I feel bad about using Google products
Ever since I've heard about how Google tracks you and steals your data and all that, I've been gradually been moving away from their products. With the ones I could live without, like Google search, maps, Chrome, etc. the switch wasn't too bad. But with the ones like Google photos, drive, home, I actually really like these products and I'm not really sure I want to switch away from them. I have so much stuff in my Google drive that I've amassed over the years. It's very easy to use and a lot of my friends/family/teachers use it. I just really like Google drive. Same with Photos. The irony in all this (I'm probably using irony wrong), is that I don't feel good using them because of all the privacy concerns and the like. I'm not really sure what I'm seeking to get out of this. Just kind of wanted to start a conversation. Do any of you have similar feelings about Google products?
I feel similarly, but I think I'll be able to pull off a full de-googling with the sole exception of YouTube.
I've brought this up before: https://tildes.net/~tech/62b/trying_to_de_google_my_life_bit_by_bit_what_should_i_do_to_move_away_from_gmail
Yeah. I saw that topic before. It was helpful (:
The most drama about Google products I read about is Pixel phones. How Google inconsistently follows trends instead of striving for industry lead. The case of mocking Apple for removal of headphone jack and then removing it themselves a year ago was and remains highly annoying, and now they released the phone with the biggest display notch. The design is just poor, like someone has done that on purpose. Android 9 design didn't head there best way either.
Other products seem okay or good in general, the main problem is a lot of change for the sake of change. The design language and features change nearly yearly and you can only hope a product stays convenient and bug free after an update.
Personally I use Google products moderately. Search, Gmail, Maps don't really let me down, and Keep and Snapseed are even really nice. YouTube is highly customized and ad free. I don't rely on Google in the core data storing though: files and photos have always been on Dropbox and it's great.
I really don't understand why people buy pixel phones. They are just as expensive and have all the downsides of iphones but they also sell all of your data. At least with an iPhone you get a fragile, locked down device with a company that appears to protect your privacy.
It takes really good pictures and is a clean fast phone running on default android. It's not hard to realize it's being sold as a mainstream device, the iPhone counterpart but on Android.
The only thing I care about is an unlockable bootloader. This is basically the only flagship phone I can buy anymore with an unlockable bootloader. Every other company locks it down to the point where you have to wait for a hacker to find a way (or it simply never gets unlocked).
Pixels are advertised heavily enough by a big company. Of course there are people who prefer making choice relying on advertisements.
Pixels have good cameras, arguably best in phones. Also can be really important for some.
Pixels allow being on bleeding edge of Android new versions development, and testing your apps on preview versions of Android early.
Fast, reliable security updates, and unlockable bootloader. That's the appeal.
That being said, I'm taking a hard look at alternatives next time.
I'm still rocking an OG Pixel and it's still just as fast as the day it released (with a factory reset), but now with the new version of Android. It's two years later. I've never had an experience like this with any other stock Android phone, especially the Nexus line.
I feel like many people never consider the longterm reliability of the devices they use and purchase, always opting for what is best on paper now. The whole appeal of the Pixel for me wasn't what features it had on launch but how much the software and hardware was built together. I don't want to buy new phones every year or two years. I'm not made of money. I want a phone that will last me years without making me want to throw it against a wall, which is usually what prompts me to upgrade.
With Google's track record, it was a bit of a gamble (I'd experiencing multiple Nexus phones, all of which had not held up great with time) but I figured that if they were doing a whole new approach with that goal in mind, they must have had something worked up that would do it.
And sure enough, yes. It's lasted as well as any iPhone. Even the battery, which isn't as good as it used to be, still will last a full day with constant use two years later. The Nexus phones may have had great specs at great prices but they had terrible reliability in comparison to the Pixel. I have never been nearly as satisfied with any other stock Android experience as with the Google Pixel.
They have great cameras, unlimited space on Google Photos, decent build quality, get updates pretty quickly, and are very snappy (my Pixel 2 doesn't feel any slower than when I first got it). The Pixel 3 is certainly shaping up to be a mess with its memory management issues, but if it weren't for that, it would be a pretty good device.
You can still root it or install a custom ROM and strip out Gapps if you want.
For regularly browsing YouTube I’d recommend using Invidious (online) or youtube-local (self-hosted) and use redirector to redirect.
If you require subscriptions, I’d recommend connecting YouTube to an RSS client or use Podsync to be able to access your subscriptions as a 720p video podcast.
And for Android there are apps like SkyTube, with locally stored subscriptions and comment loading
I've been using newpipe, but i kinda dislike the lack of comments, does skytube support downloading videos/music(if so, does it put the audio+video together on those video files without audio?)?
Just tried. The video downloaded to Movies folder and it had sound. By the way I also missed comments in Newpipe before
Hmm it seems to only download video+audio, i find no option to download audio only (for music videos).
From a quick look, I still prefer newpipe's interface, but I might use skytube from time to time to see comments :)
I'm still really upset about Google Now. When it launched with the Pixel, it was truly amazing. Sure, a bit of a privacy nightmare but it was ultimately the most convenient digital service I think has ever been made. It kept track of so many things for me, in so much detail, and presented it all so well. I went on a number of overseas trips with as close to no planning as possible, and Google Now would do everything for me. It would line up my boarding passes exactly when I needed it, gave me travel directions, maps for these unfamiliar airports and train stations when I arrived, told me where my packages were, and more. All with a handy swipe to the right!
And then they kept making it worse and worse and worse and they sucked the life out of the product and made it more about its garbage news feed. Google Now is a shell of what it was on the Pixel's release. It still has some of the same features but the key was the ease of use and not at all its clickbait news feed. I just got back from an overseas trip and its services have basically been reduced to the bare minimum.
What I wouldn't give for a bootleg version that operates like it did at the original Pixel's release...
The hard part about moving away from Google is that a lot of their products are very, very good. Google Drive in particular is a tough one to replace. Collaboration, cloud editing, and device sync all in one! And it's all so smooth and polished.
Over the past year I have done a lot to de-Google, and when I replaced Drive, I didn't do so fully. While I pulled the bulk of my data out, there are still a handful of documents I needed to keep on there for collaboration purposes. Another few I kept on because I needed to be able to edit them from my phone. As such, I just live with the fact that they're on Google's servers. I still run Android too, as right now the alternatives are too restrictive for me.
While I am on-board with the ideal of completely eliminating Google from my life, I also think it's important for me to not let perfect become the enemy of good. Sometimes the convenience and quality of a Google product make it such that it's worth using to me, even in spite of my privacy concerns. As such, I think my end goal is not to eliminate Google entirely, but to be "as Google-free as possible." They'll still get some information from me, but not nearly the level they had when I was fully integrated into their ecosystem.
That's the problem I have. I don't use many google products, but the ones I do use I have because they work so well.
And though I am a little ''meh" on the whole privacy thing, I do get that it is an issue. It's like trading freedom for security, but instead we trade privacy for efficiency.
If you have a server you can self host nextcloud with collabora document editor (it is super easy to configure), i really like it, it is equal if not better than google docs (at least from last time i tried g docs)
The problem is getting other people to use it.
Unless you are on a enterprise enviroment i don't see how sharing an url (maybe with a password) could be something difficult for someone to "learn", the interface of collabora editor is not perfect for who is used to use MS office, it is more similar to libreoffice
The problem isn't how easy it is to use, it's getting people to actually use it.
But I mean, on g docs you share a link so that your colleagues can edit the document, right?If so it wouldn't make a difference for them (unless they are those closed minds that can't accept alternatives)
Google Maps is the hardest, because in a lot of situations you can't settle for second best and even Google's implementation is far from perfect. You really can't use something for navigation if you have to second guess every direction.
I've been using OSMand. Seems to work quite well.
While I'm traveling, the combination of the maps + places API is unbeatable. Is this place on the map actually still there? Is it open? What's the phone number? These things really make a difference when you're trying to solve a problem asap.
I feel your pain. A few years ago I took a serious stab and leaving the google universe. The trouble for me is that I've been a Google Apps subscriber since they launched, and I really like it. Unlike other platforms, the core of Google Apps will most likely live on for life thanks to ad money.
I've always struggled with the balance between convenience and privacy, and Google has always been at the forefront of that. The nail in the coffin for me is Google Sheets. I love it more than anything and have built a lot of sheets for important hobbies --- sheets with functionality that cannot be easily replicated in Excel (mainly dealing with APIs.) I have spread a few things out to other services, like using Dropbox and my VPS for archives, ProtonMail for emails that I definitely want to be kept private (which I have found to be minimal), and moving away from Android and that whole ecosystem.
The thing is, Apple is great for some things, but isn't perfect. The same goes for Dropbox and most other services.
When Mega first got going I moved all of my storage over there, then one day I woke up to Kim Dotcom warning everybody about a takeover that would compromise everything Mega stood for... and I promptly got out. I don't know the full extent of this takeover and the privacy violations, but in a way I was comforted to know that I understood how google was making money off of me.
@rfr is right with suggesting cryptomator as a a solution. Encrypting as much as possible, to me, feels like the way to balance convenience and privacy, at least as far as Drive goes.
After formalizing all of this, I have basically become Dr. TomF or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Goog.
I'm also a GSuite customer. Ironically, I pay Google thrice - for GSuite (the $4.99, 30 GB plan), 100 GB of Google Drive storage on my primary (non-GSuite) account ($1.99), and finally, Google Play Music All Access on my primary (non-GSuite) account ($9.99). I've considered consolidating, but the last time I checked, Google Play Music has weird restrictions on GSuite domains.
I used to be very wary of Google, ran Android with minimal GApps, etc. Now, I depend on them. My upload speed is way too slow to self-host (and nowhere near as convenient), and if I'm going to pay for hosting, I want it to be redundant, and a VPS would likely end up more expensive if I had 100 GB of redundant storage.
On a more practical note, I'm in college and don't have all that much time to spend configuring a server or waiting for large files to transfer over a 5 Mbps home upload connection. The (relatively) small price I pay is well worth not having to worry over the safety or availability of my files.
Interesting. For me, it's exactly the opposite. I never use cloud storage: all my photos and other data are stored on my computer's hard drive, where Google and Microsoft can't get their grubby paws on them. But the services, like internet searching, maps, and a browser, are harder to replace - especially on my Android phone.
Hopefully you have them properly backed up. I have seen way too many people (and companies) permanently lose their important/critical data at my former job (data recovery/computer forensics tech) to trust keeping my own on only one local storage medium. And so long as you properly encrypt your data before sending it to Google/MS/Dropbox/etc nobody but you will ever be able access it, so storage on the cloud is actually a great way to fulfill the offsite part of the 3-2-1 rule (3 copies, 2 on separate local storage mediums and 1 offsite).
I've backed up the important stuff.
And there is absolutely no way I'm sending any more of my personal data to Google or Microsoft than I have to. Why should they get copies of all my personal photos and my private documents? Why are they entitled to see that much of my life? No. They can just fuck off with their intrusive "we want to see everything you do" mentality. One of the reasons I will not install Windows 10 ever is because I don't want Microsoft monitoring everything I do on my personal computer via their key-logger. They are not getting their grubby mitts on my private stuff.
I don't understand this mentality where people just blithely hand all their personal data to every big company that asks for it. I'm not expert enough to be totally private but, within the limits of my knowledge and ability, I keep as much of my data private as I can. If & when I ever find a viable alternative to Apple or Android smartphones, I'll switch - just like I'm going to switch to a Linux operating system when Windows 7 expires, and just like I'm waiting for the Mycroft digital assistant to become available rather than rushing to get Amazon's Alexa or Google's Home or Apple's Siri. I try not to think about how much personal data I'm handing to Google every time I pick up my phone; it scares me. But I can certainly choose to not send them copies of all my personal photos and private documents!
When I was a kid reading futuristic science fiction which included intelligent robots and smart houses, noone warned me that it was going to come with big corporations monitoring my every move!
When the time comes for 7 to retire, if you find your workflow being a prisoner of Windows, check out LTSB [1]. Combined with classic shell or something similar that emulates the traditional start menu, its what W10 should have been.
That being said, if you're not locked into Windows, definitely switch to Linux full time. For me, I'm a prisoner to Adobe's suite -- so I only use Linux (xubuntu) part time. I love Linux, and I especially love i3 gaps next. I'm doing everything I can to try to emulate it with MacOS, but it's still not completely there.
This past weekend I was troubleshooting an issue with my father's phone, a Samsung Galaxy S8, and I was shocked to see how often the Samsung bloatware (optional or 'mandatory') tries to force or trick the user into giving up information or even subscribe to mailing lists. In order to disable this annoying Bixby (a crappy version of Siri) you need to create an account, verify, login, and only then can you disable it. Decisions like that should be illegal.
Anyway, long story short, there are options even if you find yourself painted into a corner, or even if you're going to run Windows in a VM once you make the move.
[1] https://www.howtogeek.com/273824/windows-10-without-the-cruft-windows-10-ltsb-explained/
Note:
They go on to describe the freely available 90-days-twice-rearmed trial of LTSB, but doing that and needing to backup/restore your data and OS at least once a year isn't very appealing, I only do it myself in a virtualbox I touch maybe once a month.
yeah, this is one of those 'ask your friend in IT who has a VLK for Enterprise' situations :)
For those with no issues with stealing food from the mouths of Satya Nadella's children, the piracy route is trivial with W10.
On the phone side, Android itself (AOSP) shouldn't (to the best of my knowledge) communicate with Google unless you also have Play Services installed. Lineage or Paranoid Android, along with directly installed APKs for your choice of open source software, should do the job you need.
I can wholeheartedly recommend The Light of Other Days, by Arthur C. Clarke & Stephen Baxter - it's a very interesting and somewhat optimistic take on a near-future society where privacy becomes functionally impossible, and the implications that has.
I've been looking into Mycroft since reading you reference it. It's a pretty neat project. I thought I could run it completely locally but apparently that's still being developed and would require slightly intensive resources to keep running.
Secure AI voice assistance would be amazing but I'd be happy with a program that just stores "commands" I assign to trigger tasks and then recognizes them.
Could you elaborate on the encryption before sending to Google? How do you do that? That sounds interesting.
Almost every OS has disk/folder/file encryption built in to them. But there are also a ton of third party solutions as well (e.g. EncFS MP), some even designed specifically to integrate with your cloud services (e.g. Boxcryptor) and even at the enterprise level there are some solutions as well, (e.g. Sookasa). So it really depends on what OS you're using, what type of service you want/need, and what level of encryption you're looking for.
Boxcryptor looks interesting. I'll try that out. That makes me feel a little better.
Google is successful due to its products being free and generally working well. It's easy to to see why people have a tough time leaving them behind.
There is nothing inherently wrong with liking Drive/Photos/Home and continuing to use them despite knowing the downsides. However I would suggest you keep a local offline backup of your drive/photos to avoid being totally dependent on those Google apps.