De-Googling ❌
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I’m slowly going through the process of de-Googling my life. There are loads of alternatives to Google products, so there’s never been a better time to do it.
But it’s still work.
Take email as an example. I’ve had a personal Gmail account since 2004 and I’ve used it for almost everything.
I’m working towards permanently deleting the account.
A few weeks ago, I received a renewal reminder about my Google One subscription. I’d bought extra space so I didn’t need to delete emails.
This seemed as good a time as any to take an initial step, so I deleted every email my account. All 290,589 of them.
Deleting email is one thing, but the real work is updating my email address across all of my active accounts. There are so many to update.
Given the work involved, it’s little wonder people are reluctant to switch email providers. But I think it’s absolutely worth it.
We all know Google collects data, but the Gmail iOS app’s privacy label makes for a pretty staggering read:
Why on earth does an email provider need to know your search history, location and what you’ve bought?
We’ve all heard the phrase “if you’re not paying for the product you are the product”, especially in relation to platforms like Facebook. I wonder how many of Gmail’s 1.5bn users are aware of – and happy with – the extent of surveillance happening on their private emails.
This relentless scraping and profiling is likely to be one of the reasons Amazon stopped including order details in confirmation emails.
Fortunately, there are some excellent email alternatives. For instance:
- ProtonMail ($0+)
- Fastmail ($3/month+) (referral link)
- HEY ($99/yr)
If you value the privacy of your emails and/or want to reduce the information you feed to Google’s algorithms, I’d encourage you to switch to one of these services. It’s work for sure, but that’s even more reason to do it.
After all, should Google be allowed to continue collecting my data forever because teenage me was tempted by a free email service with a good UX? I don’t think so.
Outside of email, here are some of the other services I’ve switched to:
More details in the article.
Absorbing
Interesting links from the web.
Ban Surveillance Advertising
A campaign to end surveillance advertising, with a great explainer on some of the real costs of this business model.
DuckDuckGo targets Google’s new user tracking
Google are rolling out a new tracking method and turning it on in Chrome by default (of course they are). DuckDuckGo are updating their Chrome extension to block this: if you’re a Chrome user, it’s worth a look.
Unoffice Hours
I recently had my third morning of Unoffice Hours and I’m enjoying them so much.
No agenda or email needed ahead of time, just book a slot and turn up.
If there’s demand, I might open up an afternoon slot for folks in timezones on the other side of the Atlantic. If that’s you, let me know and I’ll see what I can do.
Interested in working together? I have availability from mid-June.
If you have related links that might be of interest, or thoughts on any of these topics, I’d love to hear from you: just hit reply.
Until next time,
Dave