The advertising has become the engine in every possible corner. It’s like searching billboards now, not websites. My email feeds the ads I get. My Gboard keyboard for my text messages feeds the ads I’m shown. Hell the websites I visit get advertised back to me. Google Lenovo for work reasons and a year later I’m still getting fed ads for Lenovo on other platforms that have no association with Google. It’s like the Adoring fan of Oblivion who really really wants to make me happy by offering me things he heard me mention once Every. Single. Day! Dude stop! Shut up and leave me the fuck alone.

I wish I could shove Google off a cliff.

Google has moved far away from “do no evil”.

I feel like I’m always being watched - just to make some rich person richer.

I don’t like ads, they’re a menace to society, I will find something if I need it.

They have too much control in the world.

It’s not just Google. But we don’t need any of them. It’d be better if they didn’t exist.

Basically once they started being a military contractor actively implementing new AI solutions aiding Israel, the US, and more. Or, when they started doing evil instead of avoiding it.

(Please don’t @ me with all the “yeah but they did THIS AND THAT years ago… we all have our own cutoff point).

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Fuck their greed.

If you want a more elaborate answer, they hold too much power over users and they stopped truly innovating years ago.

They were evil back then as well but Google Now and Inbox were ways to siphon data that benefited users as well

I feel there is a certain maximum amount of influence a for profit company should be allowed to grow to. They have long surpassed it.

For me it always felt a bit weird to give google all this data about me, but it was so convenient and their services often are very good and definitely user friendly. So I always told myself, what’s the worst they can do? They are a corporation and they would only hurt themselves if they used their data against their users. And anyway they are US based. The USA are the biggest and oldest democracy which wouldn’t allow evil forces to gain power.

Yeah, that was that.

Originally it was because suggested results were a waste of time and I had used linux in grad school. I liked being able to use my computer how I wanted. As I learned more and more the ethics became a strong enough motivator I got rid of gmail and stopped using google maps. I’m 100% degoogled now, and I never looked back. Sometimes I have friends or people at work who want to collaborate using google products. I tell them I take an ethical stance against it. I will never go back.

Google collects a lot of personal data and I don’t like it. I disabled every Google app and service that was possible without changing OS or rooting the phone. Then I realized that few apps, that are important to me, did not work correctly without Google Services. So unfortunately I had to re-enable it. I’m using VPN though. Hopefully that messes at least a little bit Google’s data collecting.

On PC Linux is nowadays my main OS but I have Windows 11 installed too (dual boot). There’s still quite many compatibility problems with Linux.

I am de-googled for quite a while. Coming across goggle polluted pages and services really makes me feel bad now, like somebody standing behind me and watching

I started degoogling because of Google’s more and more transparent business plan of data surveillance. I’m not comfortable with “paying with my information” because of the uncountable (and frankly unimaginable) ways that information can be applied by third parties without my knowledge.

“AI” is one example which wasn’t even on the chart when I started degoogling, but we can all be certain that Google and partners use any language sample available on Gmail and G drive to train theirs. This is the company that casually registered private WiFi networks in the course of mapping their Maps street view. They’ll harvest everything they can.

At heart, I don’t trust corporate mega-monopolies to take care of our best interests as online citizens, and as a European I’m super sceptical of becoming subject to less safe legislation (US, Chinese or whatever) that doesn’t offer me protections that I have or expect at home.

By not using Google (or Meta, or Amazon, or X) I can deliberately pick and choose individual services — or host them for myself — rather than hedge everything on the benevolence of one corporation that doesn’t give a shit about their users.

1. I’m trying to be more anti-large corporation, especially those that have bent the knee to Trump.
2. I want to support the people who make replacement apps/services that have a DIY ethic about them.
3. I kind of like the challenge of it, because it’s not all that easy…which in my mind shows that it’s necessary.

If you don’t want to DeGoogle, that’s fine. It’s a personal decision. If you have all the facts and determine you’d rather stay doing what you’re doing, that’s fine.

If Google randomly decides to terminate my account for some reason and won’t tell me why or allow me to reasonably appeal, I’m screwed.

GDrive, my YouTube, my play store purchases, my Gmail going back since forever, and even all these 3rd party sites where I used “login with Google” could be instantly toasted and irrecoverable.

I became aware that this is way way too much exposure to one company and every component is linked together so if, hypothetically, I left a comment on YouTube that triggered some angsty AI ban algorithm, which led to the whole account getting zapped, I would be one sad puppy.

Better to selfhost, encrypt all, and be in control of my own destiny.

Cause fuck ‘em, that’s why.

i don’t like the fact that fbi, nsa, cia, etc. could have access to my data. especially now