this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2023

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How much of your life have you degoogled? (beehaw.org)

submitted 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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We're reaching the end of an era wherein billions of dollars of investor money was shovelled into tech startups to build large user-bases, and now those companies (now monoliths) are beginning to constrict their user-bases and squeeze for every single penny they can possibly extract. Fair or not.

Now more than ever, it's important for us to step back and reconsider whether we want to be billboards for these companies anymore.

For anyone unfamiliar, some good resources to have when starting your degoogling journey are below:

Privacy Guides - A list of privacy-respecting services you can use.

Plexus - A crowdsourced information bank of service compatibility with degoogled devices.

This random PDF - A study from 2018 detailing data that Google tracks about its' users.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Tried DDG a few times over the years. Sorry, but it just doesn't do it for me. Results were terrible. Google had lots of results and it was just too much effort to keep switching from DDG if it doesn't provide an answer. Because I know Google will.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago (8 children)

Only apps by Google I use are gboard, gmail and translator. If someone knows well designed alternatives please share.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

Protonmail for email. Open board for keyboard.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

The only thing I still hold onto my account for is YouTube. I pay for mailbox.org which covers email, calendar and cloud stuff. Their website could be better but the service is quality and their privacy policy is tight. When I was on android I used a bunch of custom roms with microg. My favourite ended up being calyxos but they all had a little jank here or there. I dearly miss NewPipe for android as a replacement for the official youtube app.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

Lemmy definietly got me into degoogle and foss. Or rather latest reddit situation interested me in these concepts :p

I always liked the idea of decentralized web a lot but it wasn't until the reddit fall that it stopped being abstraction and instead there is a real platform it seems with a future

[–] [email protected] 2 points 2 years ago

DuckDuckGo got a shoutout from Star Trek: Strange New Worlds this week. Much smoother than Hawaii Five-Oh's "Bing it."

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

Not much honestly. Still use Gmail and Drive

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

I'm not that degoogled now, but I am slowly working towards it; removed my Google Account from my phone, uninstalled or disabled all the proprietary apps I can, and am going to install GrapheneOS in a couple weeks.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (2 children)

Google still runs a good chunk of my life and some of it I know I could use some of the great alternatives that others have mentioned but some of it I'm not really sure about.

Namely:
Maps
Messenger (web browser access to my texts)
Contact sync and backup
Google voice
And all the various services that let my phone operate...

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

Right, I can't use my phone without it and I'm not buying into Apple. I also really like the user reviews on Maps, it's like Yelp and TripAdvisor before they both fell to enshttification. I've also got a Voice number that I pay nothing for and I give it out when businesses demand a phone number. I don't see myself switching to anything else for those.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

For Maps there's an alternative on FDroid called GMaps WV which is actually just the Google Maps website wrapped in a tiny webview app. It can't spy on you if you run it that way.

Or you can install Hermit and add Google Maps as one of its sandboxed light apps.

If you're interested in things that aren't Google Maps you can look at OSMAnd, a great app with tons of features and my go-to app when traveling because you can download offline maps and info about local stores, restaurants, attractions etc.

On the lightweight side there's Map Marker which can use map tiles from a dozen different map services, and you can place markers on the map and group them in collections.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago (1 children)

I've degoogled my life as much as I can, but it's almost impossible to completely ditch Google Maps, YouTube, and Android. So I'm not even sure I've done anything significant, because I assume they get pretty much everything from my phone.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

Magic Earth for maps
NewPipe for Youtube
Android with no Google account & FDriod + Aurora Store

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago

90% of my life is degoogled. I'm using Google Play services for some stuff (It doesn't have network access 😶) it my normal profile. My work profile is completely degoogled.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (1 children)

If I wasn't living in a third world sithole I'd had self hosted everything from searx to as search engine to alt front-ends and down to creatng my own Netflix with plex (jellyfin?) and the *arr family

[–] TeaEarlGrayHot 1 points 2 years ago

I have been selfhosting Jellyfin on and off for the last few years, amazing open source program! I fail to see the advantage of a one user searx instance over multi-user anonymized instances--still considering spinning one up eventually

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