[Kequc]

The most frightening thing about the data Google collects is location history. It was a real wake-up when I realised they use that data to map real life social networks. They know everyone you've bumped into every day, how long you talked to them for, who you've had a one night stand with. Your daily routines, who your friends are, and more, which all can be discovered just by analysing location history.

Them knowing what your favourite coffee shop is or where you work and live is just the tip of the iceberg.

I used to be a very heavy and trusting Google user. It started to get a little bit uncomfortable when I noticed an alert on my phone notifying me that there was a restaurant nearby that I might like to try. It occurred when I had 30-40 minutes to spare, it was a restaurant that indeed looked interesting to me, and was within a 5 minute walk. Yes that's useful but my conclusion was that this company knows way too much about me. It didn't make me comfortable when Google alerted me about flights I never explicitly told it that I was taking, and offered suggestions about how to get to the Airport that suited my routine.

[hawaiianbrah]

That’s funny, I just enabled location sharing with friends in gmaps, and I enjoy the timeline view where I can click a day on the calendar and it shows everywhere I have been.

[InterestBazinga]

How did you minimize your usage of Google? Most of the smart phones are juggle between Apple and google? Where do you go for research questions and topics?

[colecut]

There are alternative mobile OS options, such as LineageOS or Plasma Mobile.

There is also NextCloud, which has an impressive number of apps that could help make getting off of Google easier.. mail, calendar, contacts, notes, drive, xmpp chat, video chat, trello clone, password manager, music player....

Collabora can also be installed to give an alternative to Docs / Sheets / etc..

[_o_]

Most of spying comes on behalf od google framework, that comes with google play. LineageOS wont solve that (actually they refused changes that would allow replacing google framework with microg) but a fork of it will. They are reimplementing oss, google compatible framework, also your battery will last ~30% longer (no battery drain due to google spying).

https://lineage.microg.org/

To use google play store, find yalp explorer.

Why google framework is a problem and why bother with microg? Android developers are using calls to it and without it, half or even more apps would break. Microg implements those calls and fakes electronic signatures of google binaries to keep them working.

[Kequc]

Google is not making it easy to avoid Google but I've done what I can to cut them out of my life. My smartphone is a custom build of Lineageos, clear of any closed source Google code, I don't use gmail or any other Google services and block Google cookies.