Seanpm2001: DeGoogling my life

[seanpm2001]

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Seanpm2001: DeGoogling my life

I finally started to see the problems with big tech in 2018, and I began deGoogling. In the first few months, I made significant progress. It slowed down immensely since then.

What I switched from

Google Chrome -> Firefox/Tor

Google Search -> DuckDuckGo (default)/Ecosia (when I feel like it)/Bing (rarely)

GMail - ProtonMail (not yet fully switched)

Google Sites -> Self hosting (not yet fully switched)

Google+ -> Hardly ever used, deleted itself due to its own shutdown

Google Docs -> Never used, I just use Microsoft Word 2013 (before 2019) and LibreOffice (2019-onward) instead.

Google Sheets -> Never used, I just use Microsoft Excel 2013 (before 2019) and LibreOffice (2019-onward) instead.

Google Slides -> Never used, I just use Microsoft PowerPoint 2013 (before 2019) and LibreOffice (2019-onward) instead.

Google Drawings -> Never used, I just use LibreOffice (2019-onward) instead.

Gerrit -> Never ussed, I just use GitHub (current default), GitLab, BitBucket, and SourceForge instead.

Google Photos -> Never used

Google Drive -> OneDrive (2019-2020) Degoo (2020-2020) pCloud (2020-present)

Google Maps -> OpenStreetMaps/Apple Maps

Go - Making a special exception, but not using as a functional programming language

Dart - Making a special exception, but not using as a functional programming language

Flutter - Making a special exception, but not using as a functional programming language

Google Earth -> OpenStreetMaps/Apple Maps

Google Streetview -> Never used, I find it extra creepy

Google Fi -> Never used

Google Calendar -> Never used

Google calculator -> Literally any other calculator app, even a Linux terminal running in Python mode if I feel like it

Google Nest -> Never used

Google AMP -> Never used

Google VPN -> Never used, also an oxymoron

Google Pay -> Never used

Google Summer of Code -> Never participated

Tenor -> Other GIF sites, although GIFs aren't too important to me. I normally get GIF files from DuckDuckGo images, Imgur, Reddit, or other sites.

Blockly -> No longer used, not sure if Scratch directly ran blockly. I became a functional programmer in 2017 onward, and grew out of Scratch.

GBoard -> Used once, but abandoned

Google Glass -> Never used, considered as a young child but decided not to get one/use one if I had the option

List may be incomplete.

June 2021 update: I have been doing a lot of switching between file services, recently settling back on Google Drive, but due to Chromium sync and dominance, the unsafe-ness of this method, and the future of Google outside Google Chrome, I forced myself to regain control, and switched back to full SD card backups, with AndrOpen Office replacing Microsoft Word after a few months of problems. Despite the ad infestation before I open the document, it is the only way, as I can't use Google, and I can't pay for Microsoft Office. It is the only OpenOffice fork I can find for Android, and I like the interface due to its early 2000s design. Eventually, I will convert my Android phone to an Android virtual machine and probably switch to a PinePhone.

Products I still cannot get away from

As of February 25th 2021, these are the Google products that are keeping me from fully deGoogling:

1. YouTube (because it is the hardest thing to DeGoogle from, as there are no alternatives to it that have a library as big)

2. Android (because my phone cannot be rooted due to Samsung Knox, and because I cannot part from APK/Apps yet)

3. Google Play Store (because of dependencies with my current phone)

4. GMail (only for school and some sites)

5. Google Translate (working on switching to Bing Translate and DeepL, but I am not familiar enough with them yet, and the language support is different)

6. Google Sites (as Google is violating the laws of the GDPR (and can face another €5,000,000.00 fine until they get it fixed) and forbidding downloads of this product) their way of doing this is only allowing the downloads of the Classic Google Sites, and not the "new" Google Sites

7. Google Account (will come last, after all other dependencies are gone)

I have deGoogled from everything else.

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