Breaking free from Google.

I have been working to break free of the strangle hold google and others have over my life.


After I switched over the MX Linux   and running Windows 7 as a virtual machine inside ( for the rare occasions I need my old programs )    I felt so much freedom from Microsoft controlling my life that I decided to expand that.


Now I have switched to a phone that has Linux as the operating system.

https://www.ebay.com/itm/Samsung-Galaxy-S5-G900V-Root-Unlocked-Bootloader-Lineage-14-1-Nougat-CID-15-TWRP/143834293651?epid=2197803387&hash=item217d312593:g:liUAAOSwI99fqsQa

Took me a bit of time but I got this phone to work on Tracphone  network.    

Now I can load any rom I want to this phone and no more covid tracing.

Gone is google play store in is F-droid.


Now I do not have over 100 apps running   at last count I am running 35 apps.


Full control of my phone is awesome,   Bye bye google listening to me.


FREEDOM !

Hey Mart.

That's a great infographic there. There are examples on there that don't show up on recent threads on the subject.

I personally don't feel the hot, rancid breath of Google down my neck as some do, but it's good that there are alternatives for those who need them.

What has been your personal experience with Microsoft and Google ruining your life to the extent that such a labourious change was deemed necessary, if you don't mind my asking? Or is this all prophylactic?

-CK

I have been running Linux variants for many years. Currently I am running LinuxMint, I've found that it likes all my old IBM/Lenovo Thinkpads.

I quit using Google for search about 5 years ago, I switched to DuckDuckGo.

I still have non-secure email with gmail, and now I have a smart phone running on Android. I was running a dumb flip phone, but then my cell provider sent me messages telling me service would be unavailable for my old flip-phone shortly. I run a business off my cell phone so I purchased a smart phone.

On my smart phone I disable almost all stock apps and run free and opensource apps from fdroid. With the exception of instagram and youtube.

I do have a bitchute account but at this time it is more convenient to use youtube.

I recommend not searching things you don't want known from home, and don't say anything you don't want heard when around electronics that are powered on. As for tracking, every cell phone can be tracked.

If somebody in power wanted to track you they would, if they want to listen they can.

One of the things I've found with both YouTube and Facebook is that once they think they've got you pegged they serve up the most monotonous regurgitation of the exact same drivel day after day after day.

One of the joys of the net is its endless variety....prior to the current leftist drive to make it a tool of indoctrination.

One other excellent search engine that works on a privacy model is;  https://www.startpage.com/

A news aggregator site with a decided right wing slant is; https://www.whatfinger.com/  It may be no more truthful than the rest but at least its a refreshing contrast to the tedious script parroted by ABC,CBS, NBC, and CNN. (and for that matter the BBC!)

MeWe seems an excellent replacement for Facebook, currently the landscape has lots of room for innovation, there is no "marketplace" or local trade mart landscapes are very sparse.

Twitter has always seemed like a solution in search of a question to me, frankly I don't think any thought can be expressed well in the limits imposed, that's why Trumps announcements / tirades seem vaguely unhinged .... at best its a platform to talk to other people rather than with them.  At the end of the day that's a baby I would comfortably throw out with the bath.

As far as charming sites to visit http://www.darkroastedblend.com/ is a wonderful backstroke through bizarre minutia and forgotten flotsam, its been quite a while since there's been an update but the shear volume of truly weird content is a blessed relief from the daily grind.

Thank you for starting this thread! I need to switch my life to Linux, just have no energy, time, or local tech support if I foul it up. Been threatening to for many years, I hope to get there soon. Good to know I can put it on a phone too. I'm using an iphone 4, and 90% of their unremovable stuff has been swept into a folder named "garbage."  :D My main computer is not allowed online, as it still has XP on it, and all my good graphics programs run on XP.

One of these days.... Thank you for the inspiration and information!

:D

Pearl, modern Linux systems are just as easy to use as windows and apple;  just plug and play.  I've been using Linux Mint for many years now and have never looked back.  It's very user friendly and you can even make a boot drive (where you download and save a version of a Linux system on a memory stick or similar) to try it out on your current computer without having to commit to it first.

I switched off of linux a couple years ago back to predominately windows. I enjoy Linux and don't have problems using it for most things, but device drivers were a problem which encouraged my switch.

That said, I'm VERY happy to see infographics and suggestions for alternative services and software. Thank you! It's great to stay aware of the options.

Ben House wrote:I have been running Linux variants for many years. Currently I am running LinuxMint, I've found that it likes all my old IBM/Lenovo Thinkpads.

I quit using Google for search about 5 years ago, I switched to DuckDuckGo.

I still have non-secure email with gmail, and now I have a smart phone running on Android. I was running a dumb flip phone, but then my cell provider sent me messages telling me service would be unavailable for my old flip-phone shortly. I run a business off my cell phone so I purchased a smart phone.

On my smart phone I disable almost all stock apps and run free and opensource apps from fdroid. With the exception of instagram and youtube.

I do have a bitchute account but at this time it is more convenient to use youtube.

I recommend not searching things you don't want known from home, and don't say anything you don't want heard when around electronics that are powered on. As for tracking, every cell phone can be tracked.

If somebody in power wanted to track you they would, if they want to listen they can.

I agree if  they wanted to track my hardware they would find me,   Every phone still has  the hardware reporting your position.      But that said they now have less data from me.     Less is better for me.


Good tips thanks.

Bill Haynes wrote: One of the things I've found with both YouTube and Facebook is that once they think they've got you pegged they serve up the most monotonous regurgitation of the exact same drivel day after day after day.

One of the joys of the net is its endless variety....prior to the current leftist drive to make it a tool of indoctrination.

One other excellent search engine that works on a privacy model is;  https://www.startpage.com/

A news aggregator site with a decided right wing slant is; https://www.whatfinger.com/  It may be no more truthful than the rest but at least its a refreshing contrast to the tedious script parroted by ABC,CBS, NBC, and CNN. (and for that matter the BBC!)

MeWe seems an excellent replacement for Facebook, currently the landscape has lots of room for innovation, there is no "marketplace" or local trade mart landscapes are very sparse.

Twitter has always seemed like a solution in search of a question to me, frankly I don't think any thought can be expressed well in the limits imposed, that's why Trumps announcements / tirades seem vaguely unhinged .... at best its a platform to talk to other people rather than with them.  At the end of the day that's a baby I would comfortably throw out with the bath.

As far as charming sites to visit http://www.darkroastedblend.com/ is a wonderful backstroke through bizarre minutia and forgotten flotsam, its been quite a while since there's been an update but the shear volume of truly weird content is a blessed relief from the daily grind.

Yep I love startpage, thanks for mentioning it.    I used to use duckduckgo, but all my browsers   ( vivaldi mainly )  have been switched to start page.        

For news I use Zerohedge, and gateway pundit.      But that is my flavor of news ;-)

I have tried to start a for sale group on MeWe for my local area.     It has not reached critical mass yet, over 9 million users,   but not the volume of Facebook, so I agree Facebook marketplace was much much better  ( except for them regulating what you could and could not sell )

Pearl Sutton wrote:Thank you for starting this thread! I need to switch my life to Linux, just have no energy, time, or local tech support if I foul it up. Been threatening to for many years, I hope to get there soon. Good to know I can put it on a phone too. I'm using an iphone 4, and 90% of their unremovable stuff has been swept into a folder named "garbage."  :D My main computer is not allowed online, as it still has XP on it, and all my good graphics programs run on XP.

One of these days.... Thank you for the inspiration and information!

:D

I hear you,  it has taken me months of time to switch from Windows 7   to Linux.      I still have Windows 7 in a virtual machine so I can read my old emails,  and one off programs that only run on windows, but slowly I have replaced my games, and programs with open sourced programs that for the most part work better for me.

For me the choice was made when my laptop died, and I made a choice to force myself to move to Linux.     It was painful at first, but with a good search engine I was able to work thru my tech issues, and a good linux support group.    But I am fairly techy....

So yes there is hope that you could run Linux, and run your XP under a virtual machine for your old programs that do the job.

I like duckduckgo.com as a search engine.
When I search google the results show up in banner ads and my facebook feed.
I've never had a duckduckgo.com search end up in my facebook feed.
I've even searched some really weird stuff (weird for me) just to test that.

I'm all for throwing sabots into the Surveillance Capitalism machines.  I bounce around with different browsers and VPNs and confuse the machines terribly ... they seem to think I'm a menopausal woman who likes guns, puppies, silk blouses, needs a car and jet sets between canada, ireland, iceland and ... the UAE.  I don't get the UAE part... I've never used a VPN there but I get some ads in arabic.  Very weird and a complete waste of ad dollars (or more accurately, dirhams).  Anyway, what they have on me is worthless.  On the other hand I've learned that ALL other countries have better ads than the US does - really seems like ads for the USA assume the audience is about 20 IQ points lower.  Ads in Iceland are the best!

Of course I'm using a laptop.  A phone is harder to bounce around as much.

Thanks for the tips about Startpage and SwissCows.  Interesting alternatives to try out.

While I agree with much of the alternatives of the infographic (Brave, ProtonMail, SwissCows) as ones which protect privacy, a glance at services like gab, BitChute and Infogalactic shows that they are super alternative.  I'm not sure they're any better about tracking, but they all seem to have been created because people didn't like being moderated - and that's a kind of freedom I don't need or want.

Great thread!
My concern has been rapidly growing of late over the huge amount of social manipulation going on with social media.  (I don't care who you are, censoring people you disagree with is NEVER COOL!)

First off, concerning the OP, I'm a little curious...
You mention F-Droid as an alternative to play store, but on the other hand you also say you're using linux?  How does that work with android apps?

Secondly, I've also heard good things about Parler as a censorship-free social media, though I haven't personally tried it yet.

K Eilander wrote:Great thread!
My concern has been rapidly growing of late over the huge amount of social manipulation going on with social media.  (I don't care who you are, censoring people you disagree with is NEVER COOL!)

First off, concerning the OP, I'm a little curious...
You mention F-Droid as an alternative to play store, but on the other hand you also say you're using linux?  How does that work with android apps?

Secondly, I've also heard good things about Parler as a censorship-free social media, though I haven't personally tried it yet.

-----------------------

Android OS is based on Linux,   the flavor I am using LinageOS ->

https://www.lineageos.org


The androids that come from Google have their code mixed in,   Linage OS has none of that.

It take time to figure out what phones can run this OS, and unlocking the bootloader can be a pain or you can destroy your phone if not careful.


I am using Parler, as well,   It has growing pains as many are fleeing other platforms to goto it, but it does work for me.

Cheers,

I'm slowly disentangling from Google.  Going through ten years' worth of emails to see what I need to download and keep (not fun).  One thing that I've been doing for awhile is to login to YT when I'm busy with something else, and let it run on a playlist for something I have no interest in (Justin Bieber? Self-Nature Meditation? Al-Jazeera live?)  At least the data they DO have is worthless.  In the same way, I hit the ads that are totally irrelevant or disagreeable.

Mart Hale wrote: I am using Parler, as well,   It has growing pains as many are fleeing other platforms to goto it, but it does work for me.

Locally a  Chief of Police was fired for speaking a little too freely at that site.  Apparently he thought the no censorship also meant no one could view his rants? or that everyone there would agree with his promoting violence?

I think anything we post online is up for grabs...stuff is out there the minute you post it, no real 'take backs'...email, facebook, all the new 'alternative' places...it's all one...and there forever...delete is not 'delete'.

Search Engines:
metaGer.org
...and...
YaCy.net

Note: it is very important to stay up to date on things like this.
I used to advocate for Startpage as well until they were bought by an advertising agency that now mines & sells your data just like google. Needless to say, I highly doubt you'll see a penny of income from your data that they sold.
DuckDuckGo also has serious issues such as saving searches as well as being hosted on Amazon servers - you know, the other 21st century oligarchic robber-of-data baron.

Email:
There are a lot of good non-gmail email services out there. Here's a great article on some of the top ones.

Email server:
If you are technically inclined, it's best to run your own email server for your friends and family. FreedomBox is a great open-source hardware project that facilitates this.

Operating System replacement for Android:
Replicant.

Phone replacement for Android:
The Librem 5 is the only mature phone I know of that's actively addressing the issues surrounding malicious firmware and hardware.

Speaking of hardware, look into hardware that has earned a Respects Your Freedom Certification.

For those of you reading this thread who are wondering why anyone would be interested in DeGoogling, here is a decently compiled list of reasons to avoid Google, and here is a list of primary sources for those reasons. As you'll notice from those links - though it's objectively a major issue - privacy ain't the only reason to avoid this organization.

Please contact me if you need any help with DeGoogling. I will help you out free-of-charge. :-)

In addition to bitchute, another youtube alternative I found is https://www.brighteon.com/

Mike Kenzie wrote:Search Engines:
metaGer.org
...and...
YaCy.net

Note: it is very important to stay up to date on things like this.
I used to advocate for Startpage as well until they were bought by an advertising agency that now mines & sells your data just like google. Needless to say, I highly doubt you'll see a penny of income from your data that they sold.
DuckDuckGo also has serious issues such as saving searches as well as being hosted on Amazon servers - you know, the other 21st century oligarchic robber-of-data baron.

Email:
There are a lot of good non-gmail email services out there. Here's a great article on some of the top ones.

Email server:
If you are technically inclined, it's best to run your own email server for your friends and family. FreedomBox is a great open-source hardware project that facilitates this.

Operating System replacement for Android:
Replicant.

Phone replacement for Android:
The Librem 5 is the only mature phone I know of that's actively addressing the issues surrounding malicious firmware and hardware.

Speaking of hardware, look into hardware that has earned a Respects Your Freedom Certification.

For those of you reading this thread who are wondering why anyone would be interested in DeGoogling, here is a decently compiled list of reasons to avoid Google, and here is a list of primary sources for those reasons. As you'll notice from those links - though it's objectively a major issue - privacy ain't the only reason to avoid this organization.

Please contact me if you need any help with DeGoogling. I will help you out free-of-charge. :-)

Thanks Mike, those are some great ideas you have shared...

Looks like you are further down the rabbit hole than I am :-)

It is so nice to now have a phone that when I tell it to do something it does,  it does not fight me it just does it when i tell it to.      Also I don't have apps taking over the CPU of my phone, each step of gaining control gives me more freedom.    

Mart

Judith Browning wrote:

I am using Parler, as well,   It has growing pains as many are fleeing other platforms to goto it, but it does work for me.

Locally a  Chief of Police was fired for speaking a little too freely at that site.  Apparently he thought the no censorship also meant no one could view his rants? or that everyone there would agree with his promoting violence?

I think anything we post online is up for grabs...stuff is out there the minute you post it, no real 'take backs'...email, facebook, all the new 'alternative' places...it's all one...and there forever...delete is not 'delete'.

Have you all been following the Parler “hack”. Apparently Parler left itself with in a state where others were able to take admin control and scrape everything off the servers including deleted posts (apparently they didn’t actually delete anything, just mark bits as “deleted”). Videos from the Capitol on 1-6 (Parler didn’t obscure date or geo-location for anything) and adjacent dates are being documented online. I’ve heard even private messages are being revealed. Here is a map showing all the uploads geolocated. Interesting times.

Edit to add this link: INACTIONS HAVE CONSEQUENCES — Filing: Amazon warned Parler for months about “more than 100” violent threats Parler's volunteer mods allegedly had a backlog of more than 26,000 posts.  

James Whitelaw wrote:

Judith Browning wrote:

I am using Parler, as well,   It has growing pains as many are fleeing other platforms to goto it, but it does work for me.

Judith Browning quote....Locally a  Chief of Police was fired for speaking a little too freely at that site.  Apparently he thought the no censorship also meant no one could view his rants? or that everyone there would agree with his promoting violence?

I think anything we post online is up for grabs...stuff is out there the minute you post it, no real 'take backs'...email, facebook, all the new 'alternative' places...it's all one...and there forever...delete is not 'delete'.

James Whitlaw quote....Have you all been following the Parler “hack”. Apparently Parler left itself with in a state where others were able to take admin control and scrape everything off the servers including deleted posts (apparently they didn’t actually delete anything, just mark bits as “deleted”). Videos from the Capitol on 1-6 (Parler didn’t obscure date or geo-location for anything) and adjacent dates are being documented online. I’ve heard even private messages are being revealed. Here is a map showing all the uploads geolocated. Interesting times.

The way the quotes line out in your post it looks like I said them both so I've tried to make it clearer.
I've never used parler nor would I...had not heard about a 'hack'.
I've always assumed things on line are never really gone if someone knows how to look...I guess that took the 'parler folks' by surprise?

Judith Browning wrote:

James Whitelaw wrote:

Judith Browning wrote:

I am using Parler, as well,   It has growing pains as many are fleeing other platforms to goto it, but it does work for me.

Locally a  Chief of Police was fired for speaking a little too freely at that site.  Apparently he thought the no censorship also meant no one could view his rants? or that everyone there would agree with his promoting violence?

I think anything we post online is up for grabs...stuff is out there the minute you post it, no real 'take backs'...email, facebook, all the new 'alternative' places...it's all one...and there forever...delete is not 'delete'.

Have you all been following the Parler “hack”. Apparently Parler left itself with in a state where others were able to take admin control and scrape everything off the servers including deleted posts (apparently they didn’t actually delete anything, just mark bits as “deleted”). Videos from the Capitol on 1-6 (Parler didn’t obscure date or geo-location for anything) and adjacent dates are being documented online. I’ve heard even private messages are being revealed. Here is a map showing all the uploads geolocated. Interesting times.

The way the quotes line out in your post it looks like I said them both? I've never used parler nor would I...had not heard about a 'hack'.
I've always assumed things on line are never really gone if someone knows how to look...I guess that took the 'parler folks' by surprise?

Just the way quotes nest I guess. It is good to assume things are still around and not deleted. For example in my old job  I recovered many “deleted” emails from Outlook PST files because folks forgot to compress the PST file. Deleted items on a HD can still be recovered unless “overwritten” by new data (the methods that apps use to “wipe” old data forever.

James Whitelaw wrote:

Just the way quotes nest I guess. It is good to assume things are still around and not deleted. For example in my old job  I recovered many “deleted” emails from Outlook PST files because folks forgot to compress the PST file. Deleted items on a HD can still be recovered unless “overwritten” by new data (the methods that apps use to “wipe” old data forever.

sorry for my distraction with the 'quote' thing...and it was pointed out that it was my post above that was to blame so I fixed that

I think the result of this hack might open some eyes to one's presence online...maybe folks will go back to real time meetings and face to face conversations.  Many times things said on line would never be said one on one to someone's face......'keyboard warriors' is the term for hiding behind a computer and a fake name I think?

This...
An Absurdly Basic Bug Let Anyone Grab All of Parler's Data

Back in my day, we used to joke during the anti-war movement that if you did not have an FBI file you weren't working hard enough.
Now, I'm guessing those files are almost laughable compared to internet 'talk' results?

!

The only problem I see with Brave is that it uses Google Chrome's rendering engine ('Blink') as well as allows access to the Chrome Web Store. If you're going to use that to get extensions for Brave, it defeats the purpose behind de-Googling. There is always Firefox, or, if one has issues with Mozilla, the Firefox forks known as PaleMoon and Waterfox might be handy. (I use Safari, as I like me my Mac 'puters. Vivaldi is my alternative browser, although that uses Chrome's Blink engine, as wells access to the Chrome Web Store for extensions.)

Hi,  A simple observation.  A friend of mine wanted to find a sportsman's club near him. He used Chrome, I.E., and Brave and got pretty much the same results, which was no clubs found. Then Bing. same thing. No sportsman's club poped up in the results. He got frustrated and an idea poped into his head. He searched for a conservative browser and found some. He used conservatives 4 you and what do you know, many sportsman's clubs were found.

 The freedom phone info just found me:
https://freedomphone.com/products/the-freedom-phone
The Freedom Phone is a free speech and privacy first focused phone. With features like tracking blockers and an uncensorable app store.

Uses open source android type code but has had all the google stuff removed.

I like the idea of a freedom phone, but I am not getting good feed back about this phone as of yet.

This video has good info from a real pro...





I love my Lineage OS phone, but may move to the pine phone for even more control when I have to upgrade.

I would highly recommend you avoid the "freedom phone", as from all accounts it's a cheap phone being sold for 10 times its actually value. It claims it's "uncensorable", but that has nothing to do with the phone a person uses, and everything to do with the web sites visited. Say a person starts posting on Permies and they are violating the "be nice" rule for example. The phone they use will not matter, the posts will not be allowed. The same goes for any other website like Twitter or Facebook, those are private websites/properties so what the owners says goes regardless of the phone being used.

I'm all for removing the invasive data mining experience of Google and others, I've been using Protonmail for a while now, after taking some work training that involved Gmail, you'd be surprised how little care is taken with your data even compared to what is commonly known. Gmail is free because the user is the product being sold. Same with searches, been using DuckDuckGo and SwissCows, even shopping search result prices can be affected based on your location and known income data. Same with VPNs, your experience and price differs based on your location. It's not a matter of hiding bad behavior, it's a matter of limiting invasive tracking in general.

I've already added to this thread a couple of times, but this discovery is pretty cool for those looking for alternatives.

The website
reclaimthenet.org
maintains a comprehensive list of alternatives by category right there on the bottom their home page, describing the pros/cons of each one in terms of privacy, security, and censorship.  Well worth a look.

https://e.foundation/ offers a "de-googled Android", where they have pulled out all of the bits that are hooked into Google data collection. There's a limited number of phones that the installer app works with, but a person can manually do it if they are savvy, and there's at least one company that sells phones with it pre-installed. Per their site:

/e/ is a “deGoogled” version of Android OS.

It has an open-source Android OS core, with no Google apps or Google services accessing your personal data. It is compatible with all your favorite Android apps.
With /e/ you’ll find a set of carefully selected apps to cover your most common needs, personal and professional: get you email, plan your week ahead, chat with your friends and coworkers, browse the web, check the weather, check your itinerary for your next meeting…
All the apps are based on open source bricks. We improve their design and experience to make them look stellar and easy to use daily.

Applications available in our Installer include open source apps that you can get from Fdroid, as well as free Android apps that you would find in your usual repository.

In a blink of an eye, /e/ can decipher the app code for you: you can see which and how many trackers are in the app. It also documents the number of permissions the app requires to operate. With an easy to read scoring, you can see which apps are safe and which ones should be avoided.

You can check if your everyday apps are available in our Installer in our search engine below.