Breaking up with Google — Part 1
When one mentions the word “Google” what comes to mind? Searching is what they were first known for when they first started way back in 1998. Over the years they’ve continued to grow and have become so interlinked with the Internet, the company name is used as a verb now. People “google” search terms every day. When you take a step back and see the products they’ve developed and released, the list of items is staggering.
Search — Google’s main product for searching the internet
Chrome — The internet browser that holds the top position for market share
Gmail — One of the most popular online email services available
Drive — Online storage for documents and other files
YouTube — The internet’s most popular repository for videos
Maps — Maps for your mobile or PC that has detail down to street view
Photos — Online photo storage
The list goes on and on. Many of their products are very well made and easy to use. However, Google at its core is built on advertising. Every product they make available that is free comes at a cost to your personal data which is used to tailor ads to you. The saying goes, “if you aren’t paying for the product, you are the product.”
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What alternatives are there when you’re trying to remove Google’s prying eyes from your daily internet use?
Internet Browsers
Brave — Brave is a privacy focused browser built off the Chromium engine. Chromium is what Google’s Chrome was built off of, but they made it open-source, meaning it can be use as a framework for other browsers, like Brave. Because it’s Chromium based, you can use the extensions from Chrome’s Web Store. It blocks trackers of all kinds which keep an eye on you as you move through the web. This is the browser I use as my “daily driver”. It’s fast, private and compatibility with nearly everything on the Internet.
Microsoft Edge — This is Microsoft’s replacement for Internet Explorer and it’s also Chromium based. Microsoft has a lot of their own tweaks and features but they also rely on advertising and gathering user behavior information, so I tend to stay away from this one.
Firefox — Another good option. They are also privacy focused and run by a non-profit (Mozilla Foundation). There are some websites that require either Edge or Chrome in terms of compatibility so it may not work on some sites. Overall, a strong contender after Brave.
Search Engines
Bing — This is the most popular one after Google and it’s owned and run by Microsoft. Some people don’t like using it as they say the results aren’t quite as good but I think they’re either comparable or somewhat better. If you’re searching in Windows, you’re searching with Bing. A good option to use if you don’t want to use Google.
DuckDuckGo — Privacy focused search engine that uses Bing as its core. As they are geared towards privacy, they don’t collect personal information as you’re searching and don’t display ads as search results. They also don’t use that info to show you ads on the sites you go to like Google does. This is my primary search engine and I recommend using it.
Startpage — Similar to DuckDuckGo, they tout their search being privacy focused. Anonymous View is one of their features, keeping you shielded from being tracked. While they don’t collect personal data, they do make their revenue from contextual advertising based on the keyword used in the search. Startpage uses results from Google.
Over the next few posts, I’ll cover alternative options to Google’s most popular products.
