Removing Google from your Life

27 April 2023

Google has played an enormous role in shaping the internet as we know it today. I remember that 20 years ago, I could not get a map of my hometown without physically obtaining a map from a government body and scanning it myself. And by scanning, I mean borrowing a hand-held scanner from my richest friend because owning a scanner was a luxury at the time.

But that was then and this is now. Nowadays, thanks to Google, getting a map of just about anywhere, is just a few clicks away.

Nevertheless, Google has changed over the last 20 years. A lot of what Google does is intrusive, and with most of their services that are free, you should know that if it's free, you are the product. While in some cases, that can be a good thing, like with their Maps solutions because they benefit from "crowdsourcing", in most cases it just raises privacy concerns, particularly with the likes of Gmail. However, simply having a map service does not make money. So how did Google ultimately monetize Google Maps? It wasn't rocket science...

They now simply require you to have an API Key that is linked to a billing profile. No big deal for most people, as few people get "28 000 map views per month", which is about 933 map views per day. Even on Wineries.co.za, which is one of the few high-traffic sites I built, we still would not see 933 map views per day. Nevertheless, many others might fall in this category and ultimately have to start paying Google for using their maps.

Paying Google is certainly a good reason to look at alternatives. Google makes enough cash as it is despite their intrusive practices. That is why you won't find a single Google library used on this site. Currently I have no idea how many visitors this site gets because I don't use Google Analytics nor do I use any other Libraries that might track visitors of this blog.

Note: I intend to add Umami to this blog at some stage, a self-hosted Google Analytics alternative.

So how does one ditch Google? Here are the quickest and most effective ways to remove Google from your life:

1. Analytics

While an excellent tool for tracking traffic, there are a variety of downsides. From privacy concerns to performance impacts, it really doesn't make sense to rely on Google Analytics anymore. Especially with better alternatives out there.

Don't let Google track you. Just use something else like Umami.

2. Maps

I recently switched over to OpenStreetMap for pretty much all of the websites I work with. It took me a while to really understand the distinction between OSM and Google Maps, and more particularly, how the Google Javascript API fits into the whole story. The picture became clear after fiddling with LeafletJS.

The really important thing to understand when deciding to use LeafletJS is not deciding against Google Maps. LeafletJS replaces the Google Maps Javascript API, not the actual map tiles provided by Google. In other words, you can still use Google Maps with Leaflet.

Nevertheless, I don't want to use Google at all. So for the maps I create, I rely on:

Street Maps: https://{s}.tile.openstreetmap.org/{z}/{x}/{y}.png
Satellite Maps: https://ibasemaps-api.arcgis.com/arcgis/rest/services/World_Imagery/MapServer/tile/{z}/{y}/{x}?token=API_KEY

In fact, I wrote a really nifty caching engine that I'll share at a later stage. This caching engine significantly decreases the calls made to both openstreetmap.org and arcgis.com while remaining within their terms of use.

Bottom line: OSM can easily replace Google Maps for most use cases.

3. Gmail

GMail is probably the most intrusive item on this list. Every single email you send or receive, is passed through Google's servers. How much of that data they use for themselves is up for debate, but if you want to be sure not to be tracked, then you have two options:

Choose a secure email service provider such as Proton Mail.
Host your mail yourself (you can get free hosting, including e-mail hosting, from Namhost.com here).

4. Switch to Brave

Brave is a browser just like Chrome or Edge is a browser. The difference is that Brave focuses on Privacy and Security. It blocks ads and trackers by default. It even goes a step further by rewarding you for seeing adverts in the form of BAT tokens.

I need to write a blog post about setting up rewards in Brave because I used Brave for years without enabling it and thereby losing out on BAT I could have earned. It's not a lot. I think I can make about R5 ZAR per month (about 0.30 USD) but the point is that that is significantly better than:

Seeing an overload of adverts (compare news24.com in Brave versus news24.com in Chrome, for example)
Being the product by seeing so many adverts

5. Find alternatives for the rest

Most, if not all, Google products have an open-source alternative. Here are some alternatives to consider:

Google Chrome Browser - Mozilla Firefox, Chromium, Brave
Google Search Engine - DuckDuckGo, Startpage, Qwant
Google Drive - Nextcloud, OwnCloud
Google Docs - LibreOffice, Apache OpenOffice
Google Sheets - LibreOffice, Gnumeric, EtherCalc
Google Slides - LibreOffice
Google Maps - OpenStreetMap, Mapbox
Google Translate - DeepL, Apertium
Google Analytics - Umami, Matomo, Fathom Analytics
Google Photos - Lychee, PhotoPrism
Google Calendar - Etar, Simple Calendar
Google Keep - Standard Notes, Joplin
Google Earth - Marble, NASA WorldWind
Google Hangouts - Riot.im, Jitsi Meet
Google News - NewsBlur, Feedly

Google offers fantastic services, there is no doubt. But being in full control of your data and services has major advantages. Perhaps ditching Google entirely is not an option for you but for many there is the option of removing at least some reliance on Google, which can only be good a good thing for any business or individual.