💾 Archived View for metasyn.pw › degoogle.gmi captured on 2022-04-28 at 17:34:42. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content
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at one point, i realized how many different parts of my life were somehow
intertwined with google's services. while i don't deny their usefulness, as
they saying goes, if you don't pay for the product, you are the product. and i
started thinking more about how to actually move my data and usage off their
services. i'm far from being finished - because some of the services still make
sense for me to use. but i am attempting to at least slowly move my online self
off of their services. if you have particular suggestions, please do [contact]
me for how to continue getting off of google's services.
here is a great list of [alternatives].
below, some notes on things i have and haven't switched off.
i decided to start paying for encrypted mail at [protonmail].
however, after having used my previous email at gmail for almost two decades,
the switch is far from being finished. but getting started is half done!
i use firefox for 99% of my personal browsing, but often am required to use
chrome for the occasional chrome-only website, or for work.
i started a [nextcloud] server - but i still need to set up
automatic backups. the server, as a whole, has a weekly autoback up that is
easy enough to use in the meantime.
[nextcloud] also has a contact and calendar functionality
which i sync to phone using [davx5]. this has been
surprisingly easy actually!
i switched to using [aegis].
haha, google already killed this product. i use [feedly].
youtube has a clear monopoly on content, as well as content creators.
while there are tools like [invidious],
or [NewPipe] (which i use) - they only partially
disconnect you with the youtube platform itself.
i'm aware of [peertube] but
have not really found that there is a ton of content that i am after there.
often when i do find a video, the speeds are so poor its hard to use.
however i am happy to see the development's that [framasoft]
are making towards a [decentralized search] across
peertube instances.
i actually don't have a good replacement for this. i've been trying to use
[ecosia] for a while, but for technical information, or hyper local
information, i find that google search is hard to beat. i'm ok with this for
the time being. i also tried using DuckDuckGo for quite some time, and still
use it sometimes, but am hoping that someday,
[we can do better than DuckDuckGo].
i tried using open street maps for android, and frankly, it is far from
comparable. i still use google maps all the time. i would like to find a
reasonable alternative. while open street maps works to some degree, it
doesn't really have the business information i often rely on google maps for. i
don't think there is a simple solution here yet for me.
i used cyanogen mod for about 8 years before more recently switching back to stock
(pixel) android. i'd like to consider switching to something like
or even the newer version of cyanogen:
i use google fi for my phone plan. this one is easy to change, so i have been
putting it off. for some reason, i'm not exactly sure why, i kind of care
about this one the least.
google photos, hands down, is going to be the hardest service for me to
separate from. i've spent quite a bit of time looking at alternatives, but
simply organizing photos is such a royal pain imo. however, out of all the
services, this is the one i'd like to tackle the most.
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