Google Alternatives? 6 Ways to Reduce Your Reliance on Google Products

If you're one of the millions of people who use Gmail, Chrome, Google Maps, Google Drive and every other Google product, here's how you can reduce your reliance on one single company.

🔹🔹🔹Recommended Google Alternatives🔹🔹🔹

✅ Best YouTube Alternative: None :)

*********************
Video Timestamps
*********************
0:00 - Introduction
0:36 - Ditch Google Chrome
1:12 - Stop Using Chrome Password Manager
1:51 - Try a Different Email Client
2:41 - Move Away from Google Drive
3:20 - Use another Search Engine
3:58 - Continue Watching YouTube??
4:34 - Reducing Reliance on Google
*********************

How can you reduce your reliance on Google? It’s more than just finding good Google alternatives.

These are the 6 easy steps you can take to shift at least part of your digital life away from a single company. You’ll be grateful that you did.

1. Ditch Google Chrome

While Google Chrome is arguably the fastest, most convenient internet browser on the market, it's also a huge data mining tool. When you use Chrome while logged into your Google account and searching on Google, you're handing Google a ton of extremely personal information about yourself on a silver platter...for free!

The best Google Chrome alternatives are things like Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, Brave or even the Tor browser.

2. Don't Use Chrome's Password Manager

If ditching Chrome is just too difficult for you to consider, at the very least, try not to use the password save feature. Browser-based password managers are vulnerable because they allow anybody with access to your computer to also have access to your passwords.

It's much better to use a dedicated password manager such as BitWarden (free) or 1Password (premium).

3. Try a Different Email Client

I love Google Gmail and I still use it on a daily basis. However, I have a separate secure email address that I use for things like my banking, investments and other sensitive information. It's not about moving away from Gmail as much as it is making sure that you're not entrusting Gmail with every single bit of important information about yourself. The benefit here is not only protecting yourself from Google, but also protecting yourself from outside hackers.

The best Gmail alternatives include services like ProtonMail, Tutanota, or even free options like Outlook or Yahoo.

4. Move Away from Google Drive

Google makes it very easy to use Google Drive if you're already a Gmail user. It's free cloud storage space, so why not, right? But again, if we're trying to reduce our reliance on Google, it's good to diversify your data storage.

In this case, thankfully there are a multitude of Google Drive alternatives. These include services like Dropbox, OneDrive, Tresorit and many, many more.

5. Use Another Search Engine Besides Google

This is a hard one because Google Search is hands-down the best search engine out there. But when you consider how much data Google gathers based on your searches to create a profile of you, it's scary.

Some of the best Google search alternatives are options like Microsoft Bing (which gets better every year), Yahoo (which gets worse every year) or a private search engine like DuckDuckGo.

6. Stop (or Continue?) Watching YouTube?

This is more of a tongue-in-cheek joke here, since you're obviously watching and reading this on YouTube. Unfortunately, there aren't many good alternatives to YouTube right now that can match the breadth and quality of videos.

So if you're still looking to reduce your Google footprint, you can browse YouTube while logged out of your Google account or in an incognito window.

[AllThingsSecured]

If there's one thing you can trust, it's that you can never trust one company with all of your data. Find ways to diversify the way that you use the internet and store your data by finding some great Google Alternatives. How are you going to be reducing your reliance on Google? Leave a comment to let me know!

[vidform]

YouTube is the only thing that keeps me tied to Google. Is there any way to separate YouTube from Google? All I need is YouTube, not Google.

[cookiesrgood]

Fire fox + duckduck go addon and other addons is great

[wilc]

I've started moving away for about a month now
Other than what you mentioned, I also use Standard Notes instead of Keep, Authy instead of Google Auth, pCloud/MEGA instead of Drive (This also replaces my Google Photo backup), etc
It's a slow process to move away from Google and other giant tech companies but I'm trying to do as much as I can without losing too much convenience of my day to day life

[cassioalexan]

I just wanted to know if Mega and Sync are also good (and secure) alternatives to Google Drive. You've mentioned OneDrive from Microsoft - however, as we're talking about big, popular tech companies, I'm not sure I could continue using OneDrive and feel some security...

[KeyJayHD]

There is an initiative called degoogling, however for me, I think it mainly falls within the lines of highly impractical, expensive, inconvenient, and at large, impossible to unnecessary.

What I think will work for most people (like you suggest) is to take stock on what one relies on for Google, and ask if you can leverage that somewhere else to avoid that single point of failure.

Let's be real here...NONE OF US is leaving YouTube, getting Email migrated is cumbersome and costs money now (doing that now), and not everyone (even though they should) has a NAS or media server to backup their photos, videos, etc....hell, people don't even backup!

Personally, I have some of these things. I'm moving away from Drive thanks to Nextcloud, I have a PLEX server so I can play my music remotely so, bye Google Music (or whatever), I just spun up OnlyOffice on my Nextcloud instance so bye Google Docs/Drive, and Im working on Zoho now for Email (which if I did sign up earlier, may have thought to leverage their services for Google Docs replacement).

What's difficult is....well still Email, Calendar, Contacts, Maps, etc. Things like Maps I know I'll never replace and so far based on offerings out there, probably not Calendar either.

Point is, I think I'm doing ok to scale down my reliance on Google and taking a bigger stand over the value of my data and privacy....even if Google will undoubtedly get said data someway or the other in the future. Still, nicer to know that when Google ultimately kills have some form of protection.

....wow this got long. Anyway, great video sir 😆

[whyverine]

I did not even realize that I am not reliant on google even before watching this video. Very informative video though!

[priyamshukla]

Hey
All Things Secured, I just saw a few of your videos and doing this comment to appreciate all the informative videos you're creating and sharing this knowledge with us. Thanks man!

[chewykarma]

Informative, interesting, useful information, delivered with a deliciously dry sense of humor. Thanks.

[imsamiurrahman]

Thanks a lot man. This is what I was looking for.

[TheYogina]

When you first started talking about how much you "loved google" I was getting ready to stop watching. But then once you started talking sense I kept listening. What would you suggest as an alternative to google maps? Thanks

[zzkeokizz]

I have 1Password. It’s great.

I NEVER use online banking.

[kairon]

I tried brave before but it has a bunch of minor annoyances. I just wish there was a fully customizable browser out there that let ME chose their behaviors.
I do use Firefox though. I also try to remember extensions to opt out of tracking features as well.
My bank is the only password I don't let firefox save, but maybe I should extend that to others?
I rarely use google-storage clouds or any for that matter.... than again I do have a google pixel, something to think about any way.

Not sure how actual it is but I turn off a lot of history features through my google accounts and have data erased from time to time when I remember.

[cryptosig]

The problem with the YouTube thing: their algorithm is the main reason I use YouTube. YouTube’s algorithm knows me better than I know me.

[icenetic]

Thanks from subscribers, for answering every comment

[ChipNov]

I don't know how accurate this is, but using different browsers is supposed to help us be more secure . The only thing I use Chrome for is YouTube.

[scmcarp]

My.son loves Brave but i find it hard to use ...why i dont know? It feels slow.

[Powerstroke]

Nothing was mentioned about the 'Apple Cloud', as there are millions of Mac users. It would be nice if you haven't already, is give Mac users advice on even better security for their devices, as generally I believe Apple is at least a bit better for security than Microsoft/Android choices? New subscriber here.

[cadencenee]

Hi josh, just here to say that your videos are heavenly.

[hada]

All these tips are great, thanks for the video. In my opinion, Onedrive is really intrusive if you are not hypercareful. Local data end up in Onedrive without knowing- even if you purposely stopped sync, removed the app etc (like a million times!)...it's always trying to put things up there in the cloud, a total headache in terms of privacy.