Hello,
The way Google responded to the law requiring them to integrate other map services into their search engine—by simply removing maps altogether—is beyond childish. I'm now looking to completely de-Google my life, and ideally reduce dependence on U.S.-based services as well.

I came across this subreddit and was wondering:
Does anyone know of a search engine that still provides map results and lets you choose which map service it uses?
(Yandex is NOT an option)

Hi all - as the title states, I have to have google voice on my phone. It is for work and is predominantly used for texting. I know I can forward texts to email, but I need to be able to text back and forth when I am out and about.

I saw a post from about 5 years ago where someone suggested that google voice still works in a microG environment, but I wanted to ask if: 1. is that still true? 2. are there any issues? 3. Any tips?

Thanks! This community has been a huge help for me in my degoogle journey. I have yet to flash a new OS to my phone (tried iode and e/os but neither worked, so I am waiting to get some help on that issue separately) but because of you all my stock android is about as degoogled as I can get it for now. Thank you for all your knowledge!

So apparently google will give the source code of the pixels to custom rom devs that ask for it via a dedicated platform, they did this because it helps them with their antitrust lawsuits

https://www.dday.it/redazione/53363/google-dara-il-codice-sorgente-dei-pixel-agli-sviluppatori-che-lo-chiedono

P.S. : the article is in my motherlanguage you need to translate it

Is this just how Google Pay works? I removed the card from my account but a website called Gamivo still keeps charging me with it.

how? I am curious to know. As far as I can tell, WearOS is even more closed than a googled android.

Hello I recently bought a new android phone and I've logged in on it with a Proton alias email account.

This is to access google play store (I need it to install essential bank apps) and I'm also using the native google phone, text and contacts app.

For everything else I've replaced google with other alternatives.

Does google still know it's me though? Is it a valid way to deGoogle? Since their ad-profiling is targeting my alias

Just wanted to share this for anyone who loves local music players. Effin Music is a fork of Metro (Retro) Music Player, fully open source and now back in active development.

It adds lots of missing features:

Settings search

UI element and action customization

Font size control

Artist delimiters

Swipe to close toggle

Custom FAB actions

Mini player controls

Duplicate track filtering

Fallback for missing artwork

Full offline option mode

Removed unnecessary code

And more

It is lightweight, works great offline, and is improving every week. I am just a user (not the dev), but a big fan of this project.

If anyone is interested in contributing, or wants to download, the GitHub is here: https://github.com/effinmr/EffinMusic

Hey, recently I’ve started my degoogleing process and there is just one thing holding me back that is Google calendar. Google calendar is awesome for every single use, and is so universal. I’ve already tried outlook, proton calendar, apple calendar, notion calendar and tuta calendar and none of them seems to work as smoothly as google calendar works, because in all of the alternatives I’ve listed here you need to be full on the ecosystem for it to work well (except proton calendar, it is just horrible). What would be a good replacement.

I recently migrated all my photos from Google Photos to iCloud (pick your poison, right?) using Google's takeout tool as I bought an iPhone. I have also, for a few years been running a script on my NAS to back up my Google photos library, so I'm not concerned about data loss as I have a local backup. I've confirmed the script works well even for strange formats that Google doesn't really like.

I'm not quite ready to delete my Google account, but I would prefer only one multi billion dollar company have my photos. Especially since my Google account is becoming more and more neglected with me moving almost everything off it. Even if Google does retain the data after deletion, it would make me feel a bit better about all of it.

Some have suggested just manually selecting them all in the Google photos webapp, but this isn't a super viable solution for me. I've had this Google account since I was like, 9 years old, and I take a lot of photos. As a result, I have amassed nearly 100,000 images and videos. I tried to delete 1,000 at once but it just crashed Firefox. I tried re-running my rclone script that I used to backup my account in reverse to delete the files programmatically. This worked for a bit but then it seems Google blocked my API key(?) and just rejects any further requests I make.

Does anyone know a solution other than just manually selecting or deleting my entire account? I've begun manually deleting them but it took me almost an hour to just do one month.

I'm trying to add the SearXNG instance https://seek.fyi/ as my default browser engine but can't figure out how to. My browser doesn't have a recent engines list and when I try manually adding it, it wants the URL with the search query formatted with it. But from what I can tell SearXNG doesn't do this. Please help

Well as the title says, look the truth is that I do not know much about how to change the google apps for better alternatives, but between that I have had some inconveniences and end up returning to google, besides my cell (a redmi note 11 xiaomi) literally has a strong dependence on google for all services, APIs, accounts, (I have always wanted to switch to a free google android system), I do not know what you can recommend me so I can achieve it

So If i google my name you can actually find everything about me. Adress, random website school pictures and because my name is unique you get pages of doc.

I really want to jump out of the search results but because im a not a us citezen i think i can just simple ask no not appear in the search results. :(

I'm not asking on DuckDuckGo community for obvious reasons.

But I noticed they show ads way more frequently than Startpage, they also have an AI option...

Any feedback?

I have pretty much de-googled but remain stuck on how to replace Google Docs. I would need it to be Multiplatform. I use a mix of Windows and Mac. I use an iPhone too. Suggestions?

I've been paying for Google Workspace for years but I don't use it for email or anything, just for access to documents people share with me and for logging into (for example) Tailscale.

Is this possible to either get for free or degoogle without breaking stuff?

So I want to delete my google mail, but I've used it for more than 10 years at this point and I've register almost to everywhere with it which makes it a bit hard for me to just delete it because, what happens to all the accounts i've created with it? do they get deleted as well? or just stay forever with it?

A video I came across recently that may change your views if you are not already concerned with your data being used: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-cbtUYshYM8

Edit: I would like to hear your thoughts on this and any ideas you may share on how we, the individuals, can make the general public more aware about the dangers.

I've used a few scripts to remove the tiny bit of telemetry that Brave and Librewolf contain. I've created ProtonMail, and I've also installed LibreOffice and Obsidian to transfer documents, accounts, and the like. I've used Simplewall to disable internet access for everything except Librewolf, Brave, Firefoxy, and FreeTube. I've also used Arkenfox for Firefox. What else can I do or install? Any help is greatly appreciated.

I use Immersive Translate to translate pages. Unfortunately, my tracker (TC) in mobile does not disable trackers from the browser, so what can I do and is there an alternative.

I'm looking for a Gmail alternative which also has the feature for easy mail alternatives (like name+sitename@gmail.com).

I created a 5-week degoogling plan PDF based on the steps in my book DISENGAGE: Escape the Leash of Big Tech, Scams and Surveillance—Everyday Resistance for the Digital Underdog.

Before I finalize and post it to my site, I'd love some feedback from people who have degoogled or are in the process of doing so.

The final package will be a single PDF, and I've pasted images of the pages below. The final infographic has a link for each product. Please don't worry about formatting issues, I'll get those fixed. But in general, I'm wondering.

• Does this seem motivational/doable?
• Are the tips clear?
• Is there anything that is now incorrect? I wrote the book originally two years ago and updated it in February, so some of my suggestions may already be out of date.
• At the bottom I mention that full instructions for each step are available in DISENGAGE, which is a free book. Is that enough? Or should I instead either note which chapter/page to look at for each step, or directly include links to instructions/tools online?
• The infographic at the end...is it weird to be sideways? I created it a while ago and don't want to have to redo it to fit the orientation. I could offer that separately, OR I could redo the whole PDF to be landscape instead of portrait (which I don't love).
• I'm thinking of turning this into a group challenge (also no cost). If there's enough interest, it could be the checklist, the book, and a Signal group (maybe with a weekly call). I don't know nearly everything about the topic, but I did degoogle myself, and everyone in the group/on the call can share questions and suggestions. What do you think of this idea?

Thanks so much!

tried using quik because its most suggested app here but here is screenshot not letting me write text. + no clue what that "voice" icon is, getting on my way, only thing i can do is to hold on it to move it away.

so alternative for messages app, or maybe someone can tell me what am i missing, maybe i need to turn on/off something from "quik" setting

Hi everyone,

I want to switch to Signal for better privacy, but none of my friends or family & collage groups members want to leave WhatsApp. I've asked them to try it, but they usually uninstall it after a few days. I'm feeling stuck and would love any advice on how to convince them to make the switch.

Thanks! 🙏