And since you won’t be able to modify web pages, it will also mean the end of customization, either for looks (ie. DarkReader, Stylus), conveniance (ie. Tampermonkey) or accessibility.
The community feedback is… interesting to say the least.
All this enshittification lately really inspires me to de-google.
You don’t have to look at reducing your Google use as a monumental effort. You can slowly transfer, minimise the number of services you use.
Simple - Switch your default search provider to Duck Duck Go.
Easy - Switch to Firefox
Mid - export your documents from Google Drive
Complex - Transfer your primary email to another provider.
I loved it around 20 years ago, but somewhere towards the mid-to-late 00’s it got bloated and slow. It was like that probably until recently if i’m being honest. I heard it’s maybe better now but i’m not sure.
I actually think switch email wasn’t too bad (just take it slow!). It’s Google Drive I actually don’t have a good replacement for.
That and Google Photos.
Suggestions welcome.
You don’t need to take it slow. I moved from Gmail to a private email that I manage about 5 years ago. I just put email auto reply on my Gmail saying that I’ve changed my email due to an onslaught of corporate spam. Spammers won’t get the new one because they’re using auto responders, but actual people will get the auto reply and start using your new email address. You can change your email associated with accounts as you log in, or you can just keep those on Google so that the accounts don’t start spamming you on your new email too. The only drawback is that your account won’t be in some big data database and some sign up processes that use services like Informatica might reject your email as invalid since they don’t have a record of it. When that happens just use your Gmail and then update it later.
There’s proton drive…which i hasn’t actually used. It looks like google drive, and there’s a photo option, but so far I’ve only used the proton mail part.
What’s a good Gmail alternative that has a relatively professional name? I have a hotmail account from way back still, but the name “hotmail.com” has always sounded silly to me. I guess there’s Outlook but idk if they’re the best option.
Get your own domain. You’ll actually have to pay for mail by then, but considering it’s one of the services many people rely on a shitton it’s not that bad to pay $10 towards it. It will also mean you can switch providers at any time without much hassle.
If you’re really worried about the domain, getting your own is only like 10 bucks a year.
https://www.gmx.com Isn’t bad but I haven’t really used it that much.
Good suggestions. I just set Firefox to use DDG as my default search… something I’ve been slowly working my way through also, is replacing all the default-google apps on my phone with FOSS alternatives. It’s involving a bit of trial and error, as of course free software that doesn’t monetize the user often doesn’t provide the polished experience you get from a google app. Many of them are perfectly fine though.
I’d recommend also that everyone installs DuckDuckGo browser app on their phone, as it blocks trackers in all your other apps even when you’re not browsing. Pixel 7a has a truly disturbing amount of tracking requests, not sure if other phones are as bad.
If you have a Pixel then install GrapheneOS. Zero trackers or bloat, and better security
I’ve always had an aversion to corporate anything so I’m already part way there. Use DDG half the time, Firefox user since it was called Firebird!. I really just need to drop Gmail and use DDG or others full time. I’m finding parting with gmail difficult and scary though as over a decade of history and old friends that may know that address as my only contact.
You don’t have to delete your Gmail account right away. Keep it around to search the history if you need to. You can set up an auto-forward rule in Gmail to forward all email to your new address, then you can reply from your new address. You can take it a step further and include a please note my email address has changed in your signature. Just like moving away from Google, moving away from Gmail can be done in baby steps.
It’s like 20 bux a month for your own web hosting…it’s idiot proof with a little bit of effort and I only get advertising spam I signed up for and forgot to uncheck. But that all goes to bills@mydomain.com so I don’t have to see them
DuckDuckGo results still suck and are not even remotely comparable to Google‘s. The best alternative imo is Qwant, which uses bing and I think also it’s own index.
If the DuckDuckGo result for your search doesn’t yield anything then just append it with g! and it’ll take you straight to the Google results.
It’s a useful trick but very rarely do I find I need it. Only really when researching a very specific error.
