Hi friends and followers, the terrific @jhpot wrote a piece for @lifehacker sharing my tips for getting off #google
Please check it out and share with your friends, family, and colleagues on and off the #fedi !
https://lifehacker.com/tech/how-to-quit-google-according-to-a-privacy-expert?ref=jhpMastodon
I think this article is missing a crucial point.
*Quitting Google will cost you extra bucks*
The reason #Google managed to get such a huge foothold during the past decades is simply because they allow normal users to use their services without having to pay upfront.
A simple move from Gmail to any privacy respecting mail provider (like #Protonmail) will definitely cost you. That's the price we need to pay if we don't want to be their products.
definitely, and it costs more than just money-- time, convenience, sometimes relationships... I write about all of this, from experience.
i still think it is worth it though :)
@cyberlyra @jhpot Nice!
I've mostly left Google, one service at a time. I stopped using Google search. I got another email address to use as a backup to my primary email, so I don't need gmail any more. I left the one Google Group I was a member of.
But I still have an old inactive blog on Blogger; it has 17 years of history I'd rather not lose & migrating would be a pain. There's no privacy issue here; anything Google wanted to read it's already read. So maybe leaving it as-is will be fine?
@cyberlyra @jhpot @lifehacker I never started with Google... so it is painless for me :)
@cyberlyra @jhpot @lifehacker I haven't outright quit G, but I have been reducing its role in my life over the past decade or so, including by no longer keeping Google's latest search ranking policies in mind when web publishing. Google's dictating of how everyone else does the web is just too much. (And DuckDuckGo is getting pretty good.)