Well everyone, the time has finally arrived for me to say goodbye to Google. This is something I’ve meant to do for quite a while now, and I never really got around to it for one reason or another. For a long time now, I’ve been concerned with Google’s privacy practices. In addition to this, Google has continually moved in a direction of censorship e.g. Dragonfly, although it was later cancelled. They’ve also been making some questionable firing decisions amongst there AI Ethics Team, and they’ve been caught union busting. With all of these things taken into account I find myself in a position where I no longer want to support this behavior.
There are many threads on the forum like this one, but this is my journey. I don’t plan on going as hardcore as some of the other users here because convenience is still factor. My primary goal is to move away from Google Workspace (formerly GSuite), and Google Search. First let’s about the steps that I’ve already taken.
Once upon a time I was Chrome user, however, I switched Firefox years ago and never looked back. I may switch to Brave at some point depending on how things go. For a couple of years now I’ve been using DuckDuckGo as my primary search engine. Although, I’ll admit I’m guilty of using !g from time to time. Signal has also been my default messaging app for a while now. There are some services I’ll continue to use. These are primarily YouTube, Google Play Services, and Google Maps because the alternatives just aren’t quite there yet. But here’s my plan moving forward.
Step One (In Progress): Import emails from Gmail to ProtonMail and begin switching my accounts over. I’ve already imported all my emails over this morning and setup email forwarding. Additionally, some of my accounts already use my ProtonMail.
Step Two (Pending): Move files from Google Drive and Google Photos to another service. I’m thinking maybe ProtonMail Drive, but I’m open to suggestions if you have any.
Step Three (Pending): Find an alternative online office suit. I know some have mentioned Collabora in the past, but it doesn’t appear to be production ready yet.
Step Four (Pending): Find alternative apps for those one my phone. I use a Google Pixel 4 and many apps like Phone, GBoard, etc… Will need to be replaced.
Completing these tasks will make things much more oriented with my personal beliefs. I’ll continue to provide updates on my journey, any as always and feedback or suggestions are greatly appreciated.
Kind regards,
LinuxForYou