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Comment by anderspitman | Hacker News Reader

Google is relatively straight forward to replace. Inexpensive 80% solutions exist for most of their services. Maps is a notable exception.

As for Facebook you're fighting against the greatest network effects in the history of mankind.

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Apple Maps has replaced Google Maps for me. I’ve been trying to move away from Google and this has been an easy one. I don’t notice the difference most of the time. When I do, it’s because I’ve pulled up Google Maps by accident and it’s cluttered and spammy.

And recently Duck Duck Go has integrated with Apple maps which is really neat.

I had zero issues quitting Facebook but replacing Gmail and Android? That's going to be really tough considering Gmail is my online identify hub and Android facilitates so many utility services (banking, electronic identification, money transfers, etc).

Gmail can forward to another account as you transition. Put it behind your own domain name so you can switch providers if needed.

Android is perfectly usable with microg! And then look into magisk for functionality requiring root access for things like ad-blocking and a firewall to prevent (or spoof!) all the traffic generated by all those shitty apps trying to ship your personal data off to Google, FB, Twitter, etc in the background.

Forwarding works. I mean, you can totally migrate out without much expenses, and that's the beauty of email. But GMail does offer good spam filter and okay-UI. It's hardly a bad software by itself.

Android is just simply unreplaceable, but it's FOSS at least.

Nitpick: Android is not FOSS. The parts from the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) are. Everything else, including the Play Services later and all the default Google services/apps (like a Play Store, Maps and others) installed on Android devices are all proprietary and closed source.

Also, Android being “simply unreplaceable” depends on the person, their needs and what they can adapt to.

Register a domain if you don't already have one and get Fastmail for 5 USD/mo (includes a calendar as well). If Gmail.com is your online identity hub, then you're not in control of your online identity.

Right but what about Android? What's the point of setting up email at my own domain - which I already have - when Google can track everything through Android?

Hey you're not wrong there. It's atrocious what Google has done to Linux on Android. We badly need an alternative smartphone that's actually built to be a tool rather than an ad optimization platform. Apple is better on that front, but they also want to ram their vision of what a computer is down your throat.

Between firefix, duck duck go, and gmail used only to register the phone: google doesn't have much on me anymore. They still have too much thanks to all the trackers (firefox is getting better at blocking) but much less.

Now if I could get people to put useful videos someplace other than youtube.

Or spend lesser money for email/calendar with cheaper services that have strong statements about privacy, such as mailbox.org, mailfence.com, runbox.com, migadu.com (these are also services outside the Five Eyes countries, if that matters).

Fastmail may be cheap enough for one mailbox for one person. But when you need multiple mailboxes (not aliases), the services mentioned above come out significantly cheaper.

Do the last two offer a calendar? I couldn't see it. Fastmail is a good first step away from Google for most people, similar fetaure set, good interface and support which caters for all abilities. I don't think you can say the same about any of those others (unless you read German).

If you want to contact an acquaintance because you'll be in their city, what do you use to communicate with them? Keep in mind people often change their phone numbers or at least lose their contact lists.

> Keep in mind people often change their phone numbers or at least lose their contact lists

Often? Is this common? Me and the circle of people I know (friends, family, acquaintances, extended family) have had the same number for a number of years and seem to not have lost my phone number recently, as far as I know.

I meant I often have friends announcing on Facebook that they lost their contacts and need everyone's number. But it's rare for this to happen to any particular person. But you still have to check. If I'm texting someone for the first time in a year or more, I'll ask if it's still the same person, and hope they're telling the truth. Email is more reliable, but still not as good as Facebook.

Openstreetmaps is pretty good. The transition has gotten much better than it used to be.

Last time I tried any of the OSM apps for search for random thing + navigate there flow, the results were a joke compared to the Google experience. Has it improved by an order of magnitude over the past couple years? I think this might be one of the cases where Google just has way more data for their algorithms.

Depends. It is better for getting to my house - I personally went in and fixed the bad data. I checked the my changes are public domain box so eventually google might pick that up - maybe.

Doesn't help my trying to get to arbitrary places, but when arbitrary people are trying to get to me it helps a lot.

Bing maps is a great 80%+ solution and last I checked a lot cheaper than Google Maps for API integration.

There's no Android app? The killer feature of gmaps is the search/discover/navigate flow.

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