Steps to ditching Google if their politics and power are starting to piss you off...

[Rabblevox]

I was a VERY early Google fan-boy (I got an invite to Gmail back when people were actually selling invites for hundreds of bucks on E-Bay). And their products are technically very, very good. None of the major players (Yahoo, MSN, AOL) are even competent enough to play on the same field.

But their insane wealth, power, privacy flaws, and increasing shift to the right have made me realize that I don't want to be in bed with them anymore.

How to break free? It ain't easy if you've been embedded in the Googleverse for years, but it's possible. Here's some alternatives to Google products that work for me, and other ideas will be gratefully received.

Search Engine: I personally like Ixquick.com. It has great results and is seriously oriented towards user privacy. (They are a major supporter of EFF)

Email/online office: The interface is clunky, and their various services are not as well integrated as Gmail/Google Docs, but Zoho.com is the best I've found.

Browser: This is a tough one for me because I think Google Chrome is truly the best browser the planet has ever seen. Opera definitely has it's heart in the right place, and gets better with each iteration, but it still has compatibility problems. Right now I'm primarily using Opera 11, with Firefox as a back-up browser.

News Feeds: Here's where I need help. I am addicted to my Google News and Google Reader pages, and have yet to find anything else remotely as good. So please oh please if you have ideas here share them.

Anyway, that's what I've got.

[PoliticAverse]

1. "How I Learned to Live Google-free"

http://spectrum.ieee.org/telecom/internet/how-i-learned-to-live-google-free

[Rabblevox]

3. Great article (especially since he mainly agrees with me) Thanks! /nt

[Ian David]

2. Unless they fix Santorum's problem for him, I'll probably stay with Google. n/t

[InvisibleTouch]

4. Do you remember way back when it was called Deja-News?

It started out as a way to search old posts from usenet newsgroups. My friends and I thought it was just the perfect name for its function, and were a little put off when it changed names to Google. Do newsgroups even still exist anymore, or has everything gone to web forums?

[blogslut]

5. Google bought Deja-News

Deja-News was an archive of Usenet. Google was already a thriving company when it bought Deja-News.

[Rabblevox]

6. So, any thoughts on replacing Google News? BBC and Al-Jazeera are great, but...

not very customizable.

[blogslut]

7. I don't use Google Reader

I've got a Rainmeter config that puts RSS feeds on my desktop and right now it's set to display top headlines from Reuters/MSNBC/Wonkette/Gawker.

Frankly, I'm not that upset with using Google stuff but then, I don't really play by Google's rules. :)

[qb]

8. Thanks! Ixquick & Zoho look cool.

:hi:

[Nye Bevan]

9. How is Google Chrome better than Firefox? (nt)

[qb]

10. For one, it doesn't insist on updating itself every other day.

[Rabblevox]

11. It is also faster, leaner, and never ever crashes. I had great hopes for Firefox once...

But it has gotten more bloated, cludged, and slow with each new version. It is, in fact, currently the worst browser around. (Yup, even worse than IE, which has made significant improvements lately).

[KG]

12. oh Chrome crashes. lately every third youtube vid i watch crashes Chrome.