Are you "google free" ?

[bonno@mastodon-belgium.be]

@futurebird I was very deep into everything Google.

I have moved my drive, docs, photos, keep notes, email away from Google.
I use a privacy browser and duckduckgo

I still have a Google account which I use for android. I have never been in apple nor Facebook. I've closed my Amazon, github and X accounts. I'm using Linux so no MS for me. F all of US big tech fascism enablers.

I'm looking into secure Linux phones but that's hard.
Still use gmaps as I need good search but it's next on the todo

[wynke@mendeddrum.org]

@futurebird Done that now.

I would like to be free of Google, but it has me locked in in several annoying and frustrating ways. A notable one is that mail from my main mail address (which is not self hosted but close in some ways) simply does not get through if I send it to some addresses that have (presumably) a hidden Google based backend (or possibly Microsoft, can't tell from my side), which is completely unacceptable when communicating with my child's school (and at the time I first had to provide another address to get around this I had Covid and was not really in a state to spend a lot of time and energy on a better solution).

[bonno@mastodon-belgium.be]

@futurebird filen.io - nextcloud with collabora - tuta mail - quillpad - brave browser - forgejo - kubuntu with libreoffice - no MicroSlop here

Stuff that's also good : Cryptpad - proton

[tricethetraveller@hachyderm.io]

@futurebird aiming for late 2026. Just ordered a pixel 8 pro for graphine. Which seems ironic

[hwll@sunny.garden]

@futurebird I'm trying. I know I'll get there. I have an ancient gmail account that receives fewer and fewer emails every year that I just forward to my main email. Also proud to have a completely degoogled phone finally!

I'm getting there in bites.

Maybe you already answered this (I'll check the thread), but I'm curious where you're at on your ungooging process.

[lffontenelle@mastodon.social]

@futurebird Realistically, it's more a matter of degree than of all-or-nothing to me

[hwll@sunny.garden]

@driusan not to judge in the least, but I've moved I think all of those google third party sign ins to use a personal email, so I believe it's possible. Maybe I'm missing something though. I appreciate that it's convenient if you're already signed in to google

[hwll@sunny.garden]

@mariamakesamess my condolences. 😩

[driusan@doomscroller.social]

@hwll@sunny.garden what? Do you hack in to every site you see to change their oauth settings?

[flagstone@hachyderm.io]

@mensrea @futurebird same. I moved away from it and essentially mothballed it (it forwards emails in case of the rare relevant email). Won't delete it to prevent an account lockout from something I forgot.

Also have a Pixel, but it has GrapheneOS.

I've nearly rid myself of all the FAANG (Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Netflix, Google) companies other than CDN (Content Distribution Network), of course.

[hwll@sunny.garden]

@driusan do you mind giving an example? I don't think I've come across one that wouldn't let me use a non-google email to sign in.

[balderdoordash@mastodon.social]

@futurebird working on it. One left

[Guest]

@futurebird I have deleted the account some time ago and don't miss it. I am using /e/os on my phone which is nearly completely Google free, works well. Sometimes I use Google search for specific queries. It is still much better than Quant or DuckDuckGo.

[sibylle@troet.cafe]

@futurebird I do have an account, from the days of google+.

I use newpipe for youtube, but I consider using my account to upload to youtube. Apart from uploading to peertube.

[futurebird@sauropods.win]

@sibylle

Every time I try to use peertube it freezes :(

I know the people making it are working very hard, but we need some kind of slush fund to make the bits flow faster.

[cypriendlp@mastodon.social]

@futurebird Google Maps is the hardest to avoid by far, in the meantime I contribute to OSM hoping to be, at some point, good enough to replace it.