Google Is Evil

Google is Evil. Well, OK probably not evil, but Google is a giant corporation, and some things that big business does can be very much like Big Brother.

Google provides a wide selection of products and services, offering excellent functionality and security - but this is at the expense of privacy. When you use a Google product or service Google can see everything that you do, from the searches that you run on-line  to the content of your e-mail. 

A 2016 article in US News & World Report said "Google isn’t just the world's biggest purveyor of information; it is also the world's biggest censor."  Google also owns YouTube, the largest video hosting site on the Internet, and we saw in a report from Bloomberg in March 2018 how YouTube videos are banned to meet Google’s political agenda.

Do I think that we need to dump everything associated with Google? No, not at all - there are some things that Google does very well. If you want to make information public - share it with the world - then Google is fine (assuming they don’t censor your content and limit your free speech). But if you want privacy and control over your data, then you may want to consider alternatives to Google.

If all you want to do is move away from Google, consider switching to Yandex and VKontakte (VK). You can think of these as the Russian versions of Google and Facebook. Telegram is also a nice messenger service that originated in Russia, but is now run out of Dubai. Switching from Google to Yandex won't do much to keep you from being monitored, the Russian FSB probably monitors everything you do, but they are looking for threats to Russia and are not likely to provide your information to outside agencies or use it for marketing.

If you are just trying to gain additional privacy and control of your data, there are some alternatives to Google that you may want to consider.

The first alternative is using a search engine that does not track and save your search history. One of the most popular privacy focused search engines is Duck Duck Go. Another is Start Page,  which returns Google search results but serves as a search proxy keeping Google from tracking your search history.

Getting rid of Gmail is essential to protecting your personal privacy. I recommend both Protonmail  and Tutanota for private e-mail. Likewise, don’t use Google messaging services, rather use an end-to-end encrypted messenger like Signal or Wire.

Chrome is Google’s browser. For those that don’t use Microsoft Edge / Explorer, Firefox is the most common alternative to Chrome. However, there are several other browsers available, and for privacy I like Brave. Users who want more control over their browsers might like Vivaldi. Of course, for even more privacy you may want to connect to the Internet using TOR. 

Google Drive is fine for storing documents that you want to share with the public. For ensuring the privacy of your documents stored in the cloud, I recommend SpiderOak One and Tesorit. You might also be interested in Kolab Now. None of these services are free, which may be a consideration for minimal personal on-line file storage. If you choose to stay with Google Drive or maybe Dropbox because they offer free storage, I recommend using Boxcryptor to encrypt everything that you upload to these sites.

OnionShare lets you share files over the TOR network.  Firefox Send, provides private, encrypted file sharing, letting you send files through a safe, private, and encrypted link that automatically expires to ensure your stuff does not remain online forever.

These are just a few of the possible alternatives to using Google. You will have to decide for yourself which, if any, of these alternatives meet your needs and what trade-offs you are willing to make between the convenience and efficiency of Google products and the ability to maintain your personal privacy and control of your data.