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What (in your opinion) are the best Google and Chrome alternatives?


Omega-TI

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Personally I use these:

 

Search: duckduckgo (works for ~90% of queries) then sometimes startpage.com, which is de-sanitized google

Mail: tutanota.com and protonmail.com. Free ones would be enough for me but I did pay for tutanota, just to support them

Storage: mega.nz. 50GB free, has quite advanced options too

Maps: openstreetmap / here.com/ bing - depending on needs

Browser: Firefox of course, though I'm still holding out with the old one/Waterfox because of the extensions. You need few basic add ons here such as uBlockOrigin, CookiesAutoDelete to stop their spying while browsing

 

I don't really use other stuff such as calendars etc, but there are alternatives too (plus to my choices above). Some good sites to look for advice are:

 

https://restoreprivacy.com

https://spreadprivacy.com/how-to-remove-google/

https://alternativeto.net/

 

It's also not a big problem to run Android without any google on it, if you're interested.

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Browser: Firefox of course, though I'm still holding out with the old one/Waterfox because of the extensions. You need few basic add ons here such as uBlockOrigin, CookiesAutoDelete to stop their spying while browsing

I would use any Firefox fork that let me use NoScript at least.

Edited by Bakasama
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I use Firefox for browsing with a couple of add-ons but those depend entirely on how you browse the internet. For search, I prefer DuckDuckGo, not a perfect replacement for Google because the latter has integrated so many services like maps, Google reviews and so on, but at least you don't have to worry about privacy (or should I say lack thereof) that much. I'm kind of surprised more people aren't switching from Google and Chrome to other alternatives like you're doing. I'm often baffled how most people couldn't care less about large companies selling their personal information.

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If you use stuff like CookieAutoDelete and uBlockOrigin then you starve those little sucking vampires out. It's a war of attrition, of sorts.

 

Google is another thing, because allowing one advertising corporation to not only control the internet, but slowly creep into all other walks of life where data is concerned (school, medical and so on) is a recipe for a very bleak future.

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google search has really been pissing me off by dropping search terms from my query until I click on them in the results page. Yes, google, I really did mean to search for that...

 

At home, I've switched my browser over to duckduckgo. It's a lot less annoying, but its results are maybe half as good as googles and it lets me down a fair bit. So then I have to manually call up google search, and play the 'yes really search for that' game any way. Duckduckgo hasn't been going well, but I'm still using it at home because when it works its less annoying.

 

Also for things that often get removed from search engine results based on dmca request, I sometimes use webcrawler, because people forget that it still exists. It's a great way to find dem romz0rs.

 

At work, I haven't been able to switch to anything, but very much want to.

Edited by Reaperman
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  • 3 months later...

Thanks guys.  The idea of doing some medical research for a family member and having that information possibly attributed to you, and then used against you in the future for purchasing insurance or who knows what is a possible scenario now.  

 

I've gone the Firefox route with Duckduckgo using NordVPN.  I still use Chrome the majority of the time, for things like AtariAge and shopping though.

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Since this popped back up, I've recently started using Brave for a browser--based on chromium, but supposedly with built-in privacy, and built-in ad block.  It also still supports all the weird chrome plugins I like.  (stream downloaders, batch link downloaders, steam tools, etc)  I don't use Brave everywhere yet, but it's only laziness stopping that at this point.

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On 2/27/2019 at 5:30 PM, pacman000 said:

Isn't WebCrawler just a metasearch engine now?

Wrote this awhile back:
Decent Search Engines (Which Are Not Google)
https://websitering.neocities.org/minisearchenginereviews.htm

And this article's already obsolete; some of of those engines have gone offline. :(

 

I used to use ScrubTheWeb a lot, but they're gone too. (Sold the domain name, & someone else made a directory with the same name.) Here's an article I wrote when that happened: https://websitering.neocities.org/ScrubTheWebIsGone.htm

 

I don't mind ads or tracking; I do find an information monopoly frightening.

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I made the switch to duckduckgo as a primary search on both my laptop and phone a few months back, don't miss google a bit. (the phone is running lineage os, with privacy guard enabled) duckduckgo even does the same calculator tricks (e.g. "13 times 13" brings up an html calculator with the result "169") and unit conversions (e.g. "13 feet to inches" brings up a little unit converter thingee with "13 feet" and "156 inch" already displayed)

 

It's not really an option for me to switch away from gmail right now, which is a shame, since that's a big privacy leak to google. I have to pick my battles, though these days I'm inclined to pick more.

 

Brave looks great - I'm going to give that a shot today!

 

On 2/25/2019 at 7:02 AM, Reaperman said:

google search has really been pissing me off by dropping search terms from my query until I click on them in the results page.  Yes, google, I really did mean to search for that...

I switched for privacy concerns, but this was one of the things that made it easier for me. WTH google, why are you dropping two out the three words I typed in, on the very first search results?!? Basically google decided they'd make it easier for banal content to be found over the exact thing you were searching for, because they must know what you want more than you do. ? 

 

google: "if you really meant to search for those specific words, you should have used quotes around each individual word"

me: "why the hell do you think I'm typing in those particular words?!?"

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9 hours ago, --- Ω --- said:

Thanks guys.  The idea of doing some medical research for a family member and having that information possibly attributed to you, and then used against you in the future for purchasing insurance or who knows what is a possible scenario now.  

 

I've gone the Firefox route with Duckduckgo using NordVPN.  I still use Chrome the majority of the time, for things like AtariAge and shopping though.

I would trust Chrome’s incognito mode for what you’re trying to do, personally. But I guess safer is better than sorry and you’re not paranoid if they really are out to get you. 

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19 minutes ago, Flojomojo said:

I would trust Chrome’s incognito mode for what you’re trying to do, personally. But I guess safer is better than sorry and you’re not paranoid if they really are out to get you. 

It's not paranoia so much as targeted advertising, monetizing people's personal information, and what not.  I've also read stories of databases getting hacked, people's information being stolen and sometimes used for nefarious purposes.  I figure a little caution up front could save you from whatever might or could happen.  With the way some companies operate, the terms of service could change over night leaving one wide open.  So in the end, I figure, why risk it?

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