I just read Google's new policies this moring and for some reason - they don't sit well with me. I don't want my info shared or sold and I don't want "custom" info given to me.  I don't want all this info consolidated. I dont want the GPS tracking and they have the right to post your real profile info etc..

I have two emails with them one personal, one business and I have so many emails it would be so much work to move them.

But that is what I may have to do.  I am just curious - what are the alternatives? Or do I have to set up/use an existing domain?

I'm with you. I don't trust them for a second.

I don't like it either, so what I do is I'm only logged into gmail on my cellphone. It's an Adroid so what are you going to do?

Anyway, on my computer, as soon as I'm done writing and email I log out and clearout my history and go about my business. BUT I use other search engines now. Bing and Yahoo work better than when Google first came out.

I'm not going to change my email address and I really love my google calendar. But in all honesty I'm really pissed at them.....

I changed the default search on Firefox to bing and now yahoo. I am going back and forth trying to figure out which I prefer. It's been 2 days and I don't miss google.  It's surprising.

I quit using their news about 6 months ago because of the bias.  Ugh.

On the mail, I downloaded Thunderbird for firefox and it sucked in all my gmail, everything.  I use a comcast address for personal mail and am no longer sucking it into gmail - using Thunderbird instead. 

hmmmm..Bing or Yahoo?! I've not tried Bing - how do you find it Elsa. Yahoo for me pops up too many things about celebrities and bullshit in this world - therefor I don't really trust them nor want them floating around my system!

http://lifehacker.com/5876794/going-google+free-the-best-alternatives-to-google-services-on-the-web

That might be useful, as well.

blue, I switched to bing news (from google) almost a year ago and have tried to switch to their search as well but failed. I am using Firefox by the way, so this is the default search engine in the toolbar I am talking about.

With this new announcement, I became determined to switch, feeling there was life before google, and even if the search was inferior, it's still better then 10 years ago, yes?

Anyway, it's now a few days later and to my great surprise, I have been using yahoo for the last couple days and had no cause to flip off it. I don't see pop-ups so I may have them blocked with either Firefox or Ghostery (thanks, kr). I suppose if I am dissatisfied with something I will try bing then google but so far, I've not run into a problem and I do use search all day.

See, if google is going to cut out Twitter and the like, it will be like their slanted news.  It's just not as useful as it could be, or would be so whatever I am losing here (if anything), I think it will shrink.

One thing I will have a hard time not using is Google Maps. I access them all the time, on my husband's behalf and can't stand Mapquest in comparison.  So yeah. I am a yahoo person now (like I used to be) and have to say that yahoo succeeded in grabbing me where bing failed over a 6 month period because I have been trying to switch all along.

News - bing

Search - Yahoo

Maps - Google

Docs - I used to use word but started on google. Will now go back to Word and have Carbonite backing up all the time so no worries around data loss.

Is there a calendar that allows you to import data from GCal?

Thanx Elsa.

Google maps may be superior now, but that only opens the door for competition! There's always another way! Alternatively, you could get a GPS.

blue, I just read that bing maps trumps google.  I have never tried them but will. As for GPS, my husband has that.  I am looking to the map for a different perspective.

Confirming that bing maps a SWEEET!  Clean interface and FAST

Yeah, bing maps are pretty good - way better than whatever service MS used previously.

Thanks for all the responses!  I saw Elsa's thread and started getting some ideas from there. 

I am using Bing for search and homepage.  I tried Yahoo and kind of didnt like it.

I already had thunderbird so I used that to download all my important email messages. (Thanks Elsa!)

And I am using my internet provider for all other emails, but the process of notifying and getting people to use the new addy's may take some time. 

I talked to a friend in Brazil who wanted my addy to send me a very belated birthday gift.  I gave it to him and he said "you have a nice house it looks like you live in a nice neighborhood".  That scared me - so I googled my house.  I have googled it before, but there was nothing there.  This time there it was including my car in the driveway.

It is bad enough that I can put my name into a search and it brings up my age, location, people I am related to etc and someone can buy the report. I mean that plus a pic of my house and car.  Plus all my habits and info and someone could kill me if they wanted.

This is just creepy and unsafe.

I also don't like Google+  It works for Google but not for me.

For example, both fb and Twitter allow me to automatically pull this blog's feed into my stream. This allows me to create a page that people who want to track my blog through those utilities can sub to.  It's a service and everyone is happy. 

Google + will not allow this. They want me to cut and paste and post to google + and have people sub to that, which nice for them (content, my labor) but painful for me. I say, never mind to that.

Remember Google Wave? Worthless.  Google's continued success depends on people allowing them to invade their privacy and I just don't think people are going to continue to ignore or discount the intrusion and the potential problems it could bring them down the road.  I can imagine some very dark scenarios and frankly, I don't think it's so "imaginary" so that's why I feel it wise to blur out at this juncture.

Hi Elsa,

I am on a MAC so all I know is iCal for a calendar. 

I know that I could export contacts from gmail via a .csv file and then import them into Thunderbird.  Perhaps the calendar works the same way.

I found this article on online calendars that are alternatives to Google.  Some are free and some are not.  So you would have to review each to find out which one is best for you.

http://news.cnet.com/8301-17939_109-10255636-2.html

Here's another calendar list..

http://www.madrasgeek.com/2010/08/free-alternatives-to-google-calendar.html

How to get your data off google - http://www.dataliberation.org/google/calendar (click links on the left).

Okay, so if you check your GMail on Thunderbird, Google can't pick up your information? Confused. Thank you.

If I answer via Thunderbird and do not send it via google's server, that response would not be available to them but I am not concerned with that at this point.  I've moved my private mail off. It no longer is sucked into google.

My professional mail is...well it's not personal! It comes from all over the world. etc.  There are paypal notices and comment notices from the blog.  Okay, I write a blog and have an online business. Nothing to hide on there and also not much to discover as there are thousands of voices in my mail/

Thanks, Elsa.

Hm. Reading this thread, I am thinking I should move off Google. But how can I do it entirely when I have an Android phone? (Rhetorical question.)

Additionally, there is no way to get all of your information off of Google, correct? I.e. Millions of e-mails, calendar, searches, etc. that have been recorded for the past 6 years?

There is a link up there where you can export but I am sure whatever they have, they have forever.

Yeah, you're right. I feel like it's pointless for me to switch at this point.

FYI.  No you probably will never get all of your data off, however, there is wisdom in stopping feeding the beast.

So I've used gmail to thunderbird for years now, literally 5 or so.  I never went back to look at what gmail was keeping until this last week.  If you set thunderbird to keep 0 messages on the server it still goes through their server and sent mail and trash are saved until their 30 day delete hits.  I went in there and discovered a whole bunch of stuff.

What freaked me even more is I did a search of a location, some place overseas that I thought I had right in my head geographicaly but wasn't sure so I searched.  Google returned regular results plus a former employee of mine along with his girlfriend's recent vacation pictures for me.  I went into shock.  (I mean I'm happy for him and his vacation)  They were offering me a "preview" of Google plus.  I was not ready for the blast from the past.

My first reaction is what happens to the poor woman who was abused and trying to get away from her abuser?  What happens when random pics of your wife/husband show up with their new partner, even though you didn't know about it.  google is tracking linking and showing this information to everyone now.

I use gmail for volunteer work, craigslist transactions, etc.  The fact that someone's email is in my "sent" box and they give me pictures of that person based upon that is just beyond the pale for me.  I'm waiting for them to get sued by a woman who is found by her abuser and killed because of this shit.

Beyond THE PALE.  (I'm sorry, my protective mars/saturn cancer stuff gets all upitty at this stuff)

the only time you can see people's houses here is in the winter, when there are no leaves on the trees. so when did google "street view" our street? Winter, so you can see folks' houses.

I've decided to switch too.I'm gonna miss google, but just for the sake of routine.I'm gonna put reverso as my search engine.I got reverso when I installed a web dictionary.I don't know what I'm going to do with my mail yet. I like gmail, I'm used to the way things are organized in it, I don't like yahoo.But, I'll do whatever it takes to protect my privacy.

Luckily, google street viewer didn't come here yet, but I'm sure it will in a couple of years. Still, I live in the quasi-countryside, so I don't think my house will be on the internet anytime soon.And I'd like it to stay that way.

As far as youtube...well, I don't know what to do with this.I'm not such a big videos fan, I'm only interested in the music so I suppose I can just download an mp3 from somewhere else.

Elsa, is this part of the Uranus square Pluto fast degrading things that you talked about?

"The fact that someone's email is in my "sent" box and they give me pictures of that person based upon that is just beyond the pale for me."

I agree.

Elsa, is this part of the Uranus square Pluto fast degrading things that you talked about?

Yes, but we ain't seen nothin' yet.

@mudlikesubstance- Yuck, Ugh!

Scary, I switched search engines as soon as that policy was announced. More work to do though I've always been extremely paranoid about internet interactions.

Thanks to all for provided links/info.

very interesting reading. 

@Shannon

"That might be useful, as well."

Thanks! It was. I am loving DuckDuckGo. I never have used Gmail (was always wary of it) and don't use Google Calendar, so the only other thing I am really trying to figure out is how to replace Youtube for music.

I had already allowed my personal Youtube account to go dormant after being told I would be required to get a Gmail account in order to continue using it. Because I don't think so. But I still use Youtube for music a lot. I often really like the videos others have put together and the live stuff people upload. I'm still thinking this one over.

Firefox users concerned about privacy in general might want to look into some of the addons like BetterPrivacy and BeefTaco.

ETA: I forgot that my blog is also on Blogger. I will probably eventually move it to Wordpress. My blog isn't particularly private, but I think I'd like to move everything and be done with Google entirely.

i use yahoo for my work email right now, but i'm trying to get the company to give me an adress on their server (promotion and a raise and no one can get around t asigning me an email acount *shakes head*)

i have been using goodle maps, but i always type in locations and never let them "use my location".  i don't need google scoping out my house gps style. 

but i use startpage https for search, and i've mentioned it here before.  they use the same search engines as google but DO NOT record you IP address.  here's a link to the home page:

https://www.startpage.com/

and ALWAYS make sure to use https rather than http.. 

PG - I imported my (remaining) blog to wordpress from blogger last week and it was painless, except that it didn't import my blogroll.

I had those links as an OPML file and imported it that way though. I think I created the OPML file in Google Reader before I axed my google accounts. I don't remember now though.

@ mudlikesubstance

I am with you.  I can easily see this harming someone.

From:askelsa@gmail.com [mailto:askelsa@gmail.com] On Behalf Of Elsa

Urg.

try https://duckduckgo.com/

or https://www.ixquick.com/

Both secure.

Or if your really paranoid www.anonymouse.org

notices well they dont want to talk about it.  Nowhere to complain.  Nowhere on google to voice an opinion.

I'm really liking Duck Duck Go thank you.