Let me bore you for a while
So you’ve found replacements for all the things you used to get from Google, and you’re ready to delete your account. Nice! Good job. I just did the same thing yesterday: Make sure to tick every single box, otherwise they won’t let you go. Also, be sure to download any YouTube clips you may have … Continue reading “The slow and painful act of ungoogling yourself, part 7: Deleting your account”
There is something that is so basic and common to using the Internet that I perhaps overlooked it in my earlier articles: the web browser. Google Chrome has been gaining market share at an alarming rate over the last few years. Whatever Google’s marketing is doing, it’s working, as even people who don’t know how … Continue reading “The slow and painful act of ungoogling yourself, part 6: Browsers and syncing”
After all my other posts and about a year of activity on the subject of ungoogling yourself, I have come to the point where I only depend on Google for two things: YouTube videos. Funny cat videos. Zefrank. Video game reviews and such. Translations, especially of phrases and sentences. The former hole can’t really be … Continue reading “The slow and painful act of ungoogling yourself, part 5: Translation, dictionaries and online video”
Google’s Android rules the mobile phone market like some sort of ad-flinging gorilla, and it’s not easy to escape its grasp. On a default Android phone your mouth is firmly pressed against several of Google’s teats: Google Play, their app store, which requires a Google account. Gmail Contacts (integrated with Gmail) Google Calendars Google Maps … Continue reading “The slow and painful act of ungoogling yourself, part 4: Mobile phone operating systems”
This is just a short article to let you know that life without Google’s mapping and navigation systems is possible. For mapping, I now use OpenStreetMap on the PC and OsmAnd on Android. For navigation, I also use OsmAnd on Android and Yournavigation on PC. So far, everything worked really, really well. I just have … Continue reading “The slow and painful act of ungoogling yourself, part 3: Maps”
I’ve written about getting rid of Google before, and that was before the whole NSA/PRISM shitstorm. I’m sure people today find even more reasons to get Google out of their lives. I wasn’t just doing nothing all this time either. Since the last post, the following has happened: My contacts are synced with my own … Continue reading “The slow and painful act of ungoogling yourself part 2”
With Google’s questionable treatment of privacy, you might want to gain some distance from that company. I’ve done that myself a couple of steps at a time, and now I’m at the point where only one or two unhappy circumstances keep me nailed to the crucifix of Google systems and services. Here’s what worked well: … Continue reading “The slow and painful act of ungoogling yourself”