Deooglization
Here are the steps I've taken recently to cut down on the amount of free data I've been passing on to Google, and by proxy any unsupervised NSA contractors who may be running amok. I've taken to calling this project 'Deooglization'.
- Uninstalled Chrome , switched back to Firefox for daily browsing
- Switched the search bar to use DDG via the DuckDuckGo Plus addon
- Shuttered the G+ account associated with my identity
- Migrated away from gmail
- Implemented most of Daniel Patterson's Hacker's Replacement for GMail (minus notmuch since I don't live in Emacs that deeply)
- On StackOveflow, I stopped using Google for an OpenID source and switched to openid.stackexchange.com
- Removed as many Google apps from my phone as I could.
Outside of Google, I also shut down the Flickr account associated with my identity. I haven't had a Facebook in ages so there wsa nothing to shut down there. I haven't shut down my Twitter account yet, but it's just a matter of time, I suppose.
I've also found that diversifying my passwords has helped a lot: in a few cases where I'd gone to google out of habit, it's been such a PITA to retrieve my password that I just do something else, like take a walk or catch up on the laundry.
Next steps: setting up [a Dropbox replacement]{.title-ref}.