Asklemmy

Google Search -> Ecosia, Qwant Browser -> Vivaldi Mail, Calender -> Proton* Drive -> Proton* DNS -> Quad9 Notes -> Joplin VPN -> Proton LLM/AI -> Mistral Translate -> DeepL Maps -> Here We Go Dall-E etc -> Stability Matrix Kindle -> Pocketbook

*Planning to move everything to a NAS with Nextcloud and synch in with Jottacloud as a backup.

Here's my list:

• Proton Mail: super painless to migrate over and a very similar user experience. Feels good knowing that Google can't read my emails and that they can't be subpoenaed by our insane government. Highly recommend. There's a free plan that offers 1GB of storage but I went straight to a paid account so I can't speak to that.
• Proton Pass: LOVE this. It was easy to import my passwords from LastPass and Google. The best feature is the "hide my email alias" which on my plan I can make unlimited ones. It's basically making an anonymous throwaway email that automatically forwards to your inbox. If you start getting junk mail you can see who sold your address, but also with one click you can delete it if it gets compromised. It's basically the equivalent of making a bunch of different Google accounts but way easier.
• Proton Drive: It came with my subscription but I haven't gotten that deep into it yet. It has a Docs alternative but not Sheets which I use a lot, so I'm hoping they develop something like that. Otherwise like a lot like drive. It's technically a photo backup too but the interface is trash (see next item). My goal is to get enough transferred that I can cancel my Google One subscription and maybe just use that for Sheets as needed.
• Ente Photos: Cloud-based photo backup. I'm slowly getting my photos transferred over but it seems to be pretty user friendly. It has some but not all of the features of Google Photos, like organizing by faces.
• Brave Search: They have a browser too but I'm just using the search in Firefox at the moment. I like that it's not based on Google's index but it sometimes means the results are not quite as good. Honestly for the payoff of not being algorithmed to death I'm fine with that.

The problem with Google services is that they will be probably one of the last ones (from big tech companies) I will stop using. I wanted to switch to Proton this year, but there has been some controversy of its CEO supporting Trump...

Edit: Removed unrelated paragraph.

I guess I'll share my setup aha. Forewarning: I invested heavily into self hosting and being in full control of as much as possible, mainly to try to be 'Internet independent'.

• Google ads, APIs, telemetry and everything else that is not necessary: AdGuard Home (selfhosted)
• Android app store: Fdroid with IzzyOnDroid repo, failing that Aurora Store, if apps still whine about not being to use Play Services then I use the Play Store
• Gmail: Mailcow Dockerized (selfhosted) with K9 Android client
• SMS (not that I use it anyway): Fossify SMS
• Instant messaging: Matrix (selfhosted) for Discord/Telegram style with Element client, or Telegram FOSS
• File Manager (I goddamn hate that Google Files forces itself onto any phone after initial setup, even when there's a manufacturer installed one already): Material Files
• GBoard (It's also really fucking invasive): HeliBoard
• YouTube: via Revanced Manager, with Odysee as a hopeful replacement. Much lower userbase though, obviously.
• Google Photos (refuses to settle for less than 100% file access): Part of a self hosted Samba share that I keep synced to via FolderSync (from Play Store - they charge €10 for the app outside of Google)
• Chrome: Brave (I downloaded a script to debloat it of crypto and AI)
• Google Search: My partner uses Ecosia for environment reasons, and I use DuckDuckGo for privacy reasons
• Chromecast: I recommend a Roku
• AndroidOS: CalyxOS if Pixel, LineageOS if not
• Play Services: Gapps pico or nano because some things are still tied to Play Services
• Maps is superior, unfortunately, but OSMAnd is a good alt
• Google DNS, used by default by a lot of things like routers: Cloudflare 1.1.1.1 and 1.0.0.1

https://cartes.app/ is a new kid on the block to replaces Gmaps, looks very cool bit is also very alpha atm. But I'll keep checking it, it has some very cool features already (French only atm which I don't speak at all but it's still super usable.)

I tried to minimize my dependency on Google by signing up for various email services like Petal Mail by Huawei, Proton Mail, and Yandex Mail. I also tried to find smartphones that don't have Google by default, such as Murena smartphones and Huawei smartphones. But it seems like it's too late to look for those gems without Google because I have so many apps that I bought on Google, amounting to around five digits in Malaysian Ringgit, which is not cheap. So I think I'll stay with Google for now, sadly.

Search: Kagi (paid)

Email and calendar: Tuta (paid)

Synced storage (like Dropbox): Synology Drive (free, used with my Synology NAS)

Photos: Synology Photos (free, used with NAS)

Passwords: Bitwarden (paid)

Music subscription: Tidal

Music purchases: Qobuz and Bandcamp

No complaints about any of these. Quite happy having de-googled and de-appled.