How to ungoogle?

[Voicedrew]

Hey folks, I read this post by @whiteVHS and was intrigued by this line:

@whiteVHS said:
In 2022, I've made quite a bit of progress regarding the reduction of my digital footprint. I completely de-googled myself, and yes that includes YouTube.

I've been thinking about how I might do this for a while now, and I think i'm ready to take the leap. How can I de-google, or at least minimize the amount I rely on google.

Things I have tied to google:

• Gmail Account
• Google Calendar
• Various accounts, which logins are attached to my google account (! currently including agora road)
• Google Drive
• and of course, the dreaded YouTube.

I have a plan to deal with most of these things, but not all of them. For instance, I can easily replace Drive with a different service, and Calendar with Obsidian. Of course, invidious and the excellent newpipe app for android exist for youtube. My Gmail and Logins are a bit precarious. I'm probably too deep in the Gmail hole to get out, so I can maybe have my emails get forwarded or redirected or whatever to another email account with Tutanota or Proton.

What about "Connected to Google" accounts, how can I deal with that?

I would appreciate any incite on any of these points, not just the last one. Thank you!

 

[LostintheCycle]

I made the jump from Gmail to Protonmail a while ago. I'd had my Gmail account since I was 9 years old, I had a lot of accounts associated with it. It was good to have a 'reset', I could finally track all the online accounts I had, I wasn't receiving e-mails from weird places. It was a process but I didn't mind.
De-Googling is not always viable, which I unfortunately learned the hard way. About two years ago I totally deleted all my Google accounts. Then I went and got a job, and they required us to install a broken app on our phones to receive our rosters. They did not offer any alternative ways; the app did not have a website to use; and Google Play requires you to have an account. So I bit the bullet and made the account to install the app.
If I were smarter two years ago, I'd have tried to implement strict policies on 'cross-contamination' of accounts and information. So long as you keep things fairly partitioned, it would make it harder for those creeps to build a proper profile of you.

 

[andreixyz]

De-googling oneself is a good thing, but should never be an end-goal. It's a journey, not a destination. Keep in mind that Google controls a big chunk of the internet and sooner or later you will encounter their services sooner or later. Also, instead of directing all your hate/energy towards Google, go against all the big companies. Microsoft, Apple, Adobe, Amazon, Meta, etc.

So instead of ditching completely one of the companies, try to change your habits to rely less on their products and services and de-clutter your digital life, but stay away from the extremist road I've seen some self-proclaimed geniuses walk (even around here). Detaching from the big bad wolves as much as possible is fine, but do you want to go back to the stone age? One of the things people most boast around is "hurr durr, I traded my smartphone for a flip-phone, now I don't spend hundreds of hours on tiktok". These fucking morons don't realize they don't have a technology issue, but an addiction to something else.

So instead of trying to ditch Google (which itself is a good thing), try to improve your online life:

- move away from big companies services that aggregate and sell your data but don't move towards small companies services that read and sell your data.
- have a smartphone if you want but don't change it every year, because the number on the box has gone one up.
- use youtube if you want to see some shit but don't subscribe, just use youtube's RSS feeds.
- use adblockers
- keep important files locally and backed up

Technology is not inherently evil, but the people behind it are. It's up to you to identify the bad actors and to learn to live around these.

But, for the love of whichever deity you consider pinnacle, don't fall into the trap of going back to the 1990s.

 

[Skookumsquitch]

It's taken me a while to figure out my own thing—years, actually. Basically, you'll never really get the functionality you once had without Google. And like the poster above me wrote, you'll never fully nix it from your life without going full-misanthrope. The first steps are obvious, deleting all your Google accounts. The rest isn't very complicated, either. The hardest is changing emails, but some e-mailing services have their own domains you can use. You'll just need to find which service suits you best. The real challenge is switiching everything you've tied to your Google email over to your new one.

I use an Android phone unfortunately, so my life getting off Google had been made exactly 48× more difficult. For anyone looking to try to circumvent Google but use an Android device, this is what I use as my Google service replacements:

• Google Browser/Engine: DuckDuckGo, Startpage, Tor
• Google Play Store: Aptoide (for downloading apps), APK Updater & APKMirror Installer (updating).
• GMail: Samsung Mail, Duck Mail (a subsidiary of DuckDuckGo (I'm a beta tester)), Protonmail.
• Google Docs: Apache OpenOffice.
• YouTube: This is a tough one. There are a few YouTube alternatives, all of them have their flaws and will never have the content that YouTube has. I have yet to find a solid replacement for this service other than simply not using it, unfortunately.
• Google Calendar: Didn't even know this existed. But I'm 100% sure there's an alternative service to that.

And that's pretty much it. It's far from perfect, but I think it's good enough without compromising quality of life.

 

[vulonkaaz]

Google Play Store: Aptoide (for downloading apps), APK Updater & APKMirror Installer (updating).

you forgor the most important one which is f-droid

f-droid is an app store with only free and open source applications, which in human terms means that none of the stuff on there will have ads or trackers no greedy motherfuckers who want to make money off you just apps that work and do exactly what you want them to do, anytime i need an app for a random thing f-droid is the very first place i check cause i know it won't fuck me up

 

[Skookumsquitch]

you forgor the most important one which is f-droid

I knew my method wasn't perfect. I think that I used to use F-Droid, but stopped because I think I found it too buggy. I may give it a go again now that I've been reminded of its existence.

 

[imnotdeadyet]

Degoogling and going cold turkey is great if you can do it and I've worked on reducing my digital footprint drastically (deleting over 600 accounts and migrating over 200 to different emails over the span of a few weeks) but couldn't get rid of all the google services. If privacy and decreasing the data google and other corpos have is what you want to do there's way to keep using the services and starve them of data.

What I like do to that doesn't get brought up often is something i like to call data freebooting which involves using google or any other services up to a point and minimizing the data they have on you as much as possible.

I like to start this with a new account and give them all fake but believable data (including ad data) maybe even register with a vpn and use a disposable number, but after that we need to make sure to starve these services of data they like to grab without consent. This involves minimal usage and network wide adblock with all devices if possible (pihole, adguard). Services that you use should be used in a privacy oriented way as much as possible and usually through a front end. Using a VPN is a big plus but you might have issues with certain services due to dirty IPs. Having an android with google services complicates things since most modern android devices can't be rooted and flashed to take out GApps. I have no experience with apple products and will not be mentioning them.

Chrome: use other browsers, preferably ones not running chromium.
Youtube: Invidious instance on desktop or custom configured adblock and script safe / Newpipe or Revanced with microG on Android using a freebooted account (revanced works on androids with no google services)
Play store: Aurora store (playstore front end that does not require google services) with the inbuilt anonymous accounts or a data freebooted account, Apk Mirror, Apk Pure, F-droid(very buggy)
Gmail: Data freebooted account with an Email client on both desktop and android (preferably use a different email service entirely like protonmail since google and third party scan your email for ads)
Google docs: Plenty of alternatives if you disregard easy to share links, if necessary use a databooted account with custom configured or network wide adblock and script safe
Google calendar: Plenty of alternatives, if necessary use a databooted account with custom configured or network wide adblock and script safe
Google drive: always upload only encrypted archives with your files AND DO NOT USE COMMON PASSWORDS along with a databooted account. Preferably switch to Megaupload.

Linked accounts are a problem. Some services allow you unlink them, others you have to contact support. With many however there's not much you can do besides unlinking them on the google dashboard. Some sites should let you set a password and email and login that way if you are able to unlink.

None of this is convenient and is very time consuming but it can work, I've had some google accounts that don't know anything about me showing me irrelevant stuff and I've used them for years. Complete degoogling will always just involve finding alternatives and migrating to them (usually paid or FOSS) and it's mostly possible besides YouTube. Societal obligations might require you to have some google services regardless unfortunately. Having a personal account with some accurate data and using it only when necessary is also an option.

 

[bnuungus]

over 600 accounts

how tf do you have 600 accounts

 

[whiteVHS]

Gmail Account

As far as I know, ProtonMail has an "easy import" feature for making the switch from email providers. Never used it myself so can't comment on how well it works.
Pretty sure you can set it to redirect all new emails sent to your old address as well.

Google Calendar

I don't really use calendar apps (I carry around a physical planner book) but Proton has a Calendar app, again, can't comment on how well it works, but it's there.

Various accounts, which logins are attached to my google account (! currently including agora road)

With this one you're probably fucked. I ran into a similar issue when de-googling but thankfully the accounts I had created with this method were either replaceable or downright unused. This is probably going to be your biggest hurdle with de-googling.

Google Drive

Proton Drive is an option, though you're definitely limited on space (500MB/1GB for free with Proton Drive as opposed to 15GB with Google Drive). This is a solid option if you choose to get Proton Premium.

and of course, the dreaded YouTube.

Privacy respecting front-ends like Piped or Invidious. Like you mentioned, Newpipe for Android. No account required to subscribe to channels via RSS. That's pretty much it. Use Odysee for creators who host their content on there.

For me, de-googling wasn't that difficult as I didn't rely on too many Google-specific services. Like others had mentioned before, changing all your account credentials is the most tedious step, but using a password manager can ease this process - and if you haven't started using a password manager yet, during your de-googling process is a great time to start keeping track of all your online accounts.

 

[Skookumsquitch]

Revanced

WHAT‽ I thought Vanced/Revanced got discontinued! I loved that app!

 

[bnuungus]

WHAT‽ I thought Vanced/Revanced got discontinued! I loved that app!

it did but there's Newpipe nowadays

 

[Fairykang]

Facebook is the scary data collector imo because of all the backend deals they have with just about every company on the Internet. Registered an account with an obscure online game 3 years ago? Facebook knows. I don't even know how you would get around their data collection either. Even if you don't have a Facebook, they have a ghost account associated with your identity they still pool the collected data into.

 

[Boxerdog]

You should have 3 Net IDs

1. Your normie google social media accounts work email etc(google)
2. your banking(maybe google)
3. your internet shitlord accounts(no google)

Those 3 should not intersect in any way shape or form, google owns a good chunk not only of the internet but of the real world as well, it is unavoidable in the current landscape unless you are going full ted k

 

[Voicedrew]

Proton Drive is an option, though you're definitely limited on space (500MB/1GB for free with Proton Drive as opposed to 15GB with Google Drive). This is a solid option if you choose to get Proton Premium.

Proton and Tuta both look like good options. Which one should I get? Proton appears to be more expensive (around 7 dollars per month), whereas Tuta is 5 dollars per month. I see I can attach my domain to both of these if I pay for premium.

 

[grap]

I had pretty good success managing the account logins problem. What I did was I set the Google account to forward all mail to an email alias with my new provider. I don't know if proton offers aliases, but you can at least use a plus-addressed email (e.g., [email protected]).

Then set up a rule so that all the forwarded mail goes into a dedicated folder and you don't have to look at it. Whenever you're bored, just open that mailbox up and sift through it for anything important. I switched probably 6-8 accounts per week. Stopped getting anything useful there after a few months.

Of course, you'll want to make a list of anything important to switch. Often the most important accounts don't send that much spam (some student loan servicers, for example).

Whenever making the decision to switch email providers, it's a good idea to at least consider buying a domain name, so that you can change providers again in the future if you need to.

I switched to MEGA for cloud storage. I haven't had any issues so far, and it's very cross-platform which helps. 20G free tier.

 

[imnotdeadyet]

how tf do you have 600 accounts

I've been online for a long time and ended up signing up for all kinds of stuff. I didn't really think about it all that much until recently.

WHAT‽ I thought Vanced/Revanced got discontinued! I loved that app!

Vanced is dead but the Revanced project should still be up and active AFAIK, i haven't updated the app in a while. The site in my post above should have the most up to date versions of their patcher.

 

[I-330]

There's a lot of good posts here, so I'll keep my input brief. I'm effectively de-googled at this point in time. I switched to protonmail a while ago for the suite stuff, and I did a google takeout for all my docs and photos last year. My android phone runs /e/ os, and I use an app store without google app service integration. While I still do technically have a google account, it's only used in case I receive an email from an old contact, and for getting yt music recommendations. Otherwise, I'm living the google free life. Also recently deleted twitter, and I haven't posted to / used insta in a few months now. feelsgoodman

 

[MySpace Tom]

I can easily replace ... Calendar with Obsidian

What the fuck?

 

[WanderingPariah]

This is a topic of interest for me with regards to modifying the OS on Android phones. At first, I wanted to try and root my phone so that I could uninstall all the bloat that is currently on there. However, that doesn't seem as though it would un-Google/De-google my phone. Installing something such as GrapheneOS would be the intended goal, but I don't have enough confidence in my technical capabilities to not fuck up and somehow brick my phone along the way. I know this isn't exactly the place to be asking for tech advice, but if anyone knows anything or can point me in the right direction to getting started, that would be most helpful.

My android phone runs /e/ os

I haven't tried comparing other Mobile OS's to one another. How well does /e/ run? Is it better for older devices?

 

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