Ask HN: Alternative to Google Services?
I am heavily invested in Google Services, both on desktop and mobile.
The current restrictions placed on Android devices have made clear that this reliance is very risky. I do not like being played as a pawn on third parties conflicts.
I would like to replace my use of Google services with alternatives. Specifically, by order of importance:
- GMail
- Google Maps
- Youtube
- Play Store
What are my options?
For mobile, I would consider continuing to use Android as base OS, since it seems restricting use of it wouldn't be feasible.
Replacing Google as search engine was very easy in Chrome: https://duckduckgo.com/install?t=h_
I will try the same on my Android phone later.
17 comments
[ 2.5 ms ] story [ 69.8 ms ] thread- GMaps -> Here Maps
- Google Search -> DuckDuckGo
- GCalendar -> Zoho
- GDocs -> Zoho, Microsoft
- GDrive -> OneDrive, Dropbox
- YouTube -> Vimeo, twitch
*with extra newlines :p
Google Maps -> Here Maps or OSM
Youtube -> Depends on your needs. There aren't really that many alternatives to watching videos on youtube but you don't need an account for that. If you need to host videos you can use Vimeo or checkout something like verond.com but this kind of services tend to come and go a bit too fast.
Play Store -> F-Droid or amazon store.
If you want to change your browser too, I strongly suggest Vivaldi.
Extra:
Photos -> Canon Irista
Drive -> Mega.nz
Analytics -> self hosted Matomo (shockingly easy!)
Browser -> Firefox? So you completely drop the Chromium rendering engine (plus, firefox is awesome)
Photos -> what is your need, exactly?
Firefox is... ok. I tried using it a few times but I find it a bit clunky for some reason and I do love Vivaldi absolute flexibility.
Photos, what I need is not being Google. Really. And it's so damn hard to find a decent service that is not Google. I am not in the Apple ecosystem so that's out, and all the other services have a bit crappy apps. I tried owncloud but the Android app is really not good enough.
The problem I have with Google is that I occasionally make Android Apps and I already had a strike on my account for an old app, if I were to have more strikes I would risk losing EVERYTHING, photos, emails etc... and that's not something that I am down for.
tl;dr They're fighting it, but they don't see this bill having any additional consequences for our customers.
Chrome browser -> Iridium browser
Play Store -> F-Droid, standalone APKs
I particularly like installing APKs. It's like installing software with an .exe in Windows. Some software vendors even provide you with an APK, i.e. WhatsApp. Some APKs need to be retrieved from 3rd party sites, which is a security downside though.
Apparently there's an app, extension, that will allow you to extract an APK from Google's Play Store? Anyone know something?
yalp is a wrapper around google playstore. Handy if you need to install apps not available on F-Droid and not install from apk.
I'm actually going through the same process as you, but after chrome's change to default auto-login, it was the first thing I changed.
You might want to consider the same.