Goodbye Google: A tale of digital independence
Let’s be honest for a second. I think Google is a great company and they build great products. It’s not about Google playing the politics game. Or that they are dominating several big markets. Or that they shape our future with new technologies such as self-driving cars and war robots. No. It’s a matter of power. Or how Harvey Dent would put it:
You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.
I’m not saying Google is an evil, manipulative power that wants to control the universe, but I won’t outrule it either. The point is: while I don’t have anything to hold against them, I get this scary feeling in my intestines when I think of how much they know about me.
That’s why I have decided for myself that 2015 is going to be the year I’m claiming my digital independence. And I start with moving away from as many Google products as I can.
Here’s a list of my personal golden cage I have created with Google products:
GMail. I started using it when I was 14. Since then I piled up 9.55GB of Mails through multiple accounts.
Android. Already owning my third Android phone. Downgraded from a Galaxy S4 to a Motorola Moto E. Auto-syncing photos to Picasa.
Chrome. Heavily using Chrome on mobile as well as on my Linux. Chrome is my go-to tool for working as a web developer and finding stupid GIFs on the web. I love how my bookmarks are synced between devices.
Drive. Since first discovering Google Docs I’ve never looked back to MS Word (well, LibreOffice actually).
Google search. When googling for Capybara I’m mostly stuck with a red test suite, and not zoological problems. Okay, sometimes I look at capybaras for real. And rich snippets are pretty kick-ass too.
Of course I could just get my data from Google to Commercial Alternative X, but this is my path to digital independence after all. So let’s create some criteria for better solutions:
- My data is stored locally. Don’t even get me started on surveillance, spying governments and the like.
2. My data is secure. I’m not convinced this is entirely possible. So let’s say it should be hard to steal my data at least.
3. Open-source all the way. I’ll look for open-source alternatives and will open-source all the code in case I’m going to write my own solutions.
Finally, I want to outline some solutions. Some are pretty clear and it’s just a convenience change, other ideas are quite fuzzy still.
From Chrome to Firefox. I put my faith and trust into the non-profit Mozilla Foundation. I’m not sure what to do with Firefox sync as they advertise it as secure and open source, but don’t fulfil my criteria #1, local storage.
From GMail to my self-hosted mail server. I want to incorporate my Raspberry Pi and my Asus RT-N660U for that. I imagine this needs a good amount of work as I’ve never done anything like that.
From Drive to storage at home. Again, my Pi and Router should come handy for that task and I’m confident I will find a lot of knowledge for that on the web.
From Android to Ubuntu Phone. Originally I was thinking about moving to FirefoxOS but after seeing the elegance of Ubuntu Phone I was amazed. Today was the first flash sale on the BQ Mobile website, but I wasn’t lucky enough to get one due to their server problems. This wil be most likely a waiting game.
From Google Search to DuckDuckGo. I tried this once already and to be honest, it sucked. This will most likely be a painful inconvenience for me.
The follow-ups will be posted in seperate articles. I would be happy to hear any suggestions, ideas as well as criticism.
