DeGoogling 2024: Replacing Photos, Gmail, and Search | Hacker News Reader

DeGoogling 2024: Replacing Photos, Gmail, and Search

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68 pointsnamanyayg28 comments

I've been fully de-googled for years

some friends dont or cant avoid google so I install:

Gapps Browser by Toby Kurien if they want a de-googled phone

Its a sandboxed web apps for google stuff. So you can use google maps, gmail ext without having any google on your phone. Its on F-Droid.

Replace youtube with:

plenty of open source apps to view youtube

newpipe for android. no ads, no waiting, no data collection

or use an:

invidious front end instance.

I use the LibDirect addon for firefox.

you can set it to redirect away from most annoying big tech sites.

once set, you can choose many links, you choose, if you click any link it autoimatically rediects to the site you want:

I have set it like this:

reddit goes to https://reddit.simo.sh

youtube goes to https://invidious.private.coffee

goodreads goes to https://biblioreads.ml

IMDB to goes https://libremdb.iket.me

Stack overflow goes to https://libremdb.iket.me

a much cleaner experience

I have tried to de-couple from big tech, and each time I changed something, it has been better. Kagi is much better than google search. I use proton for mail/calendar/(vpn sometimes), and no ads with the same features. I have my own domain that I can take where ever I want to take it to without fear for future account access.

Android -> Graphene is also a very nice change. The minimal UI and minimal features are nice. The reality is that smart phones have not had a significant innovation since 2012. Most newer features are net-negative for users except better cpu/memory/camera/security.

I have been on linux for a while, but have backup laptops with windows/osx. The linux experience is just better. Most major distros get out of your way and let you work. I find that if I want to make a complex configuration, I can get it working as opposed to it either works or doesn't on windows/osx. Less telemetry. Less new features trying to creep in. My desktop environment is essentially unchanged for a decade unless I changed it. I have an immense level of control, and I don't wrestle with anyone or anything. Ads are blocked at the OS level. Linux is stable on servers, and its stable for desktop users too. The only app that I missed is photoshop, but learning gimp felt like it was worth it and even more so with recent news.

In some ways, linux has the most innovative/cutting edge desktop experience because developers are entirely unrestricted. I have an i3 configuration and watched those features get backported to gnome then windows. As a developer, I often get the easiest access to newest technologies like docker or rust. Comparing install instructions between linux/osx/windows is often comparing one line of bash to 3-5 steps on the others. Scripting out setting up a new install is easy.

I set up a small wireguard server for a vpn. I clone my files to another server over ssh. I use github to share code and config between different computers.

Learning to own your infrastructure has its benefits. Like learning how your car works or plumbing, electricity, home maintenance. It has a cost, but the results are intangible like knowledge and power.

What do you use for gmail?

I'm still waiting for a decent email client

In my de-Googling process, I switched to Fastmail. I think they have a pretty good email, calendar, contacts, and notes interface.

It has a quick and easy Gmail importer. I also gave it access to my Gmail account to pull emails whenever someone emails my old email so I can let them know I switched emails. All I get now from my old gmail account is spam, but I'm holding on for at least another year to make sure I don't miss anything or anyone who hasn't updated my address. (I use a personal domain so I won't have such problems in the future if I change providers.)

It's frustrating that this seems to be the only option. I have a good email service (migadu) but they don't provide a client. I love how their pricing model is based on emails sent/received, since it allows me to have as many users/domains/mailboxes I need

Migadu does have a web client (webmail.migadu.com). It is the barest of bare bones (certainly fewer features than Gmail or Fastmail), but does the job just fine for basic tasks, at least.

Yeah, I'm aware but did not consider it, for me being able to snooze-send emails as well as snooze received emails is very important (I'm an old Inbox user), so the bare client didn't pass the default test. It's also not amazing from the usability perspective, but it does the job for occasional usage.

I love Migadu and have no intention of dropping it, it's just frustrating that email clients come only bundled with email services with dumb pricing structure (really in 2024 I can only have 1 domain per user for my emails!? What if I have a work email and a personal one?)

I often create projects and want domains for those, yes it might end up with garbage and nothing out of it, but it's insane I have to pay some $5/month for an email account that will receive 1 email in its entire lifetime, it makes no sense.

With migadu I'm free to experiment, my cost is based on emails sent and received (an actual cost), not on my dummy accounts that I experiment with.

I can understand that frustration that webmail clients are currently very vendor specific. Though I'm also an old school user that switches among Outlook (Desktop [New], Mobile), Apple's Mail app, Thunderbird, and a few other clients based on several whims/current preferences. Migadu supports IMAP very well and I don't feel tied to a specific client and webmail is a "nice-to-have" for some edge cases, never my main client.

Off the top of my head, Outlook and Thunderbird both support snooze/delay/schedule-send in various ways. I don't know about "snooze received emails". (I was never an Inbox user.) (Outlook has Flagging for Follow-Up and you can set your own deadline?)

There's a lot more IMAP clients than just the ones I bounce among, too.

It used to be IMAP clients were where all the innovation was in email clients. It is a bit unfortunate Gmail changed the dynamic so much that people today think webmail clients should be the client-side innovators.

Well the problem is IMAP is a protocol and takes longer to change. I doubt IMAP has anything related to snoozing emails, isn't that the case?

I will try a few. My concern is having a shared space for contacts too (google has been my go-to area for contacts), since I need to use it for the phone.

I need a client for android and one for desktop, or a web client that works for both (but should support offline on mobile!)

It's not necessarily a feature that needs to be embedded in the protocol. There's lots of innovation clients (and servers) can do independently even with a shared protocol.

That said, I'm still curious if JMAP might ever get much traction outside of Fastmail and a few others. They make a good point that having an HTTP-capable and JSON speaking protocol opens up potential webmail client innovation in good ways. But I don't expect we'll see a much faster adoption curve than the currently slow trickle.

Agreed! And yes, JSON and http would simplify a lot of things.

I was considering writing my own email client for a while, but instead I pivoted to my own budgeting app for now. Will get to the email client if I ever have time, lol

I switched to Fastmail a couple of years ago and I'm generally really happy with it. But their android app is absolutely terrible. Like, unacceptably terrible. I've had to choose a third party email app. So far I've landed on Spark, which I'm also not thrilled with. I didn't realise how good the Gmail android app was until switching away.

Their Android App appears to be an online-only web-something in an app wrapper. As long as I have a signal, I've been pretty happy with it.

I use proton's email service with a domain that I own. The client works good enough for me. It has filters, multiple addresses going to one box. There are probably some more advanced features that I don't use and proton and doesn't have.

I have a legacy gmail account that I am going to keep alive. All email is forwarded from that gmail account to my proton box.

Very similar experiences

-- I switched off google photos to photoprism and syncthing -- Android -> GrapheneOS as well -- Linux desktop, i3 window manager. I went from ubuntu to nixos -- Wireguard VPN server hosted remotely -- remote git server / self hosted gitea -- gmail to fastmail

There is no more problems to solve, everything just works...

The only thing I can't get rid of is YouTube. I have my own PeerTube instance and subscribe to some chanels there, but I basically almost never watch videos on PeerTube. I only watch private family videos if someone from the family uploads one, but all the normal watching happens on (with SmartTube) on the TV or (with NewPipe) on the smartphone from YouTube.

Do you import the YouTube channels you follow into Peertube?

I appreciate these kinds of posts, and I've been semi-Degoogled for years now. What hasn't been easy for me to move away from so far is Docs/Sheets.

Apple's Numbers and Pages seem very far from ideal. Zoho didn't quite work for me. Maybe I should try Clickup.

One of the things that's stopped me from doing something like this so far is that the benefits are intangible, difficult or impossible to measure, but the costs are obvious and often measured in dollars.

Peace of mind is invaluable.

Google has the worst customer service. If you have to use big vendors, find something else. I will use any services where I don't need to have an account with them. I have lost 15 years old gmail account, all digital services associated with it.

Most open-source programs recommended as alternatives don't offer any customer support either. For non tech people the chance that they mess something up is pretty high, which a lot of people seem to forget. For them something like iCloud would be a way better alternative than "Immich".

iCloud is great. I ended up switching to iCloud. I could contact a person when there is an issue, and there are some common senses in Apple to solve problems, solutions are more well thought from customer's point of view. Google reminds me the time when all softwares display error code on screen, and menus were designed by programmers.

Was that a normal free account or paid? If it’s a free one, then I imagine all-bets-are-off and google can do whatever it wants?

I’m definitely not a huge fan from the privacy point of view and should degoogle at some point, but I’ve been using the google version with my own domain for ~13 years now (when it was free) and since a year ago have to pay for the Workplace edition, something like $10-15 a month.

What I understand is that at least if I’m paying for it, there’s a contractual agreement to not yolo-delete my account like in your example, and presumably there would be a way to reach some human in case of problems (unlike with free account).

No, I didn't pay for my email. It is Google, so I was using it as main email account for 15+ years, and have used GDrive for some documents.

I have learned my lesson. I guess for free iCloud account, I am paying by using Apple products.

The reduction of the number of personally targeted ads that you see can be a tangible benefit, and it is something you can measure. Sure it is subjective if that matters to you in seeing fewer personally (over-)targeted ads and if it is a quality of life improvement that you wish to have. But if you already feel that every ad targeted too specifically to yourself is a bit of a papercut, a reduction in papercuts is certainly measurable and obvious.

Good luck replacing youtube