Since Google's latest private policy change on the 1st of March I have been trying to drop as many of their products as possible to use good alternatives. Here is how I am doing.
Google searchNow use
DuckDuckGo. Actually really like it. Took a while to get used to but am satisfied. I do however have to go back to google or bing to do image searches. I like the way I have it set to always take the https version of a site if there is one. Especially useful for UK now that ISPs have to involve themselves in your browsing. https should limit that.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-17270817
Google Chrome. This has been a real pain. It is an awesome browser but I hate that it calls home all the time to tell Google where I have been. The spellchecker even tells Google what I write here at FES as every word is checked (and stored) by the Google server. If you have predictive searching in the search bar set to Google by default it even knows what you type if you don't even enter it. Its too much. As good as Chrome is, its like a trojan sending all my data back to Google.
Alternatives. This has been a total sod.
Obvious is Firefox, but as 91% of their revenue comes from Google and they openly admit to sharing data with Google. Firefox contacts the google server and hands over your info twice every hour. So screw them too. They didn't make the list either. So this left me with Opera or IE9 as options and I chose IE9. Its just faster.
Problems. IE9 doesn't have a spellchecker. That's easy fixed though. Download
'speckie'. It works in many languages and I actually prefer it to the way Google spellchecker works. For a start its not giving all my thoughts to Google. It has no impact on performance and is free. Its very good.
Adblocking. Again something Google does well. IE9 not so well. However by adding in a TPL (tracking protection list) many of the top ones act as adblockers although mostly for adult sites. Facebook spam will still offend your eyes. I have an add-in called 'simple adblock' to clean up anything they miss. It does the job but sometimes you do see the advert begin to load before it disappears. The free version also only does 200 adverts a day but I have never hit the limit yet. If anyone knows of a better free adblocker for IE9, let me know.
Copy image url - doesn't exist on ie9 which was really irritating until I discovered you can right click, select properties and the img url is marked next to address (URL):.
So, takes a bit of effort to get free of chrome, but I think I am almost there. Am looking forward to ie10 though.
G-mail. Never had it. There is no excuse for having it in this day and age with so many other providers. That Google scans people's private e-mails and sells the info to advertisers I find disgusting.
Google URL shortenerThat's easy. So many competitors.
Tiny url is my choice. Its easy to remember because I store my pictures on
TinyPic. Google+I have never had an account with them, so again am happy. I am in bed with Zuckerberg, but as any of my 'friends' will attest, there is barely any info on me, nor pictures.
Youtube. I don't know what to do about this. I try to be signed out as often as possible, only signing in if the video needs me to for age verification. I have absolutely no solution to this. What can I do as an alternative? Can I watch their videos via some other site without Google knowing its me?
Google insight/trends/trends for websitesIn a way this is my way to use Google's data to spy on everyone else, albeit in a very general way. It can be interesting. Again I try not to log in to see the trends but if you want to view numbers, you have to. Again I have no real solution to this.
AdditionalI have been into my google account and changed anything I can (google dashboard). However I will this week delete my Google account entirely and set up a new one with an e-mail address from some free e-mail provider. For now though Google thinks I am called Englebert and that my birthday is on xmas day 1984.
All of this should prevent Google knowing everything about me. I hope that millions of people like me are also trying to find alternatives to Google products so as they have a bit of a rethink about how much data they can and should collect on people.
I would be interested in any solutions as long as they involve windows 7 as my OS.