I deleted my google accounts today
I deleted my google accounts today
It took a few months preparation but I deleted all my google accounts today, and it feels good.
I deleted my google accounts today
It took a few months preparation but I deleted all my google accounts today, and it feels good.
Now, send a gpdr deletion request because Google still has your data.
It's going to be difficult after deleting the account though
Difficult but legally required by them, including establishing your bona fides.
Do you have any guides or tips?
A lot of (all?) email services will allow you to forward your mail from Gmail. My advice would be set that up, have all of them going to a specific folder, and only use your new email moving forward. No harm in allowing some email forwarding while you adjust for the next 6 to 12 months. But that way you can also immediately stop using Gmail itself.
Gdrive unless it is really baked into your daily life in a complicated way, it’s pretty easy to replace. Lots of great services out there.
Proton mail allowed me to export my Google Calendar over with just a few clicks. So that was pretty painless. I’m sure there are other calendar services like that. YMMV.
Google maps is tough lol
For the google maps, it helps for us to contribute to Open Street Maps through recording with Mapillary or making edits in our community.
Congratulations! That's awesome! I've been Google-free for 2-3 years, but I haven't been brave enough to finally delete Gmail. I keep worrying I might need the message history one day?
Regarding Maps: I use OrganicMaps as my main, & I reflex to Gmaps WV when something isn't in OrganicMaps. I feel this is a reasonable privacy-friendly compromise.
Just dug through a lemmy thread of recommended android apps a minute ago and found someone recommending Organic Maps. Pretty damn good compared to some others I've seen!
And of course, popping into streetcomplete here and there and contributing some data helps sharpen the data 🙂
Google maps is tough lol
You could try to see if you'd like Magic Earth. It's proprietary, but has a good privacy policy, uses Open Street Maps, and has traffic data.
Though if you're dependent on Google Maps for reviews and photos of places, then it's much harder to replace. Though I guess you could just use the website to look that up.
A guide? Sure! Go to the account settings and click "Delete my account"
So helpful
This makes as much sense as telling somebody to delete all of the contents on their failing hard drive before transferring them to a new one
Would you be able to let us know the services you used, the replacements, and how did the migration process work?
Here are the things I replaced my Google/Microsoft/Meta services with:
DO NOT FORGET TO MIGRATE ACCOUNTS BEFORE DELETING
StreetComplete is a great app to help contribute to OpenStreetMaps
Seconded.
Without a single word on replacements for email, calendar, phone, etc... this post is pretty much useless to everyone else than the OP.
I replaced most of that with proton mail and grapheme is which ironically requires a pixel
See above. Plus I use Thunderbird for calendar.
Welcome to the club.
I want to delete mine too, but I use GMail and I have not found a good alternative yet. Tutanota doesn't have Thunderbird support and ProtonMail has, but only on paid accounts. I really want to use Thunderbird because it is such a great email client.
I was in a similar situation and after a lot of research I found posteo.net and I liked its privacy, FOSS and environmental policies and gave it a try. Happy with its service for just 1€ a month.
I’ve been using Proton for about a year and a half now. It’s been really good for my needs, I started on the free version but then decided to pay to help support them and to get access to everything else (specifically SimpleLogin).
If you're reasonably tech savvy and on linux you can use hydroxide to bridge a free protonmail to thunderbird. I've been doing it for ~a year, I suspect they don't kill it for ratings, but I only have free protonmail on my GrapheneOS phone with forwards from thunderbird for specific things, works great...
If relevant, ask me how!
OK, thanks, I will check it out
I agree! Maybe with more research you'll find something that suits you. I personally use mailbox.org and I'm quite happy with it :)
This is a daunting proposition, I'm admittedly massively invested in Google's ecosystem. Gmail and Google calendar, I have a pixel phone, watch and buds and have YouTube premium. I feel like the time I switch is when I have a homelab and am able to find open source alternatives to everything heavily use and be able to do so with all devices I use.
Some are easier than others. Especially if you don't mind paying. Protonmail, calendar, drive solve some big ones right away. Maps is tough though, I've tried to find a better solution and haven't been able to so far.
I've been mapping my city with streetcomplete and using osmand live to download my edits, organic maps has a better address search though, so I use that too. I don't use the live traffic stuff, but osmand is capable of it.
Use newpipe anad install grapheneos on your pixel. I wish i had a pixel to install grapheneos.
I have one and do so. It's pretty great. I will admit I still have some google services on it, but I'm working on not needing those.
I wanted to but my pixel bootloader is carrier locked. Supposedly you can call and ask them to unlock it if you own the device but not sure if that's true.
Yeah same. It sucks. I got into Google stuff back when Gmail was in beta and invite only. Admittedly I really only use Gmail, drive and the calendar. But the sso aspects is the part that is the hangup I think. I have so many accounts utilizing their identity provider solution.
Welcome to the real world.
You think that's air you're breathing?
Let's not go all the way down the rabbit hole in one pill. Steps of one less person so inured (Definition: Made tough by habitual exposure), so hopelessly dependent on Google.
Hi,
Trying to do it myself but I'm stuck with YouTube.
I mean, I need a gmail account to pay for the Premium sub. And then, most creators are still using YouTube not the few alternatives... How do you guys do?
My friend, look into Grayjay, SponsorBlock, Firefox and UBlock
GrayJay is awesome, I'm excited for more sites to be added! I just need to work through my YouTube algorithm addiction lmao
if you're using a desktop, try Firefox with the Ublock origin and SponsorBlock Addons. On Android either try the above or use Re Vanced.
why would you do something so barbaric as paying yt premium?
not sarcasm joke, really curious
not sarcasm joke, really curious
I take your question without sarcasm.
Disclaimer: I use uBlock Origin myself, as I really don't like being forced to see ads.
That said, I don't think paying for content is 'barbaric' either. It's a personal choice. Either you want to pay and you can, or you don't want to, or you simply can't. All three are fine by me.
As a teen, back in the 80s, I could not and did not pay for content (it was not online back then but copying music, books and even movies, or computer applications was a thing). Since then I got a few jobs, and the money that come with them. So, I can support the creators I like and I don't need to spend time copying anything or searching for workarounds to access it. Be it on YT, or anywhere else. I would love to not pay Google, mind you, but since so, so many creators are still only hosted there, and since YT premium makes it so easy to pay them (a single monthly payment)...
I like paying creators their due and don’t like seeing ads. Fuck me, right?
Wife watches yt on Roku.
Try Invidious, FreeTube, NewPipe,... All allow you to watch regular youtube content without ads. You can also create instance local accounts to "create playlists" and "subscribe" to people.
Do they support casting to Chromecast etc aswell?
I'm considering it. Youtube just removed a comment of mine calling an elon simp a cracker for "harassment"
Really it's just about the last straw, they passively protect billionaires but will let outright hate speech stay up. They also advertise nazis.
Well done!
I ended up keeping mine for occasional things like leaving YT comments or subscribing to Firebase-distributed apps.
I'm building up to doing the same. Already using Protonmail and Kagi. Looking for a less Google-dependent phone to switch over to and then I might pull the plug myself.
Any suggestions on starting this process? I have a Raspberry Pi and was looking into self-hosted Google Drive/Photos/Gmail replacement. Best FOSS replacements?
Look up Syncthing and then never stop trying to replace closed source and paid software/services. Like any time you launch something ask yourself “does this hit the same way as when I swapped to Syncthing?” If the answer is no you then put “[name of thing you want to replace] foss alternative” into your search engine of choice. You’ll end up down so many rabbit holes, but you’ll come out the other side a whole lot better at making your technology work for you, not the company that made it, and with a suite of free open sourced tools you are in complete control of.
Here are some tools I use that are super easy to get going.
Those are the ones that got me going and I personally believe act as a solid core. Most people will find all of those useful. Other services are more user specific, but that’s a lightweight bundle of software that your RPi will handle well. Much more and you might want to look at beefier hardware.
It's a bit newer, but Immich is a very promising Google Photos replacement.
I recommend setting up a NextCloud server.
I can't wait to graduate college so I can stop using my Google account. I still have to use mine for the online office suite. I use LibreOffice if it's just me but I have to collaborate and do group assignments on Google Docs and Slides too.
It's a nice journey, and you can also start to look into proxmox for self hosting things. It really feels amazing to have your own little lab of stuff rather than using the public web for all services.
Welcome to the degoogled fold 🤗
Serious question; what do you use for OAuth?
OAuth? Do you mean 2FA? OAuth just requires you to be able to open a URL so all you need a browser. (see the OAuth flow)
Congratulations
Who dis?
Anyone have any alternatives to Voice?
I moved my number to VoIP.ms and while it's not nearly the same service wise, SMS do come to my email and I can call and receive calls via any VoIP app I want.
Thanks. Looks promising. Will def look further into.
Congrats!
Boffo!
I didn't, but I did all the other privacy things and as a result Google locked me out of my accounts so its basically the same thing
Exclusively Tutanota/Proton?
I'm only keeping mine to be able to pay for YouTube premium.
My brother. Use Piped.
How do I install piped into my Roku?
about time 😊 that’s not the goal; one of the first basic steps!
EDIT Sorry I should not have said it like this. Even though that was my honest feelings, said as free speech without any meany connotations, this should have been treated as good news, like someone finally ditched Windows.
One of the next steps might be to figure out how not to load GA.js GTM.js Google Fonts etc.
There is a long way to go to de-Google oneself, and unfortunately it’s not easy nor trivial. One subtle example: Google is a broker of Tor Snowflake, which could cause a difficult dilemma.
Six months and they will be restored by you, don't worry 😃
As someone that does not use a google account I disagree