🩵 Bwee the Fluffdragon 🩵May 16, 2024

So... I've read some things lately about the big evil G that have put me into unease. The problem is, I use Google for absolutely everything right now, and have for as long as Google has existed. It's tied into everything and I need to break free.

These are the Google things I use regularly:

* Email - Gmail (I have many years of email that I've saved in my account)
* Browser - Chrome (including saving my passwords)
* Writing - Docs (I need collaborative capabilities and a place to safely save my work)
* Spreadsheets - Sheets (used for organizing various things, collaborative options are very needed and used often)

My phone is even a Google Pixel phone, of course running Android and integrated into everything I do.

I am not very tech savvy. I need user-friendly, reliable, relatively easy to learn options for everything I use, and I have zero idea where to begin.

I've done searches online for alternatives, but nothing is really standing out to me as being a good replacement. If you have any ideas for me (and dear god let them please be free or have reasonable pricing) please let me know.

Thank you for any advice!

#help #google #degoogle

Edited to add: Thank you all so much for your thoughts and responses, I got more than I bargained for, haha! I have this post bookmarked and will take in the information at my own pace.

I will be muting this post as I have been a little overwhelmed with the responses, but I really appreciate all the input for when I have time to process it. :3

💙💙💙

Show threadSoftwarewolf

@Bwee

Folks have already voiced a lot of good options here, so I don't wanna repeat them all. I can share what I do as a technical user, and that may give you some ideas.

Email - I still use GMail, and switching is a pain, but Protonmail and Faatmail look like the best options. I've been considering Purelymail but they're a small outfit. (Let me know what you end up doing here :3)

Browser - Firefox. You can migrate a lot of bookmarks and data out of Chrome pretty easily.

Passwords - I use KeepassXC and sync it to my devices using my Nextcloud server. But you could easily do this with another cloud service like Dropbox.

Writing/Spreadsheets - I use Libreoffice suite at home, but not collaboratively. I do run my own Nextcloud server which I think has a number of collaboration features that might be of interest. You don't have to run your own server - There are service providers who will host Nextcloud for you. Might be worth a shot!

May 16, 2024 at 10:16amWeb