My First Attempt to Live Without Google
Recently, I considered living without Google. The idea came up to me after reading the reflection from @switchingsoftware.
switching.social – Ethical alternatives to popular sites and apps https://switching.software/
I agreed with SwitchingSocial's perspective so that my first step was trying to conduct my mobile life without Google services. However, it was really hard in practice and required some time to build new habits.
For these reasons, my mobile phone, Samsung Galaxy Core Prime (Samsung G360G) which has 1G RAM / 8G ROM / 32G microSD and operates in Android 4.4.4 system, is doing its best to install these applications. I change the default launcher into T-UI Launcher and use Holo Launcher for daily work.
Then I switched Google Services to alternatives.
| Services | The alternatives I choose | |
|---|---|---|
| → | Turn off. | |
| Google+ | → | Turn off, and this service has been closed. |
| Google Search | → | Gibiru & DuckDuckGo. |
| Google Voice | → | Koñele. |
| Google TTS | → | Flite TTS Engine. |
| Google Play Store | → | F-Droid. I have turned Play Store off until some in-app purchase apps need validation. |
| Google Play Service | → | Still turn on, but turn off most of the syncs except Fit. |
| Gmail | → | K-9 Mail & Protonmail. |
| Chrome | → | Browser NBPro for the mobile, and Firefox for the computer. |
| Google Map | → | OpenStreetMap + OsmAnd. |
| Google Fit | → | FitNote. |
| Google Keep | → | txt files + MementoDatabase. |
| Google Docs | → | txt files with any text editor. |
| Google Calendar | → | Etar + Offline Calendar, and use Rainlendar for my computer. |
| Gboard | → | Multiling O Keyboard. |
| Google Drive | → | Syncthing + NextCloud. |
| Google Book | → | AlReader or Book Reader. |
| Youtube | → | NewPipe & Invidious & Peertube |
| Google Blogger | → | Write.as |
| Google Hangouts | → | Discord |
I also switched my social networks to alternatives.
| Services | What I use | |
|---|---|---|
| → | Only use Facebook Page. | |
| Instant Messenger | → | Threema & Telegram |
| → | Pixelfed | |
| → | Mastodon | |
| Plurk | → | Still use. |
| Blogger | → | Write.as |
Those privacy-friendly sites such as Mastodon, Pixelfed, and Peertube could be browsed by just using Fedilab.
By getting rid of most of Google applications, my old smartphone now has 1.2G ROM storage and 100~200mb RAM available and has 133 apps installed. Therefore, open source software is more suitable than Google service to Android 4.4.4. Thank the open source apps that create a new world for those outdated devices. My mobile is still functional and useful for me despite its low-end hardware.
Finally, those tiny steps to leave Google and commercial social media make me feel a kind of freedom without monitoring. On the other side, I lose some automatic, synchronized convenience between the mobile device and the computer. Well, it might not be a big deal if we pay a little more effort with backup. We should secure our valuable full version of freedom, not for the lite version one under the mass surveillance.
#thoughts #AndroidAPP #decentralized #DeleteGoogle #Fediverse
References
Guide to Switching – By switching.social https://switching.software/
How to Live Without Google https://spreadprivacy.com/how-to-remove-google/
How to live without Google? – By Alex Ewerlöf https://medium.com/@alexewerlof/how-to-live-without-google-c0f1630ead6
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