🩵 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 threadPixdigitMay 16, 2024

@Bwee a good replacement for Google docs is Cryptpad. There are many providers but cryptpad.fr is the flagship instance.

For email I use @Tutanota . Though gmail is very rich in features, some of which aren't (yet) part of tuta mail. @protonprivacy is also a good choice for mail, though I have no personal experience with them.

Show threadPixdigitMay 16, 2024

@Bwee also a very big +1 for the KeepassXC+Firefox recommendation. For mobile I use KeePassDX, which is compatible and Fennec as browser.

Though keepass stores your passwords (encrypted) in a file, so if you need to access them on another device, you would need to copy over that file. I store mine in a cloud so it syncs automatically but I host my own cloud, so finding a cloud storage provider wasn't too hard. If that is too much of a hassle for you Bitwarden is a good alternative.

Show threadgenstar.service
@Pixdigit @Bwee You could also syncronize the file between devices with SyncThing so you don't have to store it in the cloud.
May 16, 2024 at 11:07amWeb