Commenting here because LTT’s video that I am commenting about was taken down (De-Google Your Life - Part 2). RU-vid has made a huge mistake by striking LTT’s video about circumventing Google Ads. As a long time RU-vid Premium subscriber, I will be reconsidering my membership renewal and seeking out ad-free, unpaid alternatives due to their misguided action. I recommend others take similar action to show Google/RU-vid their practices are not unnoticed and without consequence.
I'm pretty sure that it goes against the RU-vid terms of service to discuss how to circumvent their ads. After all advertisements are what make this website / app possible.
Same!!!!! I found out about this whole ordeal from L. Rossmann's video!!!! I still hate Linus but I am here to support him on this topic because Google needs a kick in the ass I'm ready to get off google and go to R\/mble but nobody wants to go there. LET'S MAKE AN ACTUAL PUSH TO GET OFF RU-vid AND GO TO THE R WORD........... (UMBLE) WITH AN R IN FRONT OF IT.
@@InPhillyWeTrust never been to the site: wtf is this garish layout? seeing nothing but right leaning pro-trump anti-woke anti-science christian alpha-male garbage...it's like when voat tried to replace reddit. rock hard pass from me dawg.
@@hunterwilk Just because all the people who want to be able to speak without censorship happen to be right leaning doesn't mean it's only for right leaning people. Please take a severe seat somewhere.
Google doesn't mind you using other services, they know the best advertisement they have going for their services is the poor quality of the services of others.
Google really doesn't mind their services having known alternatives. The real problem isn't lack of alternatives, it's the inconvenience of using them instead of Google.
Fun fact: probably one of the most security and privacy focused ROMs is GrapheneOS, which only runs on Pixel phones. No root access needed and the web-based installer is dead-simple
I purchased a Pixel solely for GrapheneOS. Until another smartphone manufacturer commits to a level of hardware security that attracts the GrapheneOS creator and crew, that's what I'm stuck with, I guess.
Obligatory "I use Firefox, but Floorp", although im still not quite certain that it doesn't have at least some kind of spyware in it. But i'll stay anyways because vertical tabs :p
@@BlueGrimgrin Absolutely, hilariously when the going gets tough I'm the person they turn to for recommending alternatives or solutions to new gen issues. like explaining torrents -_-
I use different browsers in order to isolate data being sent about their usage. I use Chrome to watch RU-vid too, because whatever I do in Chrome, Google knows anyway and whatever I watch in RU-vid, Google also knows. So I can't hide that part of my life from Google. But I can use Firefox on most of my other content consumption and I sometimes use even more browsers. So, be clever about it, don't just be stuck on one browser. I also use all sorts of other privacy-oriented techniques in combination with all that (especially phone - I have GrapheneOS).
I think a good addition to these types of videos is putting it all together and have someone actually take a suite of these products for a test drive, kinda like the Intel GPU or Linux challenge. Then they can let us know what worked well and what didn’t.
I second this. I've been somewhat privacy-conscious for a while, but really started dialing it in the last two years. I'm happy with everything I'm using now! Although I must admit, the RU-vid comments section is a hard habit to kick.
There is a whole community dedicated to online privacy. Subreddit: Privacy RU-vid: Techlore, Surveillance Report, NBTV, Rob Braxman Tech Podcast: Closed Network Privacy, The lockdown The mentioned have done deeper dives in some of the products that are shown in this video then linus will ever do. Check them out.
One thing that I believe is worth pointing out is that fully getting out of Google's ecosystem isn't something one can do overnight. Especially if you're very deep in, like switching from a Gmail address you've had for over a decade to a brand new email address. This sort of thing can take months if not years of work. Take it one step at a time and don't rush it. Start with one area--browsers, search engines, cloud storage, whatever, and work your way forward.
I disagree. I was waist deep in Google ecosystem in all my software and hardware. Seriously, so much Google stuff. It took me a few weeks to move away and now RU-vid is my only Google service. There’s plenty of ways to make it easy to switch services, apps, and hardware. I think this fear of it being too much work is keeping people from making switches from one brand to another.
You can automatically forward emails from your gmail address to another email address. That's what I did to switch to a new one. Makes it way easier to switch.
@@josefinarivia how does forwarding make u not use your previous email address? So the point overall was to not use that „old provider“ in the first place
@@josefinarivia but then your still 100% in Googles service. They have all your email data and your dependent on them to receive it. You need to login to your accounts and change your email address. The whole purpose is not to rely on Google and provide them with all your personal data.
Something to note about Proton and Tuta for switching emails is that the end-to-end-encryption (E2EE) of the two services only work when one Proton mail is sent to another, or one Tuta mail to another. Sadly it's just not possible to have E2EE work without email providers like Gmail actually co-operating with Proton and Tuta's encryption methods. Therefore, if you send an email to your family members who all use Gmail or Hotmail accounts, you're guaranteed to not have a private, encrypted email sent to them, unless they also use Proton or Tuta. I'm not sure that Proton's encryption is compatible with Tuta's either. This isn't to say you should stick with filthy Google because it's encryption isn't cross-compatible; if we want to see change in the world of privacy (or lack of), we need to show the demand by supporting more privacy respecting services for the future. I'm so glad a big channel like Linus is spreading awareness about Privacy issues in the online world. even if some of the service suggestions in this video aren't the best for privacy, most are certainly a huge step-up from the popular big-tech options like Google & Microsoft.
You can send a password protected email to a non proton user that is end to end encrypted. It basically sends an email to the recipient saying they were sent a secure email with a link to it. They click on that, type in their password and they can read and respond to the email that way. Its a work around but yeah other people need to work together to allow encryption. It is still encrypted with normal TLS if sent without a password. For me though its mainly about not letting google snoop thru my emails more then having an encryptred convo with someone else thru email. To be honest email probably isnt the best platform for encypted convorsations anyways. Still should be something that is standard tho
Unlike Tuta, Proton uses PGP, an open standard so it is actually compatible with most other standard email providers like Gmail, Microsoft, etc provided the non-Proton user has set up their PGP keys in Thunderbird, K-9 with Open Keychain or other easy to use client. Our team has has tested this and it works. The new Thunderbird actually makes creating and using PGP extremely easy compared to older methods like using GnuPG on the command line. The other option is to use Delta Chat which supports automatic encryption using the Autocrypt standard. This also works with Gmail, Microsoft, Yahoo and most other providers as long as both parties use any client with autocrypt support like Delta Chat, K-9, SnappyMail, etc.
Incorrect, ish. I use Tuta with my family members and when I initiate an email thread with them, it goes through a secure portal they log into with a simple password (aka a decryption key) that they know. It's that simple. Just tell someone "the password is horse" and then your emails will be encrypted from then on.
Honestly, I never understood people hating on Firefox. My everyday experience with it falls nothing short of what to expect with other big browsers, I'd even argue the contrary! And obviously knowing there's a nonprofit behind it, fighting for an inclusive and private internet for everyone just makes me love it more :)
switched from firefox to chrome 15 Years ago, because it was realy slow at the time and the mobile Version was really bad. bookmark sync between mobile and desktop was easy using chrome everywhere. Only my lazyness is is holding me back switching to another browser. Which would be Firefox again.
@@KenanGwallter what kind of debugging, cuz as a webdev this seems uninformed to me, the have devtools that rival edge's and both of them leave chrome in the dust
i think this is probably one of the most important LTT video of all time. True to the roots of the channel, it provides literal tech tips for a significant part of life in 2024
@@FSchack Idk I'd think buying expensive GPUs or doing fancy DIY stuff that requires a workshop with laser cutter and brass soldering equipment is a lot higher up there Switching parts of your life away from google is far from impossible, I've done quite a few parts of it already over the past years. Will likely do more with this guide. Not impossible, just takes some effort
@@vocassen I don't know how it is in other countries, but the UK government use Google Maps on their official website. We'll need a full-on, organised effort to purge Google from every aspect of our lives. Personally I'd advocate to just ban all these rotten yank tech companies, and replace them with our own rotten British ones.
Except their search suggestions suck Duckduckgo and several others censor results. Privacy is a nice to have but irrelevant compared to censorship unless you're a very high profile figure. Since they collect so much info that unless your already flagged up nothing will happen.
Firefox also has first party add-on "Facebook Container" that automatically puts meta products into isolated tabs. In case you wanna isolate a bit from meta as well.
Don't use windows? Windows is the only Microsoft product I use and I wasn't intentionally avoiding Microsoft. It isn't nearly as omnipresent as google is and really not difficult to de-microsoft.
Frankly that's much easier for home users. Most of the time it your OS and the office suite. Both of which have a lot of well established options. For office use though Microsoft just has way cheaper contracts and support. The most difficult of these is to de-adobify.
For anyone on the fence about the switch to firefox, I took the plunge after they mentioned it in a recent video, it's great and only took a few minutes to switch over with no issues
Oh it has issues The question is whether or not you're willing to put up with them. If you really value privacy, do something like librewolf. If you want less Google and fewer headaches, do something like Brave. It's a sliding scale and Firefox is less googled but not entirely ungoogled. It has more frustrations than a Chromium based browser, but fewer than something like librewolf.
I personally chose Waterfox which is firefox but more private in a nutshell. And it's the best descision I've ever done. The improvement over chrome was gigantic. And my favorite feature is that if there are too many tabs, you get a scrollbar instead of compressing tabs to oblivion
This is kind of a truth that has been stretched so far it's a myth now. Windows really doesn't do behavioural analysis, though it does track your usage (when you are using your system). A guy on RU-vid Man-In-The-Middle'd his own Windows PC (by installing a custom root cert) and found out all the traffic that leaves his PC. It actually WASN'T as egregious as people shame Windows for. And yes, I'm not accounting for that new controversial Copilot+ feature right now, since there's still not as much concrete information about how it will be introduced. EDIT: And before anyone claims I'm a Microsoft shill, sorry to burst your hopes but I'm an avid Linux enjoyer. All my software (except maybe 1) is open-source.
Google is the king of tracking and arguably the father of it, Microsoft is being the most notable company lately but they are still behind Google, they only started to ramp up their tracking around the win10 release
After google announced the AI integration into the search engine I switched my safari search engine to ecosia on my phone, and after youtube has been lagging horribly on chrome because I use an ad blocker, I was in the midst of changing my browser. This video is a godsend and now I have a path to follow on my journey to de-google my internet life
For me the best solution to lagging RU-vid videos is not to allow the ads or keep several other browsers handy to see which one plays the smoothest, but rather to put my high speed internet to good use - download the video in high resolution then watch it anywhere with only the embedded sponsorship spots and if they are under 30 seconds I usually watch them instead of skipping forward.
While it's adblock that makes the browsing slow, it's SOME of the adblocks that have this behaviour, for instance UBlock origin doesn't have this problem. So, you'd have to check if your adblock it's suitable and doesn't trigger this slowness. Also, some other extensions do trigger this just by being in your computer.
@@a.c.4054 Ikr? I wanted to get into Linux for years now and so don't know what Kernel to even start with because I can't be arsed to be reinstalling an OS every week
Bonus, by not using anything chromium based you're fighting google's monopoly Everything based on chromium uses the same rendering engine (Blink) and because most people use chrome or chromium based browsers, they basically get to decide how websites operate
would be nice if only option wasn't mozilla. Personally, i feel like dart would have been better alternative to javascript, but mozilla refused to implement vm to run dart natively.... yea I know it is google's, but anything would be better than javascript.
Luis Rossman sent me here: I had blocked Linus after the mediocre infomercials that they would pass for tech reviews, but let's give him a second chance....
linus may have turned his channel into a tech advertisement campaign, but if hes willing to fight against a greater evil than what he promoted i am all for supporting him.
@@joaomonteiro7063 Yeah, they didn't count transitive use of GCP here either. But it would be fun to see what is or isn't easily replaceable either way.
I enjoy the video and had no intention of De-Googling my life UNTIL they took the part 2 video down PROVING they have too much of an Iron Fist monopoly
This is such an awesome series. While part of this I've already done alternatives for, getting to see a fully comprehensive overview with recommendations on alternatives is a lot more reassuring than trying to sort through clickbait articles to find good alternatives on my own.
The timing of this video is impeccable. I'm in the middle of switching to Linux and attempting to get away from every single *insert bad company here* that I possibly can. Can't wait to see what you have to replace RU-vid. Hope it's not just FloatPlane lmao
RU-vid is a tough one, i mean there's invidious and newpipe and stuff like that, or entirely other platforms but not having access directly to RU-vid's content and being able to interact with it feels like giving something up.
Running a video hosting company is so ruinously expensive that it's near impossible to compete. Google can only afford it because they are an advertising company first and foremost. So I am also curious what they will put forth as an alternative.
LBRY has a linux client, but Odysee can be used without it, and Bitchute isn't decentralized but it allows direct tipping so that's kinda better than the whole "become a patreon supporter" stuff.
check out the video you commented about now. and always remember the wisdom by gary stevenson: "what does it mean? what would you do? what should you do?"
"Arc is just launching on windows 11" *launches arc website, downloads app.* "Unfortunately it does require a login." *Deletes app, closes tab, continues on happily in firefox.*
Louis Rossman covered your part 2 video getting nuked... so I imagine there will be a lot of new faces coming by this one as well. In that case... welcome!
Worth noting that if you change your OS DNS to an internet provider, you're not going to be able to connect to devices on your LAN by hostname. This is another benefit to changing your DNS forwarder on your router's DNS server instead of skipping your internal DNS server to go straight to the internet.
Connecting to local devices by host name is usually handled by mDNS, not by regular DNS. Any domain with .local at rhe end is mDNS. mDNS uses broadcasts rather than regular DNS lookups, so it doesn't need a server.
This is one of the most important series that you've ever done! I already began being frustrated with Google services, and I'm trying to slowly replace the services I'm more dependant on! Thank you!!
First thing that helped me "de-google" myself was to use a third party password manager. No apple, no google, no Microsoft. The keys to my castle is stored on something I can easily use on any platform
Sure. I tried that, but if something happens to the third party password manager you're screwed. Now I specifically avoid doing that and just keep things locally.
I think he's covered most of the things anyway - browser, mail, search, photos. The only other thing might be google drive and docs, but alternatives to these are easy to find.
Hey! As long time watcher of LTT and one of the people behind Arc browser and Arc sync specifically, I thank you for that coverage 🙏 I also couldn't help but notice that you mentioned Arc sync being end to end encrypted (which is the case), but then in a summary table we've got a big red X in that category - possibly an oversight? If it's something else I would love to know why that is so we can improve it!
@@enigma776 I am thinking more like flow / usage as an individual who use default browsers like Chrome / Edge / Firefox. I just downloaded Arc, still getting used to opening tabs outside of the main window but it's all good otherwise. It's more the momentary "oh crap, where / how does this work" thing. haha
What @BeardedTaz-Official said. I got in just a month ago and its certainly a jarring adjustment for me. It was a bit overwhelming day 1 but I'm going to give it another crack today.
OpenStreetMap (OsmAnd on android) is great where I live. Still turn to Google Maps every once in a while to find businesses and opening hours, but it probably covers about 90% of my needs. RU-vid and RU-vid Music are gonna be hard to ditch for me though...
For music, on my android phone I use Phonograph to listen to music stored on my phone. Started using it when Play Music ended. It seems to have some issues with alphabetizing properly, but it works well for all my MP3s and supports other formats as well.
Love that you're doing this series! I hope you'll cover smartphones as well, since it is usually a bit easier to avoid getting tracked on a PC, but pretty darn hard when you're using your phone.
I love ruminating in the awareness, that all of big tech is optional. We don’t have to visit these websites at all. Such an empowering thought to think that we could just not. A great alternative reality to feeling perpetual wounded by their terms of service. I especially enjoy how it flips the narrative from a collective trend down a dark timeline, towards just being an anomalous moment of mismanagement. My lack of patronage being merely a reflection of their miss managed and soon to be defunct business models. My friends are always shocked that I don’t use Amazon. It’s literally never been a problem, not even an inconvenience. I just don’t, and my life is exactly the same.
I have only ever purchased two item off of Amazon and that is because I could not find them elsewhere. Removing these scumbag companies from our lives needs to be a higher priority for all of us.
But only if you let them. I honestly only use one Google product and that‘s RU-vid (and I am not logged in to RU-vid on my main browser profile but have a separate one just for RU-vid).
That was actually my motivation to finally get off of using an android phone. I realize that the android phone was like the entry point to my life that just naturally pushed me into using Gmail and RU-vid and Google music and Google search and chrome. I gave chrome a perfect window into my life and could’ve known anything about me. A few years later now, I am using an iphone as my primary phone. I use Bing for search and diversified in other ways too.
Immediately after watching the video: "My pixel started overheating more than usual, weird..." The next day: Reporter: "the cause of the fire hasn't been pin pointed yet, but the proper agencies are still working on it"
I switched to Firefox the second Google announced Manifest V3. I honestly don't know why people still use Chrome, it's not like Firefox is really all that different in UI/usability. Every website looks and behaves exactly the same. You can use the same extensions. When people started reporting problems with RU-vid and ad blockers a couple months ago, I honestly had no idea that was a thing, because I've never had any issues over here in Firefox land.
Aaahhhh I was going through it all since quite a while. Haven't been able to take out time fully get through it though. Kickass to see you do this. The video just came at the perfect time.
I 1000000% recommend proton as a replacement, I switched 3 months ago because I was tired of google. I am now basically fully in the proton ecosystem and slowly working over emails to proton
@@genano504 I switched to tuta about a year ago. I just kept Gmail, and every time I needed to log in using my Gmail account on a website I went into settings changed the email, after 1.5 months I had almost everything switched without putting in much effort
@@genano504 you can just forward gmail to proton, until you're done switching everything. Also, they seem to have some service which makes the transition easier.
I don't think you spent enough time on *how* to switch Email. i.e. How do you import your contacts, how do you redirect all emails going to your old address to your new address, etc.
Re: redirecting emails... If you're using a custom domain then you just set up the domain in the new service and then change your mx records at your domain host. Basically create proton/tuta account, add domain to proton/tuta, log into your namecheap/etc domain host, update mx records, and wait for proton/tuta to confirm new values are correct. It should be maybe 20 minutes of work but probably half that if your domain host makes it obvious where your mx records are. Changing your mx records is kind of like porting your cell number to a new provider -- no one calling you cares or needs to know whether you're using verizon or at&t just like no one needs to know if you're using google or proton or whatever for your email, the mx records direct the inbound email to the right place. If you're not using a custom domain, go into gmail settings and look for "forwarding" and setup either forwarding to the new address or create a filter to forward specific emails. Just make sure to update your address in your accounts and notify people sending you emails so eventually most of your non-spam emails are being sent directly to your new address. I think some of us who are older take the email migration for granted because 20+ years ago many of us had 5+ email addresses and would regularly move between them when one service became good and another became bad. If that wasn't a regular thing for you, email seems like a semi-permanent and difficult thing to change. It's definitely not though.
I just wanted to say, thought it was so awesome you said you wouldn't copyright strike anyone who re-uploaded part 2, that was really thinking about the community and I gave me alot of respect for you that you said that, so thank you and your team for thinking about the community
LTT has really been a lot better recently. linus is back to actually being a great tech reviewer, i feel like trying to run LMG dustracted him a lot and quality suffered. Also the pledge to take more time on videos is def paying off in terms of quality. Keep it up LTT, id almost given up on you.
Thank you, thank you, thank you! I have been wanting to do this for ages now. I've googled around for this exact thing before, but as you can imagine the results are varied. I've heard of a good handful of these competitors, but seeing several on here i had never heard of was a great rabbit hole to open up and explore.
11:10 - there was an article as to why someone who ran they own email server for more than 20 years had to stop. All the big email providers end up blocking something they don't trust ... like the other big email providers.
So happy you're doing this series, Linus! Let me know if you ever want to collab on the topic, we have a whole series of de-googling videos! Love your stuff!
@@xtaltheo170 I've been on the $10/mo plan for over half a year now. Once I had it set up (upranking/downranking/blocking sites), it's seriously better than any other search I've ever used. Once you start setting up your own Lenses for frequently used search domain, there'll be no going back. Kagi really drove home the "you get what you pay for" mantra for me when it comes to search.
Here so that De-Google Your Life - Part 2 is brought back by Google. Saw it on Louis Rossman's channel, it's criminal behaviour by Google to remove videos like this. This platform belongs to creators and their communities and not big companies and advertisers.
Here to support you since I couldn't find part 2 on your channel and thought wtf happened is google for real? Great vid and we need more of this. Thank you, sincerly.
Been using Ecosia for search for over 12 years, never failed me, even the results are better than google, mainly for image results as it doesn't flood you with random products. Will never go back, best for me, best for the planet
Proton Mail has been great for me. Have also been using Vivaldi but only for a few months so far. Love it for the vertical tabs and on the right side too!
Gmail is the main one i'm interested in switching from too. But it's more of a pain than just copying your emails over. You also have to change all your accounts to the new email and thats gonna be a pain
