I use GrapheneOS with multiple profiles. My main profile contains only FOSS apps, along with two proprietary apps that have no network access. One secondary profile is for my personal Google account (just Gmail) for work and bills, while another is for a disposable Google account for apps like Google Maps when I need GPS.
On my PC, I maintain a browser profile for work Gmail, which I almost never check, and I don’t have anything else connected to Google.
I’m not entirely comfortable knowing that I’m not free from Google and still rely on some of their services. However, I feel much better than I did a few years ago, when Google had complete control over my phone and everything I did on it. Now, I feel free most of the time.
What about you? Do you feel free? Or does it ever seem like Google owns a part of your life? Share your thoughts with me
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I find it really hard to leave. I finally left Gmail, but I have many pictures in Photos (I have been postponing a migration to Immich for years), regularly use Maps and have a few documents left to copy in Paperless from Drive. Oh yeah, and almost every video creator I follow have yet to use Peertube instead of YouTube.
I have yet to switch to GrapheneOS, I think I’ll do that when I buy a new phone once mine cease to receive updates in October.
Currently backing up my phone to switch to GrapheneOS. That’ll leave my email which I haven’t figured out how I want to replace it yet. Step one should be downloading all saved emails though
I’m addicted to YouTube and I can’t seem to find a comparable entertainment app. :(
invidious frontends route youtube through a private proxy. they can be an alternative while you wean yourself off.
Freetube is great
Grayjay maybe? Connects Youtube and other services, like Rumble, Nico Nico, Peertube, etc.
There’s also NewPipe and its fork, PipePipe. Less connected services, but maybe it’d be of your liking.
I moved from NewPipe to PipePipe a few weeks ago. It’s so good, simply the best YT frontend I’ve ever used.
Yeah. It was easy for me to ditch Google for search, emails and pictures, but there isn’t enough content other than Linux related on Peertube for me.
As soon as I can find some good basketball, videogames and cars channel, I’ll start supporting them and ditch YouTube.
I’m as distanced as I can be for now but have one more big cord to cut - Google Fi. It’s just by far the most affordable carrier for our use here, and frankly every alternative sucks ass just as much anyway, but I’d still like to move to something else sooner rather than later.
Otherwise, my gmail accounts are still active but rarely used, both forwarding to Tuta. Been using GrapheneOS for over a year now, Aurora and the Play Store are last resorts for app installs. I only use youtube through a self-hosted Invidious instance. Photos has been long replaced with Immich, Drive long emptied and replaced with OpenCloud. For navigation, Magic Earth’s been the most reliable, not FOSS but so be it, CoMaps is good for browsing/exploring but kind of terrible for driving.
I switched from Fi to US Mobile. They just had a deal running for $150 dollars for your first year of unlimited (it’s since expired but they have deals going all the time). You can swap between Verizon, a&t, or T-Mobile, and they offer everything Fi does I believe
I don’t use anything Google at all anymore, with the exception of YouTube videos (via non-Google apps like PipePipe). That and my phone being a Pixel - running GrapheneOS, no GooglePlay Services running ever. If an app doesnt work without them I simply don’t use it, and just use the web browser. Email, photos, GPS, calendars etc all have viable replacement options.
It feels free and great. I never look back.
Some apps replaced with Fossify, some with Proton. I use TomTom for roadtrips and Google maps for looking up opening hours. Futo instead of Gboard for obvious reasons. Google wallet as backup for Curve Pay, because you cannot just get an open source NFC wallet (from my personal research). Still using Google notes
Google Maps is the one thing left for me… have tried moving but find other gps apps meh in comparison. I use MacOS for work with office 365. My personal computer is Linux, I use proton for my email. Librewolf browsing. DuckDuckGo for searching. If you count it, I suppose I do use Brave on my work computer, chromium base is needed for some websites I use a lot for work. My cell phone is an iPhone (thanks work)
Waze is also by Google but: Works without gapps installed and without login. Has live traffic data and same features as maps.
Comaps
Until someone comes up with private Immich managed hosting that has shared albums and doesn’t cost a fortune, I have to stick with Google photos. Other than that, google Maps (nothing compares, sorry) and an old gmail address I don’t want to delete just in case someone needs to reach me, that’s all I use.
I switched to Ente Photos recently, it’s not Immich but it seems like a pretty solid Google Photos replacement and has a free tier
I’m not 100% degoogled, but if Google deactivated my account tomorrow, it wouldn’t be a big deal. I’ve migrated everything important away from Gmail. Gmail is basically just my spam box now.
I also have Chrome installed on my PC for testing purposes. It is my browser of last resort, only used on occasion when I suspect my normal browsers’ ad/tracker blockers are breaking some site.
Google Maps is hard to get away from because nothing else has all its key features, and a lot of alternatives also use Google’s data so they’re not really more private. For example, I don’t know of any good public transit apps that work in my city and are degoogled (though to be fair, it’s been a few years since I reviewed the options).
I sometimes buy used stuff from people and drive to their houses to get the items. I was surprised to find out that while Google maps was very outdated on more recent buildings and neighborhoods, Organic maps and Mapy were all correct. Sometimes a whole street was missing and I struggled to find the way, so I stopped using it.
Transit is tough if you don’t have options though. The official transit app for my city is leagues better than Google so I’ve never had a reason to look elsewhere.
I’ve almost completely moved everything away from google. If you ever used sink it there is YouTube version in the works. And I’ve started using this
What does the profile switching look like on Graphene? I see people talk about it but haven’t seen it touched on as far as day to day usage. I just bought a pixel and am curious to try it out.
I think the only things I’m actively using is google calendar(which I would like to replace at some point) and youtube.
I guess my phone is running android, but I’m not much of a phone person so I barely use it.
Maps + location, calendar, contacts, google docs, google drive, all have been moved to self-hosted and private services I run myself.
All that’s left is email, and that is actually quite difficult to ditch. I have a protonmail account whose philosophy I don’t agree with, and a tuta account, which has nasty delivery problems.
So I actually don’t really know how I’m going to solve this.
I’m getting there more day by day. I’ve moved over to using my own dns and email service, that was a big one, but kept my gmail for leftover items and now it’s mostly for spam. All of my oauth I’ve rolled off Google, and now use a password manager and separate emails. Phone is still the largest annoyance, but I just ordered a fairphone this week! (After google pushed a huge update which killed my battery, seriously sitting at home my battery died at 7pm last night, after barely using it. That didn’t happen even a month ago). So it’s a process.
For Gmail – I use Thunderbird for both Android and Desktop (linux) to access my Gmail. I’m sure they are still reading my emails on the server side, but at least the phone app isn’t tracking me 🤣
