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Comment by 5350-uiop-1130 | Hacker News Reader

How can I move away from Google. All my millions of accounts and services (even ones I've forgotten and may one day need) are linked to my Gmail.

And frankly, I find it hard to trust many others with some of my secure information (passwords) etc that I keep on my account...I feel like Google probably have some of the best of "anti-hacking" for lack of a better term.

I find MS services a pita to use and Apple, I just don't want to pay for their HW, it's not good value (to me).

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1) Get an email with a custom domain that you own, so you can switch providers without losing your address. Use Google takeout (https://takeout.google.com) to download your old messages.

2) Use a third-party password manager, or if you're paranoid (like me) use one that is open source and can be self-hosted like pass (https://passwordstore.org)

3) Use Linux on desktop for the best experience if you're a tech/software person. If not, you're stuck with Microsoft Windows, which nowadays is a window into your personal life and data. FWIW, the new M1 Macbooks offer the best value than any other laptop on the market today.

4) Use iPhone. Whatever you might think about their desktop hardware, the iPhone at least is price competitive with high-end Android devices. The biggest hurdle is transitioning to a different OS, but that difficulty is usually overestimated.

If you're really attached to Android though, the best you can do is use a custom ROM like LineageOS (aka Cyanogenmod), or maybe get a Purism phone (https://puri.sm/) which doesn't use Android at all.

5) Switch to Firefox if you're not already using it. Mozilla's hands aren't exactly clean, but they're a massive step up from Google in terms of privacy.

For all other Google services, you can easily find hundreds of alternatives, including self-hosted ones. Here's one list I found with a quick search (on DuckDuckGo!): https://restoreprivacy.com/google-alternatives/

The only Google service I find myself using nowadays is Youtube, and AFAIK there's not much you can do to avoid that one.

thanks

I second the recommendation for Fastmail. Forward your email, gradually change your accounts over.

I’ve been slowly transitioning away for almost a year now. And I was all in on google products and services.

I got rid of my android, switched to iPhone, was gonna go with protonmail, but went with Hey instead and I have zero regrets, Hey is awesome! Cancelled my YouTube premium/music subscription and switched to Apple Music.

Recently I’ve been going through my password manager and updating accounts and services to use my new email address. I’ve almost completely transitioned away. I’ll still keep my google account for stuff like my Stadia games (and tbh Stadia is actually pretty good), chromecasts, and my nest thermostats, but when we move I’ll probably leave them with the house.

Unfortunately there isn’t really any good neutral replacements for email + calendar + contacts, etc.

They do exist, but I just found switching phone ecosystems easier than anything else.

You can find an Own Cloud or a Next Cloud host in your country or whatever, and use that. That gives you calendar and contact sync, at least.

Most accounts you secure as a service to the people running the service with the account, not for your own benefit. For these you can use weak passwords/reuse passwords with the domain added.

For accounts that are actually valuable use a self hosted password manager and memorize the passphrase it uses to encrypt everything.

Also you should be backing everything up off Google yesterday. Everyone has a decent chance of getting smacked by a poorly thought out heuristic/ML/AI automation that locks you out either because they don't like something you said or think you're trying to break in to your own account. I regret not backing up my photos before Google took them away.

I just forwarded all the email to fast mail and it has worked properly.

This is also how I transitioned to Fastmail. Forward all mail from gmail to your own domain and then slowly unsubscribe or update the email on any that you receive. Eventually you will have most of your accounts and subscriptions moved over to your own domain. I still keep the email forwarding enabled just in case any old accounts send me something.

I did the same but that's not really moving away from google. They still know what emails you receive, what you buy, who you write with, what websites you use. I slowly, one by one, move each website that I use whenever I notice it goes to my old email or I login using my old email.

You can set up pop3 access on fast mail to grab your legacy gmail mail while you transition to a domain and address that you own and control. I still have mine but only get 1-2 messages a month to my old gmail address.

So Google is still getting all your email, you're just never logging in to Gmail UI... Don't see the point.

The end-goal is to gradually update your email adress in your third-party account to FastMail, and you keep the email forward enabled just in case you forgot to migrate one or someome tries to reach you through Gmail by mistake.

I used FastMail and migrated to ProtonMail recently. I use my own domain. On my main machine I run thunderbird in the background so it always has a local copy in case something happens. You can always sync to a new service.

I started switching over to a paid Fastmail account with my own domain several months ago. I still use my gmail account for some sign ins (and my work uses google for email and sso), but if my account was locked tomorrow I’d be ok.

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