this post was submitted on 26 Jul 2023
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Privacy
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De-google, anyone?
How do you "de-google" when most websites expect most browsers to use chromium and start requiring this to ensure ~~companies buying ad space get the best bang for their buck~~ security?
Most websites? Haven't come across one yet (I am using Firefox on all devices and don't have any other browser installed) ... Do you have any examples?
Yeah I don't think this comment is accurate, the only website that gives you a subpar experience to incentivize you to use a Chromium-based browser that I've come across is, well, google.com on mobile.
Luckily you can download a plugin on Firefox to trick google.com to show you the Chromium experience, or you can just use something like startpage.
That's true. Luckily I removed Google Search Fixer from my browser this week, as I finally gave up on Google search (hopefully this time it's permanent).
In my opinion its results have been getting so bad (including boolean searches) in the last months that I feel that other search engines don't provide a significantly worse experience anymore. I was unable to find content on Google that I know I found there before and where I know that it's still on the internet, as I was able to find it with other search engines. I actually found that for example Bing gave me much more results when filtering by date range, e. g. searching for web content dated before 2005.
Google's web DRM project was the final straw for me to finally be serious about trying other search engines again (all my previous attempts eventually failed due to my boolean search requirement) and use as little Google services as possible. I have also tried to lower my usage of YouTube over the last couple of months by primarily subscribing to channels I know from YouTube on PeerTube and by using the Piped frontend more. Since I subscribed to YouTube channels via RSS already, it wasn't difficult to switch the RSS feed over to PeerTube instead. ;)
I selfhost SearXNG. Its pretty good. And you can turn on and off different search engines (e.g Google, Bing, Yahoo)
Snapchat web client doesn't work on Firefox :( that's the only one I've run into
Interesting! I have actually never used Snapchat, so I haven't come across this.
For me, when a website doesn't work in Firefox but does in Chrome or edge, most of the time the real reason is due to me switching from a browser with dozens of add-ons to one with 0.
Otherwise Firefox works fine everywhere.
Google search on FF Android, Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Snapchat web, are all apps that have missing features on Firefox or straight up don't work.
Not yet, this is what this change enables. This is just starting now.
Firefox and ublock origin to start. Site requires Chromium? Buh bye now.
Good luck with that when the site is your bank, your doctor, or your government.
I’ve been de-Googled for 6 months now and the internet works just fine on Firefox and Safari. No significant differences.
For now. This is a near-future thing.
That’s fine, they’ll lose my traffic.
So many people are acting like they have no choice, like you absolutely have to have everything that everyone else has. You’re obligated to use such and such platform.
Try suffering for what you believe in over convenience for a bit. Things might just change if you give up some things because they’re shit
We do to google what we should have done to Microsoft: we stop visiting those sights
But we didn't do it with MS. And they saw that. They were the last real antitrust case that was big.
I agree it is an uphill battle, but it must start somewhere. Else, it only gets worse, and then movements against such abuses will get easily crushed. As I like to say, "the hardest part of a journey is the first step", but also "the future belongs to those who prepare now".
If I can’t internet without ads, I can’t internet at all.
Except it's practically impossible to exist in modern society without internet. Unless you're rich and you can get other people to do internet-requiring tasks for you.
Same. If my pihole breaks the internet because of this, welp. 🤷🏻♀️
I can count the websites I'm using that don't work with Firefox on one hand.
I like AOSP based roms (Monet and material you) and Pixel Launcher, I use (a bit Google Assistant) and Gmail, Google maps, YouTube... Even Chrome (and I'm pretty sure many macOS apps are Chromium based), how do I even start lol.
There are AOSP based roms that are de-googled. You can use third party app stores to download foss software, or other 3rd party stores that let you download from Google play (aurora). iPhone is basically the only other choice, but it's not any better in this context.
Lots of alternative email providers. Protonmail is one.
For maps, openstreetmap exists. You can also use Google maps without an account inside a secure browser. That will minimize data collection.
You can use a downloader (yt-dlp or a gui that wraps it) for YouTube, or use a 3rd party app like NewPipe. Again, using YouTube without an account in a secure browser is an option.
Chrome can obviously be replaced with Firefox/LibreWolf. If you must have a chromium based browser, you can use ungoogled chromium. chrlauncher is a small app that can be used to make it easy on windows and keep it updated.
You cant really do anything about the apps that use chromium internally for rendering, besides finding replacements.
I haven't been able to use aurora reliably since a lot of their accounts got banned. Are there any alternatives?