Welcome to /r/degoogleyourlife !

What are you?

We are a subreddit that focuses on minimizing your daily interactions with large companies that may not respect their users privacy. Such as google, facebook, linkedin, microsoft, amazon, verizon, really any conglomerate that doesn't respect their users.

Whether your looking to be "google free" or just replace a few of the services you use, you'll find help here!

So why do you not trust these companies?

Everyone may have their own reasoning on why they want to de-google. These companies have data-breaches, it's not a matter of who, it's really a when. By minimizing our data footprint and choosing the providers that match with our own beliefs, we can have much better control over our own data. Not everyone will agree with a de-googler, that's okay. Everyone has the right to their own beliefs, we just want to help everyone make an informed decision based upon the evidence and facts presented.

These companies are not concerned with our data, that means we need to take our own action. Here are a few articles just reinforcing we need to be careful with our data.

Senate Demands google CEO answer for hidden nest microphone

Google and Amazon use smart home data to learn daily habits

Smart TV Data Collection

How tech companies deceive you into giving up your data and privacy

Amazon Alexa recording personal conversations

Want more relatable evidence to yourself?

Try installing Noscript addon in your firefox browser and take note of how many websites you visit have scripts for various sites. Ex when you visit old.reddit.com the current scripts on this page are from:

reddit.com

aaxads.com

amazon-adsystem.com

googletagservices.com

redditmedia.com

redditstatic.com

Currently the only two I have approved are reddit.com and redditstatic.com. Just those two out of six let me browse the site and post just fine.

If no script isn't your deal, take a look into PiHole. PiHole is a black-hole for internet ads and tracking. If you set the DNS (Domain Name Service) to each individual device. You will see which devices ping or send data to where. Maybe you'll notice windows pinging microsoft servers more often than needed, or alexa sending data while not in use. Whatever device, as long as you can set pi-hole up, you can set it as the DNS on individual devices or your router.

/r/pihole

https://pi-hole.net

What can I do?

Good news! You made the first step, you're here and researching. You don't need to go all out right away, create a plan. Take it step by step.

In previous posts and the wiki, we have suggested alternatives to services you may use. Don't see it? Make a post and ask the community their opinion!

There are plenty of replacement services out there, it's time to change what we know. Many of the replacement services are even better than what de-googlers once used!

As an example; Some users replace Gmail or Outlook with Fastmail, Protonmail, or Tutanota. Three very good alternatives and each have their own pro's and con's to the services.

The great thing about the technology age is... We have options!

Options for email, phone, social media, news outlets, search engines, cloud storage and just about anything you can think of. It's just a matter of discovering those alternatives which may someday be the mainstream or maybe the past alternative is the up and coming mainstream privacy respecting service/product now.

Don't be afraid to get started or ask questions. We're all here for the same purpose so be kind!

If you have any questions, concerns or opinions regarding /r/degoogleyourlife, just let us know!

Enjoy De-Googling Your Lives!