I work for a school, but I’m not a teacher. My role is cybersecurity, and I have been protecting schools, hospitals, telecommunication companies, and banks, for more than 20 years.
So trust me when I say that getting away from Google is hard. Really hard. Even if you don’t use Google services directly, they own a good chunk of the Internet’s backbone, and can see who and what you are talking to even if you are doing it without using Google applications or services. They have ownership stakes in 14 undersea cables connecting the continents, and own 3 more outright.
They offer free analytics services for websites, so chances are, even if you are visiting a website that isn’t hosted by Google, and is in every other way unattached to Google, the website is sending your information to Google.
That said, there are some ways you can minimize your exposure to Google, and Techspot recently published a list of alternatives to Google that you may want to consider. You can see the list here: https://www.techspot.com/news/80729-complete-list-alternatives-all-google-products.html
My personal recommendations:
- Brave web browser
- DuckDuckGo for search
- Zoho for email and other Office-type applications. ProtonMail is really good, if all you need is email.
- BitChute for video hosting
Mahalo!
5 replies on “Alternatives to Google”
Another useful iOS browser that has TOR built in is called Red Onion. Yes, it’s a lame name, and because it uses TOR it’s necessarily slower than an insecure browser, but if you treasure privacy over speed you should consider adding it to your iPhone.
I consider Tor to be compromised, and so do many others in my field. That said, using Tor is better than not using Tor, especially if you aren’t using it for unlawful purposes. But it’s overkill for most folks who just want some basic privacy protections, and their browser isn’t as feature rich as Brave.
Thanks for this! I’m not familiar with Brave. Why do you recommend it over Vivaldi?
I’m not mad at Vivaldi. It’s not a bad option. But Brave is open source, and it’s one of 3 browsers on the PrivacyTools list. I also like what Brave is doing to flip the ad business on its head (compensating users for viewing ads)
Good info, thanks!