Summary
I’m at my wit’s end with Google. I’m tired of being monitored 24/7 for all the activity I do, whether it’s writing emails or saving media to Google Drive to “improve their AI.” Unfortunately, you can’t really opt out of their data collection, because they will either continue collecting a portion of it regardless or disable select services (e.g., Gemini blocks you from past chats). Fortunately, escaping Google’s ecosystem isn’t impossible, nor does it have to be inconvenient. I de-Googled my browser without ever giving up their core services like Gmail, YouTube, and search, all while gaining far better control over my privacy and performance. What deGoogling really means Google’s reach is too invasive to ignore any longer DeGoogling is an actual term that means erasing all Google services and your reliance on them from your life. Like me, there are a bunch of people out there who have had enough with Google, and there’s an entire Reddit community called r/DeGoogle with over 500k members, made to share resources and suggestions to help deGoogle your life. Every search you perform, or every piece of media you save in Google Drive, is monitored by Google, which then uses it to build a personalized profile and share it with third-party companies for advertising and other purposes. Google also automatically opted its users into having their Google Drive scanned, which is used to train AI. Recently, a Redditor discovered that the name of the lead character from a game he was working on appeared in Google searches through Gemini’s integration. The user hadn’t revealed the name to anyone, but it was mentioned in his Google Docs, and Google’s data collection is most likely the source. Chrome was the first to go An ad company was never going to build a private browser Google Chrome is notorious for being a resource hog, yet most people still opt for the browser because of its familiarity, even though it is deeply rooted in Google services. In general, my life has improved so much by shifting away from Chromium-based browsers, and it’s why my now 11-year-old MacBook Pro (2015) is still capable of browsing. Aside from performance, Chrome is far from a privacy-focused browser because it is, in fact, built by an advertising company. Aside from serving as a front-end for Google to collect data from users, Chrome uses a deeper tracking system to differentiate you from every other user by creating a profile fingerprint from information such as screen resolution, time zone, hardware currency, and other data. Even with all this aside, Chrome is a risky browser, filled with bugs waiting to be found and exploited by hackers. In the last year alone, Chrome suffered eight zero-day vulnerabilities, leaving billions of users’ data vulnerable until they were patched. I’ve now switched to Brave, which is much more resource-friendly and also protects my privacy. Next, I ditched Google Search for a more private alternative Paying for searches beats paying with my data Just a browser switch wasn’t enough, though, because it would be insufficient if I still relied on Google Search as the search engine; as bad as Google Search is, it’s also very good. Nevertheless, privacy is non-negotiable for me, and Google Search does the opposite by building an advertising profile based on my activity. Beyond that, its quality has deteriorated a lot. Searches are no longer satisfactory, and for some reason, Google ranks a Reddit post above everything else. Not to mention that the AI overviews intended to make things easier for the user base steal content from other sites and hurt their traffic — especially true for publications like ours. I’ve switched to Kagi instead. Although it is a paid, subscription-based search engine, Kagi can categorize results, is incredibly customizable, and lets you filter results by a specific topic, too. Moving away from Gmail seemed almost impossible Proton Mail lets me keep my address without needing Google I can’t let go of Google entirely, even though I want to. My personal and work emails are tied to the service, and letting go would mean starting anew, which is next to impossible 15 years into this account. Proton Mail lets you import all your mail from Gmail and forward new messages, and any messages you send from Proton will still carry your same Gmail address. Proton Mail is the best mail service right now, without a doubt, thanks to its privacy features. One of them is PGP (Pretty Good Privacy), an encryption standard that ensures that only the intended recipient can read your emails. Swiss data protection laws, implemented by Proton VPN, also make it harder for them to compel access to your data, so that’s one worry you’re free of. Beyond that, you’ll find the service neat and clutter-free. YouTube was the one service I couldn’t really quit Fine, Google, you win Due to the sheer amount of content and over 2.7 billion monthly users, YouTube is by far the hardest service to replace. There isn’t even a proper replacement for YouTube, and other services like Dailymotion and Nebula have shrunk down. While you cannot replace YouTube, you can still access the content without using the YouTube app. One way is to use Newpipe or Tubular. These services connect directly to YouTube’s servers, but they never share your data with the Tech Giant. All subscriptions will also be stored locally on your device, and you can import them from your current YouTube account. You won’t even encounter ads and can finally play YouTube content in the background. You don’t have to deGoogle cold turkey I’ve let Google control my data for way too long, but it’s never too late to make a change. These changes may seem like a hassle, but you’ll be set after spending an hour or two at most. Most people think that degoogling means abandoning their favorite and necessary services, which I get is hard to replace, but by making these fixes as I did above, you won’t have to miss out on anything but enjoy better privacy and better performance