• Larvitar
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      1411 months ago

      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?

      • @[email protected]
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        4311 months ago

        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?

        • Bri Guy
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          1611 months ago

          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.

          • @[email protected]
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            511 months ago

            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. ;)

            • @[email protected]
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              311 months ago

              I selfhost SearXNG. Its pretty good. And you can turn on and off different search engines (e.g Google, Bing, Yahoo)

        • Justin
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          211 months ago

          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.

        • @penguin
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          11 months ago

          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.

      • brothershamus
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        1611 months ago

        Firefox and ublock origin to start. Site requires Chromium? Buh bye now.

      • @deranger
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        1411 months ago

        I’ve been de-Googled for 6 months now and the internet works just fine on Firefox and Safari. No significant differences.

          • @deranger
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            111 months ago

            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

      • Auster
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        711 months ago

        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”.

          • @[email protected]
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            311 months ago

            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.

          • Apathy Tree
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            111 months ago

            Same. If my pihole breaks the internet because of this, welp. 🤷🏻‍♀️

    • kratoz29
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      011 months ago

      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.

      • @[email protected]
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        211 months ago

        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.

        • @[email protected]
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          111 months ago

          I haven’t been able to use aurora reliably since a lot of their accounts got banned. Are there any alternatives?