What apps have you tried to "de-google" yourself?
What apps have you tried to "de-google" yourself?
Right now a lot of us are trying to divest and diversify from having our entire lives on Google both because of the way Google spends its money and the long-standing privacy concerns seeming a bit more scary now.
What services have you switched to and what has your experience been? What do you like, what don't you like, would you recommend them?
Search: Kagi (paid)
Email and calendar: Tuta (paid)
Synced storage (like Dropbox): Synology Drive (free, used with my Synology NAS)
Photos: Synology Photos (free, used with NAS)
Passwords: Bitwarden (paid)
Music subscription: Tidal
Music purchases: Qobuz and Bandcamp
No complaints about any of these. Quite happy having de-googled and de-appled.
Desktop Environment
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Operating System: Fedora Workstation Linux
- Great package manager updates
- Excellent performance
-
Productivity Tools:
- Note-taking: Zim Wiki (preferred for GUI and plaintext storage)
- Document Editing: Considering OnlyOffice if Collabora Office doesn't work out
- Backup Solution: Filen cloud provider with desktop sync app
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Browsers:
- Primary: Firefox with Arkenfox
- Backup: Ungoogled Chromium (for sites incompatible with Firefox)
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Password Management:
- Bitwarden (kept on phone)
- KDE Connect for clipboard sharing between devices
Mobile Setup
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Device & OS: Pixel 8 Pro running GrapheneOS
- More stable and polished than previous CalyxOS on Pixel 5
- Better Google Play sandboxing compared to microG
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Mobile Apps:
- Browsers: IronFox and Vanadium
- App Sources: Primarily open-source from GitHub/F-Droid, updated via Obtainium
- Non-FOSS Apps: Sandboxed Google Play for banking and other essential apps
- Maps: HERE WeGo (previously used Magic Earth but it lacked public transport info)
- Loyalty Cards: Catima
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Search Engine: Kagi
- Quality results
- Sound business model (subscription-based)
- Fediverse integration for Lemmy search
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Self-Hosted Services:
- Contacts and calendar via Radicale on NAS with Nginx
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Car Integration:
- Still using Android Auto (found MagSafe holder alternatives more distracting)
- Physical cards stored in MagSafe wallet on phone back
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for me:
- google drive > pcloud (objectively better app tbh)
- chrome > librewolf > floorp (i like having the tab bar at the bottom, and librewolf is a bit annoying sometimes)
- photos > ente
- gmail > proton > tuta > "disroot" (proton and tuta aren't IMAP, and their first-party apps are slow. disroot probably isn't the best one, I just chose one that supports IMAP)
- google search > ddg > SearXNG
- google office > onlyoffice on windows, libreoffice on linux
- google maps > Organic Maps
- google passwords > bitwarden
- google auth > ente auth :)
If I remember correctly I started deGoogling "seriously" in the last summer. At this point YouTube and Youtube Music are the only Google products/services I still use daily but only on PC. I never use them on phone. I also am quite forced to use Gmail sometimes but otherwise I avoid it like a plague.
I think my phone is as deGoogled as possible without rooting and/or changing the OS. I have uninstalled every Google app that I have been able to uninstall and also I have disabled every Google service that is possible to disable. I still have to deMicrosoft my PC. I want to move to Linux but I have understood that there's some compatibility issues with Reaper and virtual instruments. That's the only reason I haven't done it yet.
Anyway. Here is a list of apps/services I use instead of Google's sh*t:
- Browser: Waterfox on PC and Ironfox on phone (of course both with uBlock Origin)
- Cloud storage: Proton Drive
- Email: Proton Mail
- Calendar: Proton Calendar
- Authenticator: Aegis
- Map: OsmAnd
- Search engine: DuckDuckGo and Brave Search
- Play Store: Droid-ify and Aurora Store (not signed in)
- Speech Recognition & Synthesis: SherpaTTS
- Find My Device: FindMyDevice (FOSS)
I think that's all. There's some other FOSS apps and services that I use but they are not exactly replacements for Google's sh*t.
- Desktop: Linux (Tuxedo)
- Browser: Vivaldi
- Search: Ecosia & DDG
- Mail / Groupware / Calendar / Contacts / Cloud Drive / Meet: Infomaniak kSuite Pro
- Backup: Syncthing
- Movies / Netflix / Amazon Prime: buying DVD / Bluray and ripping to my home media server with Jellyfin and Videoland.nl
- Mobile Phone: Fairphone with /e/OS or Calyx
- Whatsapp: Signal, Matrix / Element, Briar, Threema
- YouTube: Grayjay, Floatplane, Nebula, Curiosity Stream
- Maps: Magic Earth
- Photos: ente.io
- Authenticator: Ente Auth
- Twitter / X: Mastodon
- Cards: Catima
- Keep / Evernote: Notesnook / Anytype
- Backup comms: Meshtastic / UHF / VHF
- Translate: DeepL
- Podcasts: Antennapod
- Google Home: Home Assistant
- Google Assistant / Gemini: Mistral Le Chat / LLama
- Router: openWRT (GL.iNET Flint2)
- Firewall: opnSense (Deciso)
- Pushbullet: KDE Connect
- speedtest.net: LibreSpeed
- Fing: Ning
- Kobo / Kindle: Pocketbook
- Amazon: Local / European dealers
- Pocket: Wallabag
- Creality / Bambulab: Prusa
- VPN: Proton, Wireguard, Tailscale
I've recently been thinking about this.
I've seen plenty of recommendations for the Proton suite, but seeing as the premium plan runs 10 bucks a month for:
- Mail (Need premium for IMAP compatibility with the Proton Bridge)
- Calendar
- Drive service --more on this one later
- VPN (this one looked nice, but IIRC VPNs are less necessary for home traffic if all my requests are HTTPS)
- Password Keeper
- And crypto wallet,
it was a mite expensive for my tastes who was only going to use the mail service and calendar and perhaps the VPN. I looked into Posteo.de and it had all that I wanted from an email provider (encryption on-server, IMAP compatibility and privacy-focused). It's much cheaper (1 EUR/mo.) and it has a fantastically retro and sleek website (the epitome of web design-- nice-looking without being obese or fiddly).
I'm also trying out a few search engines, namely Mojeek and Marginalia-search because I want to both move away from Big Tech and Google in particular as well as open my horizon to the more human side of the web.
I have yet to figure out what to do about Android. I'm trying out using a dumb-phone for a while, but that's more of a temporary thing.
With regards to Proton Drive, it seems nice but I've heard of poor Linux support. That's a big dealbreaker for me.
I'm afraid that I can't step away from Big G just yet; work runs off it. But one can dream. And every bit of data that Google doesn't have is one degree fewer of control they will have over me eventually, when the Big Tech overlords pull the trigger on whatever they have cooking up.
Been degoogled for years at this point:
- Stock Android --> LineageOS or GrapheneOS (no gapps)
- YouTube --> Invidious*, NewPipe
- Google Search --> DuckDuckGo, Brave Search
- Google Play Store --> F-Droid, Aurora Store
I've also decoupled from other similar services:
- Outlook --> ProtonMail
- Calendar --> Nextcloud*
- OneDrive --> Nextcloud*
- Windows, macOS --> Linux (after years of distrohopping, I found LMDE is incredibly stable while still being a nice "out of box" distro)
- Google Maps, Apple Maps --> OSMAnd, Organic Maps
I never used any online password manager myself, I went from writing passwords in a literal book to KeePass, to now Vaultwarden* for that
* - self hosted
My selfhosted Nextcloud does:
- Cloud storage (including photo storage)
- Contact/Calendar/Task Sync (DAV Droid)
- Notes
- Podcast subscription and progress sync (gpodder)
While I use OSMAnd for offline navigation MAPS is still my go-to for navigation/discovering places.
My phone is currently running stock Android
These are what I use:
Browsers: Fennec, LibreWolf
Email Clients: K-9, Fair Email, Proton Mail, Thunderbird
Pictures: Fossify Camera, Fossify Gallery
File Sharing: Proton Drive
YouTube: Tubular
SMS Messaging: Textra (It's not FOSS, but unfortunately there doesn't seem to be a FOSS app in existence that shows the actual name of the person who's sent the message in group chats. They just show an icon, which isn't enough for me to keep track)
App store: Droid-ify (F-Droid), Aurora Store
Password Manager: Bitwarden
eBook Reader: Librera FD
Books: Bookwyrm
Translation: LibreTranslator
Calendar: Proton Calendar
What I can't find good alternatives for:
YouTube itself - enough said
Phone screen translation - I still use Google Assistant, and I'm not aware of anything else that grabs and translates all text on my phone screen
Maps - Rant time. This one is so annoying because there are FOSS navigation apps based on OpenStreetMap that are excellent in every way except one that makes them unusable for me: Using POV navigation instead of observing the convention of up = north. I did find one that lets you maintain a normal map view during navigation, but it doesn't keep your position centered automatically, which makes it impossible to use while driving. I have no idea who all you deranged people are who actually like the POV navigation, but there are definitely a lot of you because I can't find a replacement for Google Maps. I even tried Mapquest because at least it's not Google, but when I tried using it to navigate the first time, it somehow autocorrected "St" to "Ave" and I ended up lost lol. This maps situation really grinds my gears. I do still try to contribute as much as I can to OSM though because it's an important project, and hopefully someday an uninsane developer will make a proper alternative to Google Maps.
The #1 Google service/app that I used in the past was Google Maps. I've replaced it with Magic Earth for the last few years and it's been great. It uses Open Street Map for its navigation data, handles addresses very well, has live crowd-sourced traffic and hazard data, and can record rolling footage if you want it to act like a dashcam.
It works on Android and iOS, and supports Apple watch and Android car play if you use those.
For email I use Protonmail, for Google drove I use Proton Drive and my own self hosted NAS. For browsing I use several different Firefox forks like Zen, Floorp, LibreWolf, etc. UnGoogled Chromium for the rare times that a website "needs" Chrome to run.
My phone runs GrapheneOS which works great.
I have moved away from Google Contacts and Google Calendar and am now using Synology Calendar/Contacts. I've left Google Drive for Synology Drive and I've left Google Photos for Synology Photos. Everything is self hosted and self maintained.
I guess I'll share my setup aha. Forewarning: I invested heavily into self hosting and being in full control of as much as possible, mainly to try to be 'Internet independent'.
- Google ads, APIs, telemetry and everything else that is not necessary: AdGuard Home (selfhosted)
- Android app store: Fdroid with IzzyOnDroid repo, failing that Aurora Store, if apps still whine about not being to use Play Services then I use the Play Store
- Gmail: Mailcow Dockerized (selfhosted) with K9 Android client
- SMS (not that I use it anyway): Fossify SMS
- Instant messaging: Matrix (selfhosted) for Discord/Telegram style with Element client, or Telegram FOSS
- File Manager (I goddamn hate that Google Files forces itself onto any phone after initial setup, even when there's a manufacturer installed one already): Material Files
- GBoard (It's also really fucking invasive): HeliBoard
- YouTube: via Revanced Manager, with Odysee as a hopeful replacement. Much lower userbase though, obviously.
- Google Photos (refuses to settle for less than 100% file access): Part of a self hosted Samba share that I keep synced to via FolderSync (from Play Store - they charge €10 for the app outside of Google)
- Chrome: Brave (I downloaded a script to debloat it of crypto and AI)
- Google Search: My partner uses Ecosia for environment reasons, and I use DuckDuckGo for privacy reasons
- Chromecast: I recommend a Roku
- AndroidOS: CalyxOS if Pixel, LineageOS if not
- Play Services: Gapps pico or nano because some things are still tied to Play Services
- Maps is superior, unfortunately, but OSMAnd is a good alt
- Google DNS, used by default by a lot of things like routers: Cloudflare 1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1
Firefox.
Immich for photos
Radicale for calendar and contacts
My own mail domain and server, for mail
Lineages on android
The only thing I cannot do without, is google maps.
Mail: Posteo Maps: osmand for walking, hiking, cycling, skiing and magic earth for car navigation (because of real live traffic) Drive: nextcloud Phone: second Hand Google pixel with graphene OS installed (degiogled Android)
There are like 10 communities called something like privacy and a couple with degoogle in their name specifically. If you need more alternatives check them out. ;)
Google Search -> Ecosia, Qwant Browser -> Vivaldi Mail, Calender -> Proton* Drive -> Proton* DNS -> Quad9 Notes -> Joplin VPN -> Proton LLM/AI -> Mistral Translate -> DeepL Maps -> Here We Go Dall-E etc -> Stability Matrix Kindle -> Pocketbook
*Planning to move everything to a NAS with Nextcloud and synch in with Jottacloud as a backup.
Tried? That is boring. Stick with what we kept using.
I use F-Droid and Aurora Store on my phone and replaced the Google apps, that came preloaded on the phone, with FOSS apps. NewPipe on my phone and FreeTube on my PC to replace YouTube. I don't use Gmail. My Google account is on a Proton account. After I am sure I have all my desired apps switched over to email sign in, I will delete the Google account. I am also switching my Proton mail for Tuta mail. Proton is on the wrong side. I also dumped Microsoft over a year ago. I have been on Linux since then. I have avoided FaceBook for over a decade and never maintained a Twitter account.
I tried to minimize my dependency on Google by signing up for various email services like Petal Mail by Huawei, Proton Mail, and Yandex Mail. I also tried to find smartphones that don't have Google by default, such as Murena smartphones and Huawei smartphones. But it seems like it's too late to look for those gems without Google because I have so many apps that I bought on Google, amounting to around five digits in Malaysian Ringgit, which is not cheap. So I think I'll stay with Google for now, sadly.
Chrome ➡️ Brave - Open source and privacy focused
Search ➡️ Qwant - Good search results and privacy focusing
Photos ➡️ Immich - Pretty much Google Photos but self hosted
Drive ➡️ Nextcloud - Use it with Hetzner Storage Share, pretty cheap and easy to use
Gmail ➡️ mailbox.org - European email hosting focusing on privacy
Meet ➡️ Nextcloud
Here's my list:
- Proton Mail: super painless to migrate over and a very similar user experience. Feels good knowing that Google can't read my emails and that they can't be subpoenaed by our insane government. Highly recommend. There's a free plan that offers 1GB of storage but I went straight to a paid account so I can't speak to that.
- Proton Pass: LOVE this. It was easy to import my passwords from LastPass and Google. The best feature is the "hide my email alias" which on my plan I can make unlimited ones. It's basically making an anonymous throwaway email that automatically forwards to your inbox. If you start getting junk mail you can see who sold your address, but also with one click you can delete it if it gets compromised. It's basically the equivalent of making a bunch of different Google accounts but way easier.
- Proton Drive: It came with my subscription but I haven't gotten that deep into it yet. It has a Docs alternative but not Sheets which I use a lot, so I'm hoping they develop something like that. Otherwise like a lot like drive. It's technically a photo backup too but the interface is trash (see next item). My goal is to get enough transferred that I can cancel my Google One subscription and maybe just use that for Sheets as needed.
- Ente Photos: Cloud-based photo backup. I'm slowly getting my photos transferred over but it seems to be pretty user friendly. It has some but not all of the features of Google Photos, like organizing by faces.
- Brave Search: They have a browser too but I'm just using the search in Firefox at the moment. I like that it's not based on Google's index but it sometimes means the results are not quite as good. Honestly for the payoff of not being algorithmed to death I'm fine with that.
https://cartes.app/ is a new kid on the block to replaces Gmaps, looks very cool bit is also very alpha atm. But I'll keep checking it, it has some very cool features already (French only atm which I don't speak at all but it's still super usable.)