Google’s services are
undergoing some shape-shifting lately, with new features in places likeHangouts and
the Latitude redundancy. Other services, like Reader, are simply disappearing.
Given the breadth and depth of Google's services, many people
use at least one of them. But a pair of writers have become uncomfortable with
how the company has not only permeated their lives, but how it keeps
rearranging itself. Over the last few days, these two have laid out their plans
for moving on.
Physicist and engineer Sam Whited wrote
about his preferred Google service replacements: OpenStreetMap and MapBox for
Maps, DuckDuckGo for search, App.net or Diaspora for
Google+, and GNU
IceCat or Firefox for
Chrome. Whited added that he’s sticking with Gmail as he hasn’t been able to
find a suitable free alternative.
Website designer Adam Wilcox said he solves the Gmail
problem with Fastmail and
that he also uses DuckDuckGo as a search engine. He uses Feedbin to
replace Reader, iAWriter instead of Docs/Drive, and Skype via
Adium instead of Google Talk. When it comes to blogging, “frankly anything is
better than Blogger,” Wilcox said, and he offered a number of (also free)
alternatives including WordPress and Tumblr. Wilcox himself uses a Jekyll blog
with GitHub Pages—“not the easiest of products to use,” he admitted, but the
system keeps his posts in a portable format.
Both Whited and Wilcox have a near-complete set of solutions for
navigating away from Google—messaging, writing, photos, calendars, music, and
videos are all taken care of. If the slouch toward Google+ isn’t turning out to really be your
style either, the alternatives are worth considering.
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