[323454]

To add one datum, I turned off location history thinking that meant that Google would use my _current_ location for Maps, Search etc while not storing my _past_ locations. Their interface and messaging did not succeed in dissuading me from this belief, despite the fact that I was explicitly looking for messaging and settings related to protecting my privacy.

Was I naive to believe this was even possible in the first place? Probably. I used to think Google were basically good guys, so I thought that when they said something they actually meant it, and I was willing to forgive them for minor mistakes and bad press. This is the first time I actually feel like they've lied to me.

I'll be migrating my personal Google accounts elsewhere. Suggestions are welcome for good alternatives, free/non-free/whatever, that offer effective privacy controls.

[hashr8064]

> Suggestions are welcome for good alternatives,

I'm in the move away myself. Here's some services I've started using, in many areas I'm still looking for other replacements. Hopefully others can help.

1. E-Mail : protonmail.com, I really like this one, great service.

2. Video Calls : I'm currently using signal to some extent, not very happy though, would really like something like Hangouts.

3. Browser : Firefox

4. Phone : Apple

5. Things I'm still looking for : Google Calender, Drive, Chat, Backup Storage services.

[rapnie]

Using ProtonMail too. Very happy, and you get to use ProtonVPN too.

Also install Privacy Badger extension (or other tracker-/ad-blocker) in your browser and block Google Analytics etc.

And for site-owners that use Google Analytics now: there are alternatives, like e.g. Matomo.

[323454]

I've used Signal for a while and I think it's great although admittedly I don't use video calls on it very often (mostly because the people I need to video call are mostly not on Signal).

For Drive the best alternative I've found is Dropbox. It's not free but at least the business model isn't (yet) about monetizing your data.

[StavrosK]

I tried Signal the other day to call a friend in the US from Greece and was blown away by the quality. It was as if I was using a landline to call someone in my city, it was amazing. Even the latency was nonexistent, which I don't know how it happened since they're bound by the speed of light.

[distortedsignal]

For video calls, you should try zoom.us. From what I've seen, they have the best streaming infrastructure of any of the major players (FaceTime, Hangouts, Webex, GoToMeeting). Apps for all the major platforms, too. The only bad thing is that if you're on a multi-way call, they limit you to 40 minutes.

[chimeracoder]

> The only bad thing is that if you're on a multi-way call, they limit you to 40 minutes.

To be clear, that's for the free version. You can pay to remove this limit (along with getting some other features).

[fasteddy760]

> The only bad thing is that if you're on a multi-way call, they limit you to 40 minutes.

40m limit is for free accounts. Paid will get you video calls as long as you want to go.

Besides some needed minor UI tweaks, I love Zoom.

[brogrammer5]

On Protonmail: I've been using it for about a year now and their spam filtering is terrible. I was thinking about migrating my yahoo account to them but it does nothing to prevent the huge amount of recruiter spam I get. I also am not a fan of how little space you get with them.

[PakG1]

FWIW, Fastmail filters spam very well for me.

[mbel]

> 5. Things I'm still looking for : Google Calender, Drive

Fastmail provides a DavCAL calendar and some storage space with their email offering. They also have a wonderful browser client (much better that gmail at least for me).

[adtac]

+1, I recommend FastMail's web client too if you like to manage your email and calendar using a browser. It's fast and snappy, has a clean interface (they have a couple of themes you can choose from), and it's pretty lightweight (for example, a gmail tab uses 195 MB for me while Fastmail's uses 51 MB).

[StavrosK]

For file syncing, I recommend Syncthing and/or Nextcloud (they're slightly different, Syncthing syncs directories peer-to-peer extremely well, Nextcloud is an OSS Dropbox alternative).

[corkscrew]

If you already have an apple phone the apple calendar is competent. Keybase is a potential alternative to drive (if you don't use it on mobile much). Signal for chat

[nicoburns]

Drive: Dropbox Backup: Backblaze B2

[navidfarhadi]

I’d recommend taking a look at https://www.privacytools.io. It has quite a few recommendations for different services that respect your privacy, many of which are FOSS.

For e-mail, calendars, and contacts I’ve migrated over to FastMail. In my opinion the web client and help articles are far superior to Google’s offerings. You can even use your own domain along with 100+ aliases.

For cloud storage I have migrated from Google Drive to iCloud Drive. Obviously this is not FOSS but it gets the job done for me.

There are some Google services that are irreplaceable for me though so I continue to use them. These are Google Maps, Voice, YouTube, Translate, and Docs.

[StavrosK]

I will second FastMail and the claim that its web client is superior to GMail. In fact, the entire service is superior to GMail. It's faster, the UI is snappier, IMAP integration is better, the features are way more advanced, etc. It even lets you use a custom anti-spam [e-mail] scheme natively.

For file syncing, I quite like Dropbox and Syncthing.

[swebs]

>For cloud storage I have migrated from Google Drive to iCloud Drive

I've moved to Nextcloud. It is completely open source, but you need to run it on your own server. Since it's provided in a Snap package, setup only takes a few minutes. I personally use a $5 per month Linode, but many people opt to use something like a Raspberry Pi.

Having your own server also allows you to ditch third party email and VPN providers, though those are more complicated to set up.

[green7ea]

A potential alternative to Google translate is deepl. It doesn't do website translation like Google translate does in Chrome but I've found it to be better for texts in English, French and German.

[tripzilch]

I turned off location history and Google Maps won't even remember my past search queries. Like, you can store those on my device, and there is NO privacy issue. Such a simple use case, of course I'll sometimes search for the same thing again. Not auto-completing that is just a nagging dysfunctionality to annoy people that value their privacy.

I remember that ~20 years ago we called input boxes that remembered your past searches, "intelligent". Yet one of today's top AI companies, can't even do it.

[soroso]

11 months ago, I posted a Ask HN exactly about that. I got flagged. Now I see that I was at least partially right.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15170372

[ForHackernews]

https://microg.org/ is a FLOSS replacement for Google Play Services that can be used with AOSP for a (mostly) Google-free Android experience.

[neocraftster]

I use keybase.io for file storage, as well as chatting other people on the service, but it can't chat out so isn't all that useful for communication.

Protonmail for email

As far as android is concerned the only real alternative is apple. They have their own privacy concerns but at least its possible to create a relatively secure device. Android has a few projects being worked on to fix this, but nothing solid yet (eelo is a good example).

Maps is the hard one for me. I haven't been able to find a privacy respecting alternative. By the nature of the application you have to provide some kind of location data. If you're really trying to cut it out you can just get a list of directions from a start to end point and follow that, but i don't recommend this because it encourages more distracted driving.

DuckDuckGo.com for search, at a g! to any query to have it redirect to google if you can't get the results you need, but most things DDG will find just fine.

For documents I use an skinned emacs called Spacemacs, but that isn't something i'd recommend to everyone and doesn't address problems like live document editing with others.

tl;dr its just really, really hard and inconvenient to keep your data under your control and requires constant vigilance

Edit: Oh and signal works really well for text. It can replace the default messenger on an android phone and encrypt any messages to other signal users transparently while still sending and reading regular texts

[Lendal]

The location history setting is for Timeline, a feature that lives inside Google Maps app. I use Timeline often and find it useful. I hope all the FUD you people are spreading about it does not force Google to get rid of the Timeline feature. Maybe in the future they'll include a lengthy explanation next to that switch for the fearful among us.

[godshatter]

I'm glad you like and want to use this functionality. I don't. Hopefully we can coexist simply by my turning off my location services and history.

[pjmlp]

It would help if Google wouldn't ask me to review the coffee just in front of my current bus stop.