Google Alternatives

The #1 community for Gun Owners in Indiana

Member Benefits:

  • Fewer Ads!
  • Discuss all aspects of firearm ownership
  • Discuss anti-gun legislation
  • Buy, sell, and trade in the classified section
  • Chat with Local gun shops, ranges, trainers & other businesses
  • Discover free outdoor shooting areas
  • View up to date on firearm-related events
  • Share photos & video with other members
  • ...and so much more!
  • eldirector

    Grandmaster
    Rating - 100%
    10   0   0
    Apr 29, 2009
    14,677
    113
    Brownsburg, IN
    With the latest evilness from Google (search for Google conservative reviewed claims, plus their sexual/gender harassment suits, and all of the other ways they insert social/political issues into what would otherwise be incredible products), I'm actively looking to move my "services" to another vendor. I know of things like DuckDuckGo (search engine) and various other web browsers (Firefox, or even SeaMonkey). What about other services commonly hosted by Google? Email? Calendar? Files and document editors? Photo storage, editing, and sharing?

    I specifically chose gmail back in the day, so I could avoid address changes every time I changed ISP. I SHOULD have gotten my own domain, which I suppose is still an option as well (any advice for free/cheap email domains would be nice).

    Like it or not, I am fairly invested in the MS Office online suite. We use it at the corporate level, which gets me a sweet discount for personal use. And, since I use it on all devices, I can access anything (work or personal) everywhere. Unfortunately, MS is probably right up there with all the other big providers in their "evilness". I don't trust Google, MS, Apple, Amazon, etc... any farther than I could (virtually) throw them.

    Sort of running my own server/services (email, calendar, personal cloud, some sort of web-based document management, etc...), what options should I be looking at?
     

    fullmetaljesus

    Probably smoking a cigar.
    Rating - 100%
    6   0   0
    Jan 12, 2012
    5,851
    149
    Indy
    In regards to email.

    Zoho does free (up to 50 seats) email hosting and provide a phone app. This would run through your own domain. Now o have not set up my own account as of yet, a co-worker has been using them for a while and is a fan. (Ymmv)

    As far as online storage there is always Dropbox,. If you want to handle this all yourself, you could stand up a simple cloud server in aws or linode or digital ocean and run "own cloud". Which is like your in personal Dropbox.

    As far as docs go,. Ms 365 could provide that. Or you could run libreoffice on your computer and save your docs to the cloud for phone access I'm unsure if there are apps for libre office.

    Personally I'm all in with Google and have been forever so I'm not sure how you could replace the other things you need.
     

    snapping turtle

    Grandmaster
    Rating - 100%
    6   0   0
    Dec 5, 2009
    6,463
    113
    Madison county
    First a link to the internet without the ISP snooping around. (They should soon be worse than google with net neutrality off the books). Currently they are not as good as using your history as they will be shortly. Opting out of these sales of info not always available.

    What you need to do is really look at what your privacy concerns are and then compairing what ease of internet use to concerns comparison. At what point does having zero cookies in a browser over power having to log into each site every time you use it. Ease of use is what apple/google does well. Maybe a system made for ease of use and one made for more personal endeavors.

    Drop box is a very happy option and I have used it for years. Drop box has not been without it’s issues of privacy and hacks in the past either.

    Recent stuff i have seen seen has been a cross of eBay search into YouTube suggesting feeds. The puma white hunter thread here had me then search eBay for puma white hunter knives. A day later without a google search of puma a feed with a garage sale find of some my equipment and a puma white hunter knife appeared in YouTube feed. Some find this very useful some find it disturbing.

    I think maybe a desktop or laptop laptop unit set for privacy and an ease of use until like an iPad set for ease of use may be my way of going forward. Want to go totally dark there are still newspapers books and non interconnected means of info gathering always available but the tech age is onto us all.
     

    BugI02

    Grandmaster
    Rating - 0%
    0   0   0
    Jul 4, 2013
    31,896
    149
    Columbus, OH
    I read the OP as not so much a privacy concern, but as a desire to not do business with SJW evil; trying to avoid the mark of the beast, as it were

     

    fullmetaljesus

    Probably smoking a cigar.
    Rating - 100%
    6   0   0
    Jan 12, 2012
    5,851
    149
    Indy
    While the subject of privacy is brought up. I would suggest anyone concerned with privacy to read the book "art of invisibility". Written by a security expert/ex hacker Kevin mitniick. Great read, has tips from casual privacy concerns to disappearing almost completely online.
     

    Kevinslaterjr

    Plinker
    Rating - 0%
    0   0   0
    Jan 11, 2018
    35
    8
    South bend
    ive often pondered this idea myself. Its always been do damn funny how "google" is synonymous with web surfing.
    you guys remember the good ole netscape and yahoo days?
    I need some AOL in my life pronto
     

    gopher

    Sharpshooter
    Rating - 100%
    5   0   0
    Feb 13, 2013
    528
    28
    Zionsville, IN
    DuckDuckGo works fine for me with Safari under MacOS and on my iPhone.

    Regarding getting off Gmail: getting your own domain is really the best option here. I use NameCheap for domain registration. You will also need email hosting; I don’t have anyone to suggest here as i buy a web hosting plan that includes email. NameCheap offers email hosting for $10/year which might be an option.

    Being able to create an email address that isn’t some weird combination of your name and meaningless numbers is well worth the effort and minimal expense. You will also get additional features like the ability to auto-forward emails. I use this to have any email sent to an address auto-forwarded to both my and my wife’s personal email accounts. This is perfect for those situations where you both want to get emails but only one email address can be specified.
     

    eldirector

    Grandmaster
    Rating - 100%
    10   0   0
    Apr 29, 2009
    14,677
    113
    Brownsburg, IN
    The switch has begun. Grabbed the latest version of Opera. Like it so far. Bing as the default search engine. We'll see how that works. Migrated my Google Docs over to OneDrive.

    gmail will be the hardest to get rid of. Been using the same 3 accounts (me, my wife, and a shared family account) for decades.
     

    WebSnyper

    Maximum Effort
    Rating - 100%
    56   0   0
    Jul 3, 2010
    15,419
    113
    127.0.0.1
    The switch has begun. Grabbed the latest version of Opera. Like it so far. Bing as the default search engine. We'll see how that works. Migrated my Google Docs over to OneDrive.

    gmail will be the hardest to get rid of. Been using the same 3 accounts (me, my wife, and a shared family account) for decades.

    You can "connect" your gmail accounts to an outlook.com email address... at least that way you don't have to give everyone a new email address, etc

    https://support.office.com/en-us/ar...look-com-c5224df4-5885-4e79-91ba-523aa743f0ba
     
    Top Bottom