How to De-Google your life

There is growing discontent with big tech companies like Google and Microsoft. There are others like Facebook, but the prior are more prominent because we depend on them more in day-to-day life.

It’s the dependency that scares me. There are a few stories about people losing access to large swathes of information because some random Google algorithm incorrectly flagged their account. The most notable is this incident of the creator of Terraria.

I was also heavily inspired by Derik Sivers’ blog: Tech Independence¹, which I guess is the same as “de-googling” your life. The idea is to become less reliant on “Big-tech”.

Often when I tell people about this idea about De-Googling your life, I jokingly say “I am like an internet prepper”. Although this is a joke, it is somewhat true. I am preparing for something that may never happen. And it’s very inconvenient.

I want you to do an exercise. There is a very good chance that if you’re reading this you have a google account. Go to this url:

takeout.google.com

With this url tool from google you can export your data from all of Google’s products. You will notice two things:

1. There are probably more products there, with your data, than you initially realised.
2. Secondly, if you are using google voice to text or similar tools, Google has record of all your conversations etc.

This is terrifying to me.

“But Ross, Google is a big company that employs 1000’s of people that are responsible for the latest security methods, encryption, back-up methods etc.” Mistakes can happen, like when they forgot to renew their domain, and they deleted data for a pension fund that manages $135 Billion in Australia. You could argue that these are anomalies, and you’d likely be right.

The facts remain, if all your data sits with one company you are increasing your risk by putting all your eggs in one basket. If one aspect of your Google account is breached, it is likey that everything is breached. They literally have a tool that can export all your data, that sits in ONE. CENTRAL. LOCATION.

Another thing that worries me about these big tech companies is that you are the product. Often, many of their services are free to use. Why? Because, if they can keep you on their platform for longer, they can harvest more data. A large portion of Google’s products are made for the sole purpose of collecting user’s data. They’d never admit this, but many of their products are free, and don’t display adds, so why else would they exist?

So what am I doing about it?

Firstly, I am going to be writing a series on this. This series is going to require a lot of work so I can’t commit that I am going to actually finish it. But, there will be a few parts within the next few weeks. For each Google app that I use I am going to find an alternative, and document my findings here.

Furthermore, I want to create in-depth tutorials on how to set said software up. THere is a wealth of articles online about alternatives, but set up instructions are often scarce, or difficult to interpret.

Google Apps that I use on my phone

This is a list of all the Google apps on my phone and how I intend to replace them with different alternatives. It’s a living list, so expect it to be changed and edited.

• Google Drive -> pCloud
• Storage Box
• Google Keep Notes - > Joplin (Backed up via webDav to Storage Box)
• Google Play Books
• Google Translate
• Google keyboard - > Futo
• Home
• Assistant
• Messages -> Signal & ???
• Contacts
• Gmail - > Thunderbird
• Calendar - > Caldav - Morgen
• Meets ->
• Find my device ->
• Google lens ->
• Maps ->
• Photos ->
• Play store ->
• Slides ->
• Wallet ->