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submitted 2 years ago by frogman@beehaw.org to c/technology@beehaw.org

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 billboards for these companies anymore.

For anyone unfamiliar, some good resources to have when starting your degoogling 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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[-] beejjorgensen@lemmy.sdf.org 1 points 2 years ago

The biggest thing I de-Googled was gmail. I had my own domain already so it wasn't tough to move (to my web hosting provider's included email service).

I switched to Firefox+uBO from Chrome.

They de-Googled RSS for me (now on Newsblur).

Things I still use:

  • Drive for backups (but have a local backup in case their AI bans me)
  • YouTube Premium (I hate ads)
  • Contacts (Cardbook addon for Thunderbird works well with this)
  • Calendar (Thunderbird supports natively)
  • Keep (Shared shopping list)
  • Pixel phone (I don't really care for Apple, either)
[-] baggins@beehaw.org 1 points 2 years ago

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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[-] code_is_speech@lemmy.fmhy.ml 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

LineageOS for microg: degoogled android. DuckDuckGo: search. Firefox: web browser. Ublock origin: ad blocker. Proton: email. OsmAnd+: maps.

Only google product I still use is youtube, but I have made some efforts here:

On desktop pc I use firefox with sponserblock and ublock origin to hide ads and automatically skip sponsered content. I also have an addon called unhook, which hides recommendations, 'people also watched' etc.

I also use and recommend Odysee as a youtube alternative.

On my TV I use SmartTubeNext, on my phone I use revanced.

I host my own music server with navidrome (and my own video media server with Jellyfin). But when I dont have access to that, I also use ViMusic as a youtube music replacement for (degoogled) android.

Can absolutely recommend any and all of the tools I listed.

[-] Coeus@coeus.sbs 1 points 2 years ago

I'm still in the Google android stuff just because of convenience but I have ditched Chrome and Google search. Eventually I would like to do more.

[-] bug@lemmy.one 1 points 2 years ago

Proton's services, Cryptomator, Invideous, GrapheneOS, a handful of apps from f-droid.

Also, quick plug - !privacyguides@lemmy.one is the official Privacy Guides community on Lemmy!

[-] pandaontoast@beehaw.org 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 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.

Edit: I also pay for Kagi for search. The price is a bit steep but I have found it justifiable in terms of the value I get from it. Whoogle and Searx are good options too

[-] pastelsquirrel@beehaw.org 1 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago)

pretty effectively!

I use a Searx instance for searching (with the engine it uses set to DDG), Tutanota for email and Piped/Invidious and Libretube for videos. meanwhile on both my phone and tablet I've used ADB to purge all of Google's malware, and Play Services is outright disabled on my tablet lmao (and contrary to what one might think, the only thing it impacts is I don't get app notifications)

and then I use Aurora Store to update Twitch and Discord, and I use alternatives from F-Droid for stuff like the calendar

[-] Silviecat44@vlemmy.net 0 points 2 years ago

Not much honestly. Still use Gmail and Drive

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this post was submitted on 30 Jun 2023
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Technology

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