---
Over the last few years I've been trying to change my online presence. I don't necessarily want to remove myself from the Internet, but I want to limit as much as possible the amount if information about me on the Internet that I don't control. I'd rather host, serve and control it myself.
To that end, I feel like I've made some big strides. I've gone from using Facebook daily to using it for Messenger only and deactivating my mainline account. I've emptied my Twitter account and keep it only as a shell, only logging in to rotate my password. I've even managed to close my Microsoft and Apple accounts entirely, after refusing to move to Windows 10 and converting all my personal computers to Linux.
My dream, however, is to one day be able to get rid of Google.
There are plenty of reasons people dislike Google, and I share in the majority of those reasons. From aggressive data aggregation, to morally-ambiguous business deals, to political bias, to unfair treatment of employees, to blatant privacy violations, to opacity of their inner workings; it seems no matter what one's beliefs are, there is reason not to trust Google.
My problem is that I previously invested quite a bit into Google's ecosystem. I've had a e-mail address using GMail for almost a decade. I made hundreds of dollars' worth of app purchases in the Play Store. Google Voice is configured as an on-call number for my job. The trickiest part is that we are Google Fiber customers--and one cannot subscribe to Google Fiber without a Google account.
Some of these problems have already been ameliorated. I am in the process of changing my e-mail address in my online accounts from GMail to ProtonMail. I have long stopped using Google Calendar, Google Docs and Google Photos, and I've never used services like Google Pay. I've downloaded and mirrored all the paid apps I've purchased from the Play Store--and I now only get apps from the Play Store that I need and cannot get anywhere else.
Google Voice and Google Fiber are the tough nuts to crack. My wife also has a Google account, so we can transfer the Fiber account to her name. Replacing Google Voice would require me to purchase a new mobile phone line, however. My current smartphone does not support two SIM cards, so I would have to buy a second phone as well, a cost I find difficult to justify.
The Pro1 X, my next smartphone, has dual SIM card support. I might buy a line then and see if I can't get rid of Google entirely. I'd feel very good about my privacy aspects then.
---
[Last updated: 2021-10-28]