Moving off Google

All of the tracking, and the recent hubub about government spying, has made me think more seriously about how much of my online activity is transacted through Google.  I'm a heavy Google user:

• I use Google search.  Who doesn't?  The results are fast, and smart.
• I use gmail.  The spam filtering is unparalleled, and beats trying to maintain spamassasin.
• I use blogger (which is Google).  This, mainly because at some point I landed on Drupal and then lost everything during an automated upgrade because of a backwards database incompatibility, and decided I didn't want to go through that again.
• I use Google wallet, whenever possible.  We once got ripped off in a PayPal purchase, and PayPal was completely unhelpful in helping us resolve the issue or recover our money.  We avoid PayPal.
• I use Google+.  Mainly because I really, really hate FaceBook.  Had an account; deleted it; never going back.
• I used Google Reader.  Can't use that anymore because Google stopped support for it :-(
• I use Google Groups.  All of the groups I want to follow are in Google Groups, and nobody appears to be using Usenet any more.
• I use Picasa.  It's just better than Gallery2.
• I use gchat.

In addition to the spying, several other concerns are prompting my move:

• Google Chat: first, Google just announced that they're dropping support for XMPP; second, they're replacing Chat with Hangouts.  The first is vendor lock-in, and the second is just stupid: I never use the web interface anyway.  So I have been moving off of Google Chat (my new XMPP chat address is ser@ser1.net, and if you're connected to me, expect an auth request).
• Picasa: PicasaWeb now redirects to Google+, which stinks, because the PicasaWeb galleries are better than Google+.  Also, Google+ has the annoying habit of assuming you want to share everything with everybody, where as PicasaWeb has more reasonable, and restricted, defaults.  Although you can disable the redirection, it's still an annoyance, and I'll probably be pulling everything back into Gallery2.
• Google Groups. Worst. UI. Ever.  Ever tried to load it on a tablet?  It's slow and extremely annoying.  It's better on a desktop, but still pretty bloated.  All this for a bulletin board.  Groups is the poster child for why web apps suck.
• Google Reader.  Well, Google isn't supporting it any more.  I have to move off.
• Google+.  I'll probably continue to use this.  I'm not a heavy user, anyway.
• Google Wallet.  I may continue to use this; it's still pretty convenient, and online payments are going to be tracked no matter what.  You can't use cash online (bitcoin doesn't count yet, because penetration isn't high enough and they're still really hard to buy).
• Blogger.  I have any objection to blogger.  It works well, and everything that goes into it is intended to be public.
• Gmail.  This is going to be the hardest to break.  Google made a brilliant move by using the concept of labels instead of folders, and the "archive" function is awesome.  I don't like the UI any more; I hate the new composition window.  It often feels like they dick with the UI just to keep the developers in jobs; it worked fine the way it was, stop messing with it!  Plus, as I said, the spam filtering is second to none.  However, this is the most private of the data Google has about me, and I don't really want the perverts in the NSA digging their filthy little fingers into my email.  I haven't decided what I want to do here.
• Google search.  I've had mixed results with DuckDuckGo, but I've made them my default search engine and will try to live there for a while.  I sometimes use Tor, but let's be honest: it's painfully slow, and that makes it hard to use.

Google has done an excellent job of sucking me in, by virtue of the fact that most of their products have started out being pretty decent -- easy to use. The main problems are that they keep changing the UIs in ways that make things worse, and their web apps have lost the vision that made Google Search so successful: clean, simple interfaces. I'll get mostly out of Google, but it'll be a journey. ucking me in, by virtue of the fact that most of their products have started out being pretty decent -- easy to use. The main problems are that they keep changing the UIs in ways that make things worse, and their web apps have lost the vision that made Google Search so successful: clean, simple interfaces. I'll get mostly out of Google, but it'll be a journey.