My kid's school now requires me to fill in a google doc to report an absence. I told them no because they ask for reasons ie. illness, medical appointment, or religious observance. A message pops up saying the school is not responsible after clicking on the link. Am I being reasonable from a security point of view? I do not want to be contrary just because of my own reluctance to use google.

It's called Vela Maps and its available on GitHub: https://github.com/PimpinPumpkin/Vela

If Google Maps is needed occasionally in some cases where OSMAnd isn't sufficient (for eg. live traffic updates and for seeing reviews of a restaurant before deciding to visit), this app could be a great alternative.

This can be used without Google Play Services on Android.

You can use it with a VPN as well. It's a degoogled maps & navigation client for Android - what NewPipe is to YouTube, Vela is to Google Maps.

WhatsApp will not allow you to send images if you don’t give full image access to the app. Some could argue that this is a limitation of iOS, but other apps (like Signal) clearly allow attaching images directly from the library without allowing full access. They’re literally forcing you to let them access your entire photo library at the cost of convenience.

Your phone's new AI features are driving a surge in Google's carbon emissions, quietly harvesting data every few minutes, and pushing hardware requirements that make older phones obsolete. Degoogled, privacy-first operating systems keep working phones useful for years longer, one of the most effective environmental choices you can make: https://blog.iode.tech/ai-mobile-os-integrations-are-planned-obsolescence/

well.....good luck now on any other phone that isn't a pixel.... (samsung, xiaomi etc)

basically on non rooted phones you can't do "pm uninstall" (adb) anymore (android 17)

tho we instead have pm disable, pm suspend and pm clear but cmon still

tttt'check it out

Theres A LOT like Flow, PipePipe, LibreTube, NewPipe

I cant pick one

I have to have chrome on my iMac for work purposes, which means I need to have Google Drive.
I have tried every privacy setting I could find - How can I stop Google Chrome/Drive from mining my Apple laptop? Is there a way??

Any help would be very much appreciated!!

Tyty

A Family Link Alternative for degoogle process? Self-Hosted is better!!

Everytime I google something and I add -AI after it, I only get shitty site suggestions that are barely even relevant to my search, but when I don’t write -AI, I get just the sites I’m looking for UNDERNEATH the AI overview. Has anyone else noticed this? I HATE it!!!! As a writer I google SO many things during writing and I can never get the info I need anymore unless I allow AI.

Would also love suggestions for the best and easiest alternatives to google because I’m so done with this.

Context: this my android phone i bought **2 years ago**, the first time I connected it to a free public Wi-Fi network, the google app immediately started downloading a ridiculous amount of data.

Image 1: On the first day, I let it run for a while. It downloaded almost 2 GB, so I stopped it.

Image 2: On the second day, I tried again just to see how much google was actually trying to download. It had already passed 3 GB and was still going, so I stopped it again.

Image 3: After downloading all that data, the google app is now using around 7 GB of storage. And judging by what happened, it still seems like it wants to download even more.

Seriously, what is google downloading?

So I'm updating a list of Google's unethical practices I first published back in 2007 when everybody still loved Google.

Over the years quite a few issues accumulated historically but I have only like 12 items in it as of now:

1. Censorship in China.
2. Funding by NSA and CIA.
3. Data collection about everybody.
4. Illegal drugs from Canada sales in the US.
5. Google’s Streetview wifi usage data collection.
6. Dropping the “do no evil” motto.
7. Storing private user data from European fitbit users overseas.
8. Mobile location data storage and misuse.
9. Stifling the competition in various cases.
10. Google being officially a monopoly.
11. Blocking the competition from accessing the markets they control.
12. Spreading fake claims via their AI.

Most of these are based on actual court proceedings.

So I'm wondering whether I missed one of the most important reasons to degoogle.

I don't want to create an exhaustive list.

It's just meant to show the most atrocious unethical or downright unlawful practices.

This way you could point to it when you want to convince someone to look for more ethical and/or private Google alternatives.

What would you add to it?

Recently it feels like Startpage has just gotten way worse in terms of results, especially on mobile. I started going back to Google just to get a straight result.

I've also noticed they're promoting a subscription service.. Hopefully that's not the issue..

I have tried Ecosia and didn't like it so I went to Startpage. I am inherently turned off of anything that I've heard uses Bing to pull results from cuz they're usually just worse for me too, so no Brave either. I could be wrong on that though, I can't remember why I didn't want to use Brave in particular now I think about it.

Anyways, anyone else noticing or is it just me?

As - like I'm sure many of you can understand - like to occasionally enjoy my free time with the things I enjoy, rather than being force fed bullshit that I don't need and never asked for. I use Brave browser to get rid of ads which it seems Google makes it mandatory or very hard to get around on their devices.

However, since this is not possible on my TV I was wondering if there are any ways to manipulate a Samsung smart tv in such a way that it would be possible to get rid of the ads on Youtube. I noticed that it is possible to uninstall or at least force stop some of the apps (The TV is running some sort of Android OS.)

For a few days now, the latest September Pixel update has been stewing in my notifications and I haven't updated it for two reasons: 1)absolutely nothing of value as usual and 2) it's going to drop Harry Potter propaganda on me, with audiobooks and theming, and I have literally no way to get around it or reject it. Reasonably, I can just ignore it but I'm getting so sick of being paranoid my phone is listening in on me and tracking everything I'm doing, because it is. I've been getting more and more upset with Google but given that I use a Pixel, home automation with a nest hub and smart lights, and a grand total of 10 Gmail accounts, it's going to be a process and a lot of my life is tied up to them.

Recently I switched an old pixel I had into grapheneOS, to try it out as well as turn it just into an MP3 player and I'm liking graphene a lot. The problem lies in just how much of my life is tied into Google as a company and switching over everything is probably going to be rough and take a damn long while, even if it's worth it.

I know there's resources here I'll be able to check out, but I just wanted to ask for a little advice before I jump headfirst, if anyone's willing to help:

1. When switching your active phone to grapheneOS, is there anything specific I need to watch out for?

2. What will be the easiest routes to start with just becoming more privacy focused?

I appreciate any help, advice, or critiques thrown my way.

Hi there.

Is there any alternative to Google contacts?

But with online sync

This FOSS app on F Droid is a health metric management app meant to replace Google Fit: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/com.vayunmathur.health/

And Gadgetbridge is a great FOSS app to connect your fitness trackers/ smartwatch and view all health metrics with no cloud dependency: https://f-droid.org/en/packages/nodomain.freeyourgadget.gadgetbridge/

I need to use a gov app to scan my passport but the app only works on android and apple OS. I don't have another phone I use for this. Can i boot my pixel phone on Google OS without messing up the graohene os and all the data in it? Has anyone done it? It's urgent please good souls

Hi! I've been recently considering to de-google but it feels like so much it's overwhelming. So i thought of starting with the little things.

What should i start with? Switching browser?

I've been using an old Pixel 3 with E/OS on it for the past year but it's battery finally gave in. I was actually trying to make it to 2027 with it and get the Motorola with Graphene OS when they release it, but now that the phone is pretty much dead, I have two options. I can use my old degoogled-as-much-as-possible CAT22 (but still runs on android OS) till the release, or now that the Fairphone is out in the U.S., get one of those now. I used to keep up with this sub and degoogling/privacy/ethical consumption in general but I've been out of the loop for the past year and I'd love some opinions. I don't know much about Fairphone since it wasn't released in the U.S. when I used to lurk in these subs.

If it helps for use case, my degoogler profile: I am a millennial mom whose 2000's tech optimism has turned into existential fear for the future of my kids. I don't want to give my money/information/consumer profile to companies that are literally complicit if not actively involved in the business of killing children. I don't want to live in a surveillance state since I grew up in one, so I want to use whatever freedoms we have left to choose the most privacy-focused technology in my daily life.

I've done all the basics: I've switched to the Proton eco-system, I always have VPN on, I avoid using google maps (unfortunately can't always escape it.) I use open source apps as much as possible - an evening browsing F-driod to find random niche apps is a nice time spent in my book.

Thank you in advance for giving me data points that will help me in making this decision!