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there is no cloud; only other people's computers
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. interestingly, this is part of a bigger grassroots movement: [degoogle].
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.
there are lots of lists out there that go over alternatives:
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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! by
paying for it, i was also able to now use a custom domain when i give my email
out. this allows me to later decide to change off protonmail if i want, without
having to change my email.
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.
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].
recently, i was suggested to give
[StartPage] a try. i did give it a try
but overall wasn't super impressed. another one that was recently brought to my
attention is [searcxng], which is a free
internet metasearch enginge. there are different providers of the same
software, and it searches over a handful of existing search engines like
google, wikipedia, and others. you can find existing servers that host this
engine at [https://searx.space].
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 am excited about [maps.earth] though!
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
- [CalyxOS]
- [GrapheneOS]
or even the newer version of cyanogen:
- [LineageOS]
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. it feels like there aren't a ton of good alternatives in
general.
one recent one that i saw that caught my eye was PGPP:
- [INVISV: Pretty Good Phone Privacy (PGPP)]
google photos i think has been one of the harder ones for me. i've looked at
some 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.
i set up a sync to nextcloud using the nextcloud app from my phone, but it
ends up failing quite a bit and isn't super reliable.
i've considered running [photo prism] but probably need to
rent or run an additional server in order to run something like that.
Gemini Links:
Web Links:
we can do better than DuckDuckGo