’d never see things like newsletters even though they leaked a lot of spam – so email immediately became more useful. There were no downsides. Not a single one. I think that should scare Google’s management more than anything else: they fiddled while their competitors didn’t fall asleep and there’s no moat.
- einsteinx2 2y ago
  Who are you using now for mail service? I did the same and moved to Proton Mail. So far the experience has been great with the (rather large) exception that due to the security architecture email search is subpar if you don’t use an external email client on desktop with their IMAP bridge. Ultimately I’m willing to accept that compromise, but I’m open to other options as the encryption features (that interfiere with some UX like search) aren’t the main reason I use the service anyway. I just didn’t want to have all my eggs in the Google basket anymore and the privacy aspect was a nice bonus.
  - acdha 2y ago
    I switched to Fastmail. Search performance didn’t seem to notably change.
    - einsteinx2 2y ago
      Thanks I'll give it a try! That's the beauty of using your own domain, you can just switch backend services without updating 100s of accounts.
  - protonmail 2y ago
    Hi! Thank you for your feedback! We'd like to point out that, in addition to using Bridge to connect your Proton account with a third-party desktop email app, you can also perform content search in our web app: https://proton.me/support/search-message-content https://proton.me/support/search-message-content. We're planning to bring this functionality to the mobile apps in the future too.
rexreed 2y ago
I wonder what's going to happen to Google Fiber and all the people dependent on that.
swaptr 2y ago
Maps is the only service that keeps me tied to Google. I am not good with directions so its a lot of help to me and I really havent found any reliable alternatives to it.
- q0uaur 2y ago
  i've been super happy with organic maps, but i have to admit maybe 3 possible downsides: 1. in my country openstreetmap is very well populated so i usually find what i'm looking for, but this isn't the case everywhere 2. search is just not as good sometimes - i once typed "gym" and it took me to a place in india. so to find places i still rarely use google maps. 3. there's no proper desktop app yet, or at least it's not widely published - i think it's being worked on, but until it's in the arch repos (the one in the AUR says it's outdated) i'm holding off on it. still, giving google 99% less data is worth the slight inconveniences sometimes for me. also, it works perfectly offline if you download the maps!
  - dzogchen 2y ago
    I would make a request to show fitness centres as a 'category'.
devsda 2y ago
In the mobile/tablet OS area, the mainstream choices are either Google or Apple's walled garden. I'm still tied to Google account on mobile devices unless I want to venture into the wilderness of custom roms and all the fun but exhausting challenges they bring in. If anyone has managed to use a de-googled Android phone as a daily driver without sacrificing much functionality(like financial apps), I would like to know how long has it been and the challenges involved.
- q0uaur 2y ago
  i've been using my Fairphone 5 without any google account since last december, so about 5 months now i guess? Not fully de-googled yet, not even a custom rom - just the stock OS, but not signing into an account. Most importantly, this means no Play Store for me - i get the majority of my apps from Obtainium (directly download + install APK releases from the app developer's source repository) and f-droid. The apps i use most by far are messaging apps like Signal and Telegram which offer direct downloads and easy updating without play store, Organic maps for navigation, breezy weather, Immich (google photos replacement, self hosted) and etar (calendar, but its kinda clunky). oh and keepass2android-offline for my password managing needs, which is synced to my homeserver using Termux (linux running on android, with certain differences/limitations). For sacrificed functionality: my bank's website works just fine on mobile browsers. for the 2 factor auth, it uses something called "Mobile ID", seemingly a standard different from sms or app-specific ones, i'm not sure how widely available it is but it works great for me. Chatgpt says it's used in a couple of European countries. For buying public transport tickets, i used the website for a while, but in my country the website is kinda shitty compared to the mobile app, it takes like 15 clicks to get a ticket where on the app it's 3. so i went to apkmirror/apkpure (ad-infested websites that offer direct download of APKs without google acc) and got the app there - this is both a security risk and inconvenient, but in this case it works for me and i can buy tickets with the app without problems.
- swaptr 2y ago
  I used a degoogled phone for over 3 years (but mind you it was mostly through the pandemic). 1. Maps was the biggest challenge imo. Post pandemic, I needed to use maps and the alternatives were not great. It started off with MicroG and then I had no choice but to flash the google services. 2. Some payment apps do not work without google play services. There is a workaround by flashing Magisk but they would occasionally throw errors. 3. SD Card is the biggest life saver. You need to take backups of your data frequently and also keep emergency ROMs and custom firmware ready. 4. Some of your favorite apps may use Google on device APIs and may not work (this was the case with one of the food delivery service here). 5. For most of the custom ROMs you will not get updates. This means if there is a new version, you have to reflash the new version yourself. Since security updates are usually bundled with the ROM, every 3-4 months you may need to flash the updates. 6. If your device isn't well supported and you're only grabbing ROMs from random folks on the internet, there's a security gamble baked right in. If youre a minimalist user, then you should be good for the most part.

Google doing Google things I'm gonna start the degoogling of my life asap.

valevk 2y ago

Switched to proton, never looked back

girvo 2y ago
Fastmail for me, but yeah same. I did that a long time ago -- the only thing I use still is search and youtube. The latter of which has no real replacement sadly
- yashasolutions 2y ago
  Kagi is a great replacement for search. Agree about Youtube having no replacement for now.
  - teekert 2y ago
    99% of my searches are on DDG and it's my default browser (on iOS), I'm pretty happy with it.
  - Zambyte 2y ago
    I also use Kagi and I really enjoy it (enough to pay for the ultimate subscription), but it's hard for me to recommend to someone wanting to "degoogle" their life. Kagi search results depend (probably a lot) on the Google search API. If Google rug pulled that, Kagi search results would definitely be effected.
- solardev 2y ago
  What do you do for calendar? Docs? Files? Maps? Photos?
  - prmoustache 2y ago
    I would say Photos is the only difficult ones. Docs can be handled locally or via any other online office suite. Files can be stored anywhere, from local NAS to other remote storage services, Calendar is easily exported and imported somwhere else or locally. And maps can be used without account so you don't really need to export anything.
  - girvo 2y ago
    Apples apps for all of those; work is Google Docs because I don't get a choice
  - fhd2 2y ago
    Not the parent, but also degoogled as much as pragmatic lately. For files and photos, I use an NAS in my home (Synology). Works pretty smooth with automated photo backup etc. For office stuff I just use Libre Office, I don't need collaboration features. Not interested in cloud options personally, so sorry if that's not helpful. I'd probably go for Dropbox for most of this if I was. Google Maps is, for me, unfortunately one of the services I wasn't able to replace yet. I tried to use OSM (also for navigating), which actually worked great for me. But I use satellite view so often (mostly for entertainment) that I couldn't quite break the Maps habit.
  - NoboruWataya 2y ago
    I don't use Proton but don't they offer a calendar and file storage? I know a lot of email providers do (I use mailbox.org and they do). Personally I host Nextcloud on a VPS and use that for file storage, calendar and photos. Maps is a tough one. It's probably the main Google service I still use (YouTube being another one). There is OSM of course but it can't compete with Google on features.
    - datadrivenangel 2y ago
      Fastmail's hosted calendar is good, and the file storage allows for file storage. Happy customer here.
    - protonmail 2y ago
teekert 2y ago
I'm also a happy proton user for my one-person business. I want to switch with the personal stuff as well but I just find the family plan so expensive [0] compared to alternatives. I also don't like that you get 6 users, you almost always have too many or you have too little (what family is exactly 6 anyway?). Why so rigid? My kids are young, they just need an inbox, nothing more. Ah well, I guess sooner of later I will switch, it's just such a nice product + I share the 3 TB with less than 6 so I do benefit, it would be more than enough for all our pics/videos to date... But then how to rsync from our Linux server ;) (I bet it's coming and I am slowly getting fed up with playing NextCloud sys-admin for the family, it was a hobby but starting to feel as a chore as of late...) Also, I guess switching from mail plus to family will allow me to have my business email within the family (as custom mailbox with it's own domain). I would have switched years ago if it was like 10/month for the family (or like 2 per actual family member + some base fee). But I guess the storage and VPN are nice. (But hey that tailscale + Mullvad is so elegant...) Choices choices... [0] https://proton.me/family https://proton.me/family

acdha 2y ago

I have my own domain so this took a couple of hours. One of the interesting things I noticed was how much e-mail Gmail had been filtering poorly – I’d never see things like newsletters even though they leaked a lot of spam – so email immediately became more useful. There were no downsides. Not a single one. I think that should scare Google’s management more than anything else: they fiddled while their competitors didn’t fall asleep and there’s no moat.

einsteinx2 2y ago
Who are you using now for mail service? I did the same and moved to Proton Mail. So far the experience has been great with the (rather large) exception that due to the security architecture email search is subpar if you don’t use an external email client on desktop with their IMAP bridge. Ultimately I’m willing to accept that compromise, but I’m open to other options as the encryption features (that interfiere with some UX like search) aren’t the main reason I use the service anyway. I just didn’t want to have all my eggs in the Google basket anymore and the privacy aspect was a nice bonus.
- acdha 2y ago
  I switched to Fastmail. Search performance didn’t seem to notably change.
  - einsteinx2 2y ago
    Thanks I'll give it a try! That's the beauty of using your own domain, you can just switch backend services without updating 100s of accounts.
- protonmail 2y ago
  Hi! Thank you for your feedback! We'd like to point out that, in addition to using Bridge to connect your Proton account with a third-party desktop email app, you can also perform content search in our web app: https://proton.me/support/search-message-content https://proton.me/support/search-message-content. We're planning to bring this functionality to the mobile apps in the future too.

rexreed 2y ago

I wonder what's going to happen to Google Fiber and all the people dependent on that.

swaptr 2y ago

Maps is the only service that keeps me tied to Google. I am not good with directions so its a lot of help to me and I really havent found any reliable alternatives to it.

q0uaur 2y ago
i've been super happy with organic maps, but i have to admit maybe 3 possible downsides: 1. in my country openstreetmap is very well populated so i usually find what i'm looking for, but this isn't the case everywhere 2. search is just not as good sometimes - i once typed "gym" and it took me to a place in india. so to find places i still rarely use google maps. 3. there's no proper desktop app yet, or at least it's not widely published - i think it's being worked on, but until it's in the arch repos (the one in the AUR says it's outdated) i'm holding off on it. still, giving google 99% less data is worth the slight inconveniences sometimes for me. also, it works perfectly offline if you download the maps!
- dzogchen 2y ago
  I would make a request to show fitness centres as a 'category'.

devsda 2y ago

In the mobile/tablet OS area, the mainstream choices are either Google or Apple's walled garden. I'm still tied to Google account on mobile devices unless I want to venture into the wilderness of custom roms and all the fun but exhausting challenges they bring in. If anyone has managed to use a de-googled Android phone as a daily driver without sacrificing much functionality(like financial apps), I would like to know how long has it been and the challenges involved.

q0uaur 2y ago
i've been using my Fairphone 5 without any google account since last december, so about 5 months now i guess? Not fully de-googled yet, not even a custom rom - just the stock OS, but not signing into an account. Most importantly, this means no Play Store for me - i get the majority of my apps from Obtainium (directly download + install APK releases from the app developer's source repository) and f-droid. The apps i use most by far are messaging apps like Signal and Telegram which offer direct downloads and easy updating without play store, Organic maps for navigation, breezy weather, Immich (google photos replacement, self hosted) and etar (calendar, but its kinda clunky). oh and keepass2android-offline for my password managing needs, which is synced to my homeserver using Termux (linux running on android, with certain differences/limitations). For sacrificed functionality: my bank's website works just fine on mobile browsers. for the 2 factor auth, it uses something called "Mobile ID", seemingly a standard different from sms or app-specific ones, i'm not sure how widely available it is but it works great for me. Chatgpt says it's used in a couple of European countries. For buying public transport tickets, i used the website for a while, but in my country the website is kinda shitty compared to the mobile app, it takes like 15 clicks to get a ticket where on the app it's 3. so i went to apkmirror/apkpure (ad-infested websites that offer direct download of APKs without google acc) and got the app there - this is both a security risk and inconvenient, but in this case it works for me and i can buy tickets with the app without problems.
swaptr 2y ago
I used a degoogled phone for over 3 years (but mind you it was mostly through the pandemic). 1. Maps was the biggest challenge imo. Post pandemic, I needed to use maps and the alternatives were not great. It started off with MicroG and then I had no choice but to flash the google services. 2. Some payment apps do not work without google play services. There is a workaround by flashing Magisk but they would occasionally throw errors. 3. SD Card is the biggest life saver. You need to take backups of your data frequently and also keep emergency ROMs and custom firmware ready. 4. Some of your favorite apps may use Google on device APIs and may not work (this was the case with one of the food delivery service here). 5. For most of the custom ROMs you will not get updates. This means if there is a new version, you have to reflash the new version yourself. Since security updates are usually bundled with the ROM, every 3-4 months you may need to flash the updates. 6. If your device isn't well supported and you're only grabbing ROMs from random folks on the internet, there's a security gamble baked right in. If youre a minimalist user, then you should be good for the most part.