Or just skip Google alltogether
Actively, yes. A big step I encourage everybody to take. Like moving out of your parents’ house for the first time.
Passively - close to impossible. It has, after all, a monopoly on many aspects of the www.
I don’t see it as impossible at all. But it is indeed inconvenient and may even cost some money.
But if it was as straightforward as just changing the TV channel, everyone would have done it already.
Having values and acting on them does cost. It is when we are willing to cope with those costs (financial or/and practical) that we stand our ground. Not when we don’t feel it. In that case it would just be a logical choice.
I don’t see it as impossible at all.
Well I said “close to”. Are you sure you can use the www without ever connecting to some google server? Ads, analytics, the infamous tagmanger etc.?
Not without going completely off the grid no. But there is a big difference from that, and actively using their services or even paying them money.
Simply privacy tools will anonymize your use of the internet, but actively avoiding the use of any google services, is the first big step
Easier said than done, even with alternatives. It’s everywhere
I know! For me, the hardest part was Google photos, that i eventually replaced with ente. But there is a reason why they have a market monopoly. By definition, it makes it difficult to find alternatives. But its possible!
I now only use them when Qwant does not give satisfying results. Kagi is good too, although i have recently replaced it with qwant.
What do you use for Maps? I am happy with a combination of Mappy and HereWeGo.
I’m mostly using herewego. I believe that I tried mappy but it didn’t have traffic updates for my region? Not sure 🤔 I went through so many!
Thanks! I usually try to use Organic Maps, but Here We Go seems to be very nice.
Oooh, Organic Maps works well at least local to me, thanks for the recommendation.
If i can drop Google Maps, the only Google related things I would still be using are Revanced Youtube and GrapheneOS.
Search I moved to Ecosia which is still Bing. Hopefully not for much longer given their most recent relevant announcement about making their own euro indexer/engine teaming up with Qwant.
I love organic maps! I used Google when organic wasn’t able to find certain addresses. I travel for work and sometimes organic isn’t great for weird places.
I use PipePipe for YouTube. I really like that app. I haven’t tried Revanced Youtube.
Oh nice. I primarily use DuckDuckGo, but I do use Leta occasionally. I’ll have to check Qwant out as well. Thanks!
Well, I completely agree with Agnès Callamard here.
“A rights respecting break-up of Google’s monopolistic hold could be an important first step towards an online world that respects human rights. By eroding the dominance of a single corporation and weakening Google’s control over our data, it makes space that must be filled by actors committed to upholding human rights.”
“Google’s current model thrives on harvesting, analysing, sharing with others and profiting from people’s personal data. This toxic, surveillance-based approach – shared by other Big Tech companies including Meta and TikTok – undermines the right to privacy and has given Google sheer market dominance, leaving no space for alternatives which respect our rights.”
They should have fixed that before Trump 2.0! But I’m sure Google/Alphabet lawyers knew that drawing things out might benefit them.
I’ll eat my hat if they do that
